Jane has an exciting entry to professional work, an involvement in a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence program to automate a common manufacturing process-water treatment. Just as water in an automobiles radiator helps keep the motor running, factories, power plants, and other facilities need to circulate cooling and heating water. This process water must be treated continuously to prevent corrosion and scale buildup inside the circulation pipes and pumps. Jane's company, a contract supplier of water treatment systems, wants to replace the constant attention to water conditions that requires several workers with a control computer that would inject the right mix of anticorrosion chemicals at the right time. It’s heady work for an electrical engineer who just finished her master’s degree.
One of the reasons Jane took this job was that there were few electrical engineers at the company and no one in her specialty artificial intelligence. This gives Jane the chance to work on totally new systems; at the same time, it puts a spotlight on her that, if she were to fail, would be painfully bright.
The system Jane has designed marries a new semiconductor chip with an off-the-shelf personal computer. This PC is connected to standard industrial sensors and controllers that make chemical analyses of the process water and then open or shut the appropriate valves and start or stop pumps. The chip and PC have all the "intelligence" needed to compute appropriate control actions, but Jane needs to determine the exact goals of the system so that the right instructions can be programmed into the PC.
To do this Jane engages in what is called "expert systems development." She interviews several senior engineers who have either a chemical or mechanical engineering background. She finds out that the chemicals change the acidity of the water, causing dissolved salts to precipitate out before the process water runs through the system. She figures out the chemistry of the process and how valves and pumps are made to operate. Both of these areas send her back to her college textbooks to freshen up her understanding of chemistry and mechanics.
Finally all the instructions are fed into the computer, and laboratory test runs show the system responds correctly. The system will now be field-tested at a customer s site, and Jane will monitor that work for most of the rest of the year to make sure the system works right.
An Aerospace Electronics Engineer
The general term for electronics on aircraft is "avionics," and Raul likes to think of himself as an avionics engineer. He is part of a group of twelve engineers in a section of fifty avionics engineers, all of whom work for a major defense contractor. The fifty engineers are responsible for all the avionics for a new fighter jet the contractor is designing for the air force.
This project was unusual in aerospace industry practice because it involved competition among three defense contractors. Eighteen months ago, after submitting designs to the air force, each firm was given a sum of money, and had to invest money of its own, to build a prototype of the aircraft. The three prototypes were then tested competitively, and the winner was selected. Raul's firm won.
Now his team is involved in detailing the electronic subsystems that were only outlined during the competition. As is often the case, the electronic technology has changed drastically from the time when the original design was written until the new design must be prepared. In this case, chips made of gallium arsenide are superseding silicon chips for a microwave receiver. The subcontracting firm that is building the circuit boards wants to switch to the new chips, but they are more expensive. Raul must decide whether to go along with the subcontractors wish, insist on the existing design, or propose something different.
After reading the new chip's performance criteria closely, Raul realizes that there is a trade-off: the new chip is more expensive, but it can perform better. In fact, using the new chip will simplify elements of another circuit that feeds signals into the board he is concerned with. He checks with the group members responsible for this circuit and finds that they are willing to change their design to suit his.
After several discussions, they arrive at preliminary cost figures (more for the new chip, less for the other circuit board) and find that the costs roughly balance out. Because the gallium arsenide chip is more reliable, overall opinion tilts strongly in favor of making the switch. Raul now begins to prepare a report for his group leader. This report will become part of another report that the group leader will send to the company's upper management, and eventually to the Defense Department for review.
