Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1071356
JANUARY 2019 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 17 and vendors for each component. We can find this information readily at our fingertips; we do not need to wait until the back end of a design to find out that we just created the company's latest doorstop and stock of bad PCBs. Once we get that schematic done, we can run it into ActiveBOM and find out where our problems are. If there was a second rule after "it is not business as usual," it would be "check component availability often throughout the design process." Conclusion In summary, I would recommend that you stay informed. Many of the component vendors publish their component forecasts. Stay aware of trends in our industry. The sooner you know of the problem or the direction, the faster you can make a sound decision on needed changes. This will require reading electronic journals and news. Stay up to date with what is being reported by some of the great PCB industry leaders such as I-Connect007. Sooner or later, the industry will back away from DEFCON 1. DESIGN007 John Watson's career has spanned over 20 years in PCB design. His experience includes various manufacturing companies and PCB design service bureaus with diverse projects such as high- density digital, DDR, analog, power supply, and high-frequency RF. Now, as a senior PCB engineer at Building Control Systems of Legrand Inc., Watson leads innovative PCB design teams of 50 designers based in several divisions that span the globe where he emphasizes training and mentoring. He has become very proficient in the PCB design process flows and standardization. In addition, Watson is a highly sought out consultant, writer, and conference speaker. How Game Theory Can Bring Humans and Robots Closer Together Researchers at the University of Sussex, Imperial College London, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have used game theory to enable robots to assist humans in a safe and versatile manner. The research team used adaptive control and Nash equilibrium game theory to program a robot that can understand its human user's behavior to better anticipate their movements and respond to them. The researchers believe the breakthrough could help robots complementing humans for sport training, physical rehabilitation or shared driving. Lead author Dr. Yanan Li, lecturer in control engineering at the University of Sussex, said, "It is still very early days in the development of robots and at present, those that are used in a working capacity are not intuitive enough to work closely and safely with human users. By enabling the robot to identify human users' behavior and exploiting game theory to let the robot optimally react to them, we have developed a system where robots can work along humans as humans do." Professor Etienne Burdet, Chair in Human Robotics in the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London and senior author of the paper, added, "Game theory has had important impacts in economics during the last century and lead to several Nobel prizes such as Nash's one. To apply it for human-robot interaction, it was necessary to understand how the robot can identify the human user's control goals simultaneously to smoothly interacting with them." (Source: University of Sussex)