Streamlining Volunteer Training in The Soldiers Project through Automation

• Difficult environment. Communications equipment on trains must function properly in harsh conditions, such as environment temperatures ranging from -25°C to +85°C, according to the EU standard EN50155.• Railway regulations. All products in a train must adhere to strict standards, relating to working vibration, power consumption, and lifetime.• Lengthy process. Time to market in the railway industry can take years from concept to mass production, so product design requires a solid long term vision.

A modern locomotive, for example, has as many as 200 sensors generating more than a billion data points per second. Vibration sensors surround critical components, video cameras scan the track and cab, while other sensors monitor RPM, power, temperature, the fuel mix, exhaust characteristics, and more.Most of today’s locomotives lack sufficient on-board processing power to make full use of all this data. To make matters worse, the data from different subsystems, such as the brakes, fuel system, and engine, remain separate, stored in isolated “boxes” that prevent unified analysis. The data is available, but the technology needed to process it in the most effective manner is not. As new sensors are added to the machine, the problem escalates.

Designed to alert drivers when schoolchildren are present, especially in low-visibility conditions, school-zone flasher signals are typically updated manually at each school. The switching is based on the school calendar and manually changed when an unexpected early dismissal occurs, as in the case of a weather-event altering the normal schedule. The process to reprogram the flashers requires a significant effort by school district personnel to implement due to the large number of warning flashers installed across an entire school district.

Canadian transportation company, Bombardier was tasked with building a bullet train system on rails that were designed for lower speed trains. In addition, they had to ensure safe and optimal operation at high speeds, maximize train uptime and enhance communication with passengers.

The GSL SMART Lab, a collective effort of the GSL College of Medicine and the GSL College of Nursing and Health Science, was facing a challenge in providing superior training to healthcare professionals. As clinical medicine was becoming more focused on patient safety and quality of care, the need for medical simulation to bridge the educational gap between the classroom and the clinical environment was becoming increasingly apparent. Dr. Sandeep Ganni, the director of the GSL SMART Lab, envisioned a world-class surgical and medical training center where physicians and healthcare professionals could learn skills through simulation training. He was looking for different simulators for different specialties to provide both basic and advanced simulation training. For laparoscopic surgery, he was interested in a high fidelity simulator that could provide basic surgical and suturing skills training for international accreditation as well as specific hands-on training in complex laparoscopic procedures for practicing physicians in India.

Fundacio Puigvert, a leading European medical center specializing in Urology, Nephrology, and Andrology, faced a significant challenge in training its surgical residents. The institution recognized the need for a more standardized and comprehensive training curriculum, particularly in the area of robotic surgery. The challenge was underscored by two independent studies showing that less than 5% of residents in Italian and German residency programs could perform major or complex procedures by the end of their residency. The institution sought to establish a virtual reality simulation lab that would include endourological, laparoscopic, and robotic platforms. However, they needed a simulator that could replicate both the hardware and software of the robotic Da Vinci console used in the operating room, without being connected to the actual physical console. They also required a system that could provide both basic and advanced simulation training, and a metrics system to assess the proficiency of the trainees before they performed surgical procedures in the operating theater.