ABSTRACT
Across so many industries, non-destructive evaluation has proven its worth time and again through quality and safety assurance of valuable assets. Yet, over time, it became underappreciated in business decisions. In most cases, the data gathered by NDT is used for quality assurance assessments resulting in binary decisions. And we seem to miss out on value of the information content of NDE which goes way deeper and can help other stakeholders: such as engineering, management, inspectors, service providers, and even regulators. Some of those groups might not even be aware of the benefits of NDE data and its digitalization. Unfortunately, the NDE industry typically makes the data access unnecessarily difficult by proprietary interfaces and data formats. Both those challenges need to be addressed now by the NDE industry. The confluence of NDE and Industry 4.0, dubbed as NDE 4.0, provides a unique opportunity for the NDE/NDT Industry to not only readjust the value perception but to gain new customer groups through a broad set of value creation activities across the ecosystem. The integration of NDE into the Cyber-Physical Loop (including IIoT and Digital Twin) is the chance for the NDE industry to now shift the perception from a cost center to a value center. This paper provides an overview of the NDE ecosystem, key value streams, cyber-physical loops that create value, and a number of use cases for various stakeholders in the ecosystem.
ABSTRACT
Cyber technologies are offering new horizons for quality control in manufacturing and safety assurance in-service of physical assets. The line between non-destructive evaluation (NDE) and Industry 4.0 is getting blurred since both are sensory data-driven domains. This multidisciplinary approach has led to the emergence of a new capability: NDE 4.0. The NDT community is coming together once again to define the purpose, chart the process, and address the adoption of emerging technologies. In this paper, the authors have taken a design thinking approach to spotlight proper objectives for research on this subject. It begins with qualitative research on twenty different perceptions of stakeholders and misconceptions around the current state of NDE. The interpretation is used to define ten value propositions or use cases under 'NDE for Industry 4.0' and 'Industry 4.0 for NDE' leading up to the clarity of purpose for NDE 4.0-enhanced safety and economic value for stakeholders. To pursue this worthy cause, the paper delves into some of the top adoption challenges, and proposes a journey of managed innovation, conscious skills development, and a new form of leadership required to succeed in the cyber-physical world.
ABSTRACT
We report the observation of entanglement between a single trapped atom and a single photon at a wavelength suitable for low-loss communication over large distances, thereby achieving a crucial step towards long range quantum networks. To verify the entanglement, we introduce a single atom state analysis. This technique is used for full state tomography of the atom-photon qubit pair. The detection efficiency and the entanglement fidelity are high enough to allow in a next step the generation of entangled atoms at large distances, ready for a final loophole-free Bell experiment.
