industry Archives

Mining industry activities must be harmonized with requirements of Armenian legislation

May 24, 2018 by administrator

Mining industry activities

Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan referred to the high risks of metal mining during Cabinet meeting. ARMENPRESS reports the PM instructed to conduct checks in 28 companies engaged in metal mining to eliminate the possible violations of environmental laws and prevent the risks posed to the health and life of citizens.

“Our task is clear. The mining industry activities in the Republic of Armenia must be harmonized with the requirements of the Armenian legislation and there is no alternative here”, Pashinyan said, underlining that the check must be conducted in a transparent manner with the participation of civil society representatives and press.

Naira Hovakimyan: Armenia has the talent and enthusiasm for development of robotics industry

July 7, 2016 by administrator

EREVAN. – Naira Hovakimyan is director of Intelligent Robotics Lab at the University of Illinois. In an interview with Armenian News-NEWS.am, Naira Hovakimyan spoke about the development of robotics in Armenia and the future projects.

Naira, why have you left for U.S.?

I do not think that I have left for USA, as I never intended to do so. In 1998, I was invited for six months to work at Georgia Tech on stability of adaptive flight control systems. Prior to that I worked more than a year in Stuttgart University, Germany, and about a year in INRIA, Sophia Antipolis, France. Because Unites States is a country rich with opportunities, my stay at Georgia Tech was extended for another six months, then another year, and I eventually assumed a permanent faculty job in Virginia Tech in 2003. Then the successful collaboration with United States Air Force and NASA got us the visibility by the top universities, and University of Illinois recruited me with a competitive offer, providing opportunities for aggressive growth of my research program. If tomorrow another high-caliber research institution recruits me from Europe, I may move back to Europe. My permanent home is Yerevan, Armenia. I never left Armenia. I just happen to work in places that have long commute time with Yerevan.

Is it easy to make a career in U.S.?

It largely depends on what you want to do and what you want to achieve. You have to be in the right place the right time. In my case, the answer is absolutely NO, NO and again NO. I am sure that had I stayed in Armenia in mid-90’s, I would have left science forever. However, I want to emphasize that there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. My very good friends in those years moved into software industry and now hold leading positions in major software companies in Armenia. That is a different career path. In USA, I had to restart everything from the beginning. My prior degrees and education meant nothing in the context of the problems that I was challenged to solve during my research at Georgia Tech. Also, the US academic market is very much driven by the pedigree and connections in USA. If you are not a graduate of one of the top schools with a famous adviser, the barrier for entry into academic circles is very high and quite often impossible to break in. This reality has not changed for me until now despite numerous success stories delivered by my group. One step at a time we have moved forward. The key is never to give up. Hard work and persistence always pay off. You just have to stay focused and be open to new opportunities and twists of life as they come your way.

You are a co-founder of IntelinAir, Inc., a company that commercializes data-drones for delivering actionable information from aerial imagery for various industries. How are these drones used? For which purpose?

Right now we are focused on digital agriculture. We are creating the “MRI of farms”, by flying the drones at low altitude and taking high resolution imagery. We hope that with this technology we will be able to develop an early warning system for anomaly detection to prevent major damages and alert farmers on taking actions ahead of time. It is obvious that with today’s farming techniques it will be impossible to feed the 9bln population of Earth in 2050. IntelinAir aims to contribute to this grand challenge in a novel way that can have long-lasting impact..

Are you going to have such a company in Armenia too? What do you think whether it is possible to establish such a company in Armenia?

Our company has already opened its Armenian subsidiary in Yerevan. We have a group in Armenia, and I am very excited by its growth.

Since 2015, you are the director of Intelligent Robotics Lab of CSL at UIUC. Armenians also try to develop this branch in Armenia. What do Armenians need to reach the best result? Do we have necessary resource for developing it?

We certainly have the human resources and the enthusiasm that’s needed; we lack funding for supporting hardware purchase/development and educating students to develop competitive algorithms. We lack visionary leaders. Robotics today is very multidisciplinary. We work at the intersection of control technology, machine learning, human-computer interaction, cognitive psychology and medicine. Today’s roboticists need sufficiently good understanding of all these fields to interact with corresponding experts to integrate the advances from each of these disciplines into the next generation of robots. I cannot emphasize enough the role of multidisciplinary education and the role fundamental science.

Naira, an L1 adaptive flight control system is being modified for the U.S. Air Force’s VISTA F-16 aircraft by you and your graduate students. Have you already tested it in VISTA F-16?

We haven’t yet tested; we are anxiously waiting for those tests, which are scheduled in September.

What plans do you have for future? Any new projects?

I have plans to finish two more books in the next five years. I would like to see my students leading major innovations in the world based on the training that they get in my lab. I would like to see them holding faculty jobs in top universities or leadership positions in major industries. I would like to see IntelinAir growing into a powerful and prominent company. I would like to see some of my students creating other companies based on their work in our lab. In the near future, personally, I think I will be more focused on the cybersecurity solution developed in collaboration with my colleagues from Computer Science and will do my best to support that development and its commercialization, if at all possible. We have a unique opportunity there. Such a solution should help all robots to be safe from software viruses and attacks by hackers.

Are you going to make any projects in Armenia?

If interested groups have desire to work with me, I will certainly support such development and work with them. IntelinAir is just a good beginning, and I am very excited by our group in Armenia, its potential and its growth. I look forward to creating more initiatives like that.

While Turkey successful pre-occupying the west with ISIS, Iran, Russia: Erdogan turning Turkey into major defense industry power

May 27, 2015 by administrator

ANKARA | By Jonny Hogg and Can Sezer

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during an opening ceremony in Istanbul, Turkey, May 26, 2015. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

For years Turkey has boasted NATO’s largest army, bar only the United States, and now President Tayyip Erdogan wants a defense industry to match.

Erdogan’s dream that Turkey will make all its own military equipment within a few years reflects his ambition to play a greater role in a turbulent region and achieve independence from long-time allies in the West. report Reuters

Trying to drum up nationalist support as the ruling AK Party heads into tough parliamentary elections next month, Erdogan has also called repeatedly for the country to become a major exporter of everything from rifles to fighter jets.

This chimes with his declared aim of returning Turkey to the glories of the Ottoman empire – Erdogan has already built a 1,000-room presidential palace, drawing accusations from opponents that he is behaving like a modern-day sultan.

“As long as there are assailants in the world, we will always be required to be ready for defense,” he told a defense industry conference in Istanbul this month.

Erdogan’s sights are set on the centenary of the modern Turkish republic’s foundation. “Our goal is to completely rid our defense industry of foreign dependency by 2023,” he said.

Ankara spends around $18 billion a year on defense with just over half of its equipment made domestically. Defense exports rose 18 percent last year to $1.65 billion, and a tank and infantry rifle are nearly ready for mass production.

Warship and fighter jet projects are in the early design phase but Erdogan hopes they will go into production by 2023, when he wants defense exports to total $25 billion.

“Turkey’s rulers firmly believe that Turkey cannot be the regional power they wish it to become without a really deterrent military force,” said Burak Bekdil, a defense analyst and columnist with the Hurriyet newspaper.

“PAINFUL EXPERIENCE”

Ankara had to ask NATO to deploy Patriot missiles in 2014 to bolster security along its frontier with Syria. This kind of dependency has long grated on Turks.

Last month Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu remarked on Turkey’s “painful experience” in World War One when it was forced to buy arms from abroad.

“A nation without its own defense industry cannot fight the cause of liberation,” he said at the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Gallipoli, adding that by 2023 a locally-made combat plane will “fly the Turkish skies”.

Turkey’s desire for self-reliance is understandable as it shares a 1,200 km (750-mile) border with Syria and Iraq, where Islamic State has carved out a self-declared caliphate.

A U.S. arms embargo imposed after Turkish forces invaded northern Cyprus in 1974 left Ankara under-equipped and served as a wake-up call, according to Atilla Sandikli, a retired naval officer and head of the Bilgesam security think-tank.

The embargo was lifted a few years later. Small projects to develop everything from radios to aircraft tyres were followed by production under license of F-16 jets in the 1980s, coupled with joint modernization projects with Egypt and others.

FROM TANKS TO SATELLITES

Now Turkey is home to two of the world’s 100 largest defense companies, Aselsan and TUSAS. But if the sector wants to compete with Western defense giants, it must diversify its exports away from Europe – where defense budgets are being cut – to Asia, the Middle East and Africa, where expenditure is rising.

“We’re making products better than most in the West. We’re cheaper … We’re ready to share technology. The Turkish defense industry can be a valid alternative to the West,” Faik Eken, General Director of Aselsan, Turkey’s biggest defense firm, told Reuters.

The transfer of technology has been the latest sticking point between Turkey and its NATO allies. Ankara chose China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corp in 2013 as the preferred bidder for a $3.4 billion long-range missile system, saying that acquisition of new technology was a priority.

This has raised concerns about security in the West, as the Chinese firm has been previously hit by U.S. sanctions over alleged violations of the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act.

Turkey’s Western allies are also worried about the compatibility of the Chinese technology with NATO systems.

While still young, the Turkish defense industry is gaining the ability to tackle big projects, said Muharrem Dortkasli, the chief executive of TUSAS. Now it wants a place alongside its biggest NATO allies, the United States, France and Britain, as well as Russia and China.

“We are talking about a country that will have its own national tank, national ship, national helicopter, satellite and war plane,” he said. “We are aiming to have everything the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council have.”

(Additional reporting by Tulay Karadeniz and Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara, and Ayla Jean Yackley in Istanbul; Editing by David Dolan and David Stamp)

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