The Institution of Engineering and Technology is hosting two London Network meetings in May.

Software Reliability: Helping you to write better programs

Location: Lecture Theatre 1

Queen’s Building on the Harrow Campus of the University of Westminster.

Date: Tuesday 13th May 2014

Time: 7.00pm for 7.30pm

Synopsis

How can we increase the robustness of software? Manual testing, code reviews and coding standards are excellent methods that are now a standard part of a programmer’s toolkit. The aim of this talk is to introduce techniques that go beyond these methods. We’ll take a quick tour of static program verification: what it is, how it works and whether it can be used to increase software reliability.

Nathan is completing his PhD at Imperial College London specialising in scalable verification techniques for data-parallel programs. His research interests are parallel programming, computer architecture and formal reasoning. Nathan has a background in industry as a research engineer at ARM where he worked on hardware and software at many levels of the system stack.

Cost

Free of Charge

Surrey Satellites: Changing the economics of space

Date/Time: Wednesday, May 7th at 7:15 for 7:30pm

Branch: Teddington, London

Venue: The Adelaide pub, Park Road, Teddington, TW11 0AU

Subject: Surrey Satellites: Changing the economics of Space

Speaker: William Avison

Synopsis: William will present a talk on how SSTL differs from conventional Space companies and why that makes SSTL so important to the market.  The main theme of the presentation focuses on why the projects at SSTL are making such a positive impact on the future of the planet.

The following points will be incorporated into the talk, but do not necessarily represent the sequence of the presentation.

–              Company background

–              Previous projects & life-cycle

–              Current projects

–              Future ideas and direction

–              How some of the technology works (Optics, space environment)

–              How and why SSTL operate differently from other companies in the space industry (COTS)

–              Q&A session

William is an Electronic Engineer from the AOCS Equipment team of Surrey Satellites Technology Ltd (SSTL), part of the Airbus Defence and Space Group. Currently managing an avionics suite for a 2015 launch with the Attitude and Orbital Control Systems team, William has also worked on Earth Observation projects for the European Space Agency (ESA) during his time in the Optical Payload Division.

William is a graduate from the University of Portsmouth and has previously worked in the Transport, Aerospace and Defence industries.