You can be in a situation where you have every right (and power) to condemn someone for their wrongdoing, but you pause. The person could even concede that he/she should have known better and is gracefully willing to take the punishment, whatever it might be, but you pause. Then in the mist of your rage, you introspect to realize, you could have been YOU on the other side of the table, except through varying (often complex) circumstances. Apathy is often what is being shun down upon in most leadership/christian books, yet in practice it's the very trait that is admired for someone who is decisive and 'getting the job done'. The assumption in believing that Old testament prophets were not apathetic towards the conquered nations is both naive and short-sighted. Not that I have any experience in this, but it's pretty difficult to cut someone's head off, if you're feeling sorry for him (unless you're really twisted upstairs). Back to my story... As some...

So one of the main objectives of my PhD research was to achieve the difficult task of developing a learning algorithm for machine learning ( RBF neural networks to be more specific) applications, that would enable the prediction of drone propeller damage in real-time AND without altering the bought-out flight controller ( DJI Naza , APM , Pixhawk , etc...). The only way it could achieve that was by analyzing the outputs of the flight controller sensors and learn when a fault would occur. Well, I believe I'm getting closer to this objective (submission is Nov 2019). I've decided to include the two figures below which illustrates the training process (0.2 sec on desktop) and prediction time (0.008 sec) and the accuracy to the true dynamics of the quadcopter drone. In this case the pitch dynamics are being predicted. Although noise hasn't been introduced, it's quite clear from the graphs, that the learning algorithm has enabled the RBF network to accurately capture th...

So I got the good news last Friday from the IFAC System identification conference, that my paper has been accepted for presentation. Although my professor has confirmed that he will not be able to attend the conference, I'm pretty determine not to miss this opportunity to present at an international event within the System Identification Community. This has given me so much motivation to redouble my efforts in pursuing the objectives set out for the completion of my research. And if enough funding is obtained, I will be able to go with my lovely wife... #crossingfingers Pretty exciting times ahead...