Journal Article•
From NASA to EU: the evolution of the TRL scale in Public Sector Innovation
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe how the Technology Readiness level (TRL) scale became an official innovation policy tool of the European Union (EU) through various mutations, and explain how the TRL scale became, through various modifications, an official policy tool for the EU.
Abstract: IntroductionThis article explains how the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale became, through various mutations, an official innovation policy tool of the European Union (EU). TRL originated at the American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), where it began as a means of measuring how far a technology was from being deployed in space. Later, since 1999, as an outcome of a US Government investigation, the US Department of Defense (DoD) was required to use TRL in weapons technology acquisition (Schinasi, et al., 1999). Similarly, the Commonwealth of Australia conducted the Kinnaird Defense Procurement Review (Kinnaird, et al., 2003) and started using TRL in its own DoD. Around that time, the usage of TRL spread among other governmental and military organizations in English-speaking countries and was also adopted by the European Space Agency. A glossary of terms is provided in Appendix I.From the very beginning, TRL was used to define boundaries between different organizational and financial modes of technological development. Perhaps this is why it made sense to the High-Level Expert Group on Key Enabling Technologies (HLG-KET) of the European Union to build TRL into the foundation of its new public innovation policy. The universal usage of TRL in EU policy was proposed in the final report of the first HLG-KET (HLG-KET, 2011), and it was indeed implemented in the subsequent EU framework program, called H2020, running from 2013 to 2020. This means not only space and weapons programs, but everything from nanotechnology to informatics and communication technology.Central ArgumentThis article argues that it has never been established whether the originally space and weapons technology-specific TRL scale can be used fruitfully in all areas of innovation. Because of this, the EU-wide mandate to use TRL across all publicly funded programs is a risky innovation of the innovation policy itself. This article argues that the subtle mutations happened to the TRL concept in the last three decades. Many aspects of the TRL scale were lost, forgotten or abstracted away during its journey to the EU, while in the meantime; new meanings and associations were formed. In the absence of discipline-specific guides, TRLs will predictably become a source of confusion and a subject of abuse in efforts to obtain EU funding.Article Organization and MethodologyThe article first covers the evolution of TRL from its beginning at NASA to 2013 when it became both an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard and a de facto standard within space and weapons industry. The aim of this first section is to see through the often one-sided laudation of TRL and find the actual, rather hidden factors and conditions that made it widely accepted. The method of this part is the historical analysis of policy documents, program descriptions and other sources.The hidden factors uncovered in the first section facilitate the evaluation of the TRL usage in EU public sector innovation context. This section covers the developments from the first HLG-KET report (HLG-KET, 2011), presents how the H2020 program attempts to implement the TRL scale and ends in 2015 when the final report of the second EU HLG-KET report was written (HLG-KET, 2015). The focus of this description is on the mutations of the practices of using TRL for decision making.These first two sections provide the necessary background to the discussion of the opportunities and risks of TRL bring to the EU in the third section.LimitationsThis article is based on publicly available sources only. There might have been various reasons behind the adoption of the TRL scale in the EU in addition to those revealed in these public documents. Therefore, some issues presented herein may have been caused by the simple lack of communication and not necessarily a lack of clear strategy making. Then again, the majority of those who will have to adopt the TRL scale in order to participate in EU programs have no choice but to rely on public documents. …
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02 Apr 2020
TL;DR: This paper collects and categorizes swarm behaviors into spatial organization, navigation, decision making, and miscellaneous and gives a comprehensive overview of research platforms that can be used for testing and evaluating swarm behavior, systems that are already on the market, and projects that target a specific market.
Abstract: In swarm robotics multiple robots collectively solve problems by forming advantageous structures and behaviors similar to the ones observed in natural systems, such as swarms of bees, birds, or fish. However, the step to industrial applications has not yet been made successfully. Literature is light on real-world swarm applications that apply actual swarm algorithms. Typically, only parts of swarm algorithms are used which we refer to as basic swarm behaviors. In this paper we collect and categorize these behaviors into spatial organization, navigation, decision making, and miscellaneous. This taxonomy is then applied to categorize a number of existing swarm robotic applications from research and industrial domains. Along with the classification, we give a comprehensive overview of research platforms that can be used for testing and evaluating swarm behavior, systems that are already on the market, and projects that target a specific market. Results from this survey show that swarm robotic applications are still rare today. Many industrial projects still rely on centralized control, and even though a solution with multiple robots is employed, the principal idea of swarm robotics of distributed decision making is neglected. We identified mainly following reasons: First of all, swarm behavior emerging from local interactions is hard to predict and a proof of its eligibility for applications in an industrial context is difficult to provide. Second, current communication architectures often do not match requirements for swarm communication, which often leads to a system with a centralized communication infrastructure. Finally, testing swarms for real industrial applications is an issue, since deployment in a productive environment is typically too risky and simulations of a target system may not be sufficiently accurate. In contrast, the research platforms present a means for transforming swarm robotics solutions from theory to prototype industrial systems.
209 citations
Cites background from "From NASA to EU: the evolution of t..."
...The industrial projects and products are mainly listed to serve as application examples in real-world environments above a technology readiness level (TRL) of four (Héder, 2017) where the validation of the platform is already in the relevant environment....
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...The industrial projects and products are mainly listed to serve as application examples in real-world environments above a technology readiness level (TRL) of four (Héder, 2017) where the validation of the platform is already in the relevant environment....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a review of CO2 transformation technologies and their technologies readiness level, cost, market and environmental benefits, as well as the key challenges hindering their commercial deployments.
171 citations
Aberystwyth University1, Tuscia University2, Agricultural Research Service3, Rothamsted Research4, Cornell University5, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences6, Umeå University7, Institut national de la recherche agronomique8, University of Hohenheim9, Academy of Sciences of Moldova10, Hunan Agricultural University11, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign12, University of Catania13, Wageningen University and Research Centre14, Julius Kühn-Institut15, University of Aberdeen16, Zhejiang University17, Aarhus University18, Seoul National University19, Chinese Academy of Sciences20, Natural Resources Research Institute21, James Hutton Institute22, University of Southampton23, Oak Ridge National Laboratory24, Hokkaido University25, Kangwon National University26, United States Forest Service27
TL;DR: It is concluded that sustained public investment in breeding plays a key role in delivering future mass‐scale deployment of PBCs.
Abstract: Genetic improvement through breeding is one of the key approaches to increasing biomass supply. This paper documents the breeding progress to date for four perennial biomass crops (PBCs) that have high output-input energy ratios: namely Panicum virgatum (switchgrass), species of the genera Miscanthus (miscanthus), Salix (willow) and Populus (poplar). For each crop, we report on the size of germplasm collections, the efforts to date to phenotype and genotype, the diversity available for breeding and on the scale of breeding work as indicated by number of attempted crosses. We also report on the development of faster and more precise breeding using molecular breeding techniques. Poplar is the model tree for genetic studies and is furthest ahead in terms of biological knowledge and genetic resources. Linkage maps, transgenesis and genome editing methods are now being used in commercially focused poplar breeding. These are in development in switchgrass, miscanthus and willow generating large genetic and phenotypic data sets requiring concomitant efforts in informatics to create summaries that can be accessed and used by practical breeders. Cultivars of switchgrass and miscanthus can be seed-based synthetic populations, semihybrids or clones. Willow and poplar cultivars are commercially deployed as clones. At local and regional level, the most advanced cultivars in each crop are at technology readiness levels which could be scaled to planting rates of thousands of hectares per year in about 5 years with existing commercial developers. Investment in further development of better cultivars is subject to current market failure and the long breeding cycles. We conclude that sustained public investment in breeding plays a key role in delivering future mass-scale deployment of PBCs.
107 citations
Cites background from "From NASA to EU: the evolution of t..."
...Applying industrial “technology readiness levels” (TRL) originally developed for aerospace (Héder, 2017) to our plant breeding efforts, we estimate many promising hybrids cultivars are at TRL levels of 3–4....
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Centre national de la recherche scientifique1, Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences2, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research3, Marine Institute of Memorial University of Newfoundland4, University of South Florida5, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution6, UNESCO7, Ocean Networks Canada8, Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research9, IFREMER10, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration11, Institut de recherche pour le développement12, National Research Council13, National Oceanography Centre14, Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands15, National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology16, Natural Environment Research Council17, University of Tasmania18, Autonomous University of Barcelona19, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research20, University of Bologna21, Geoscience Australia22, Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research23, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory24, Polish Academy of Sciences25, Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University26, University of California, San Diego27, University of Bremen28, Dalhousie University29
TL;DR: A future vision of ocean best practices is laid out and how the Ocean Best Practices System (OBPS) will contribute to improving ocean observing in the decade to come is shown.
Abstract: The oceans play a key role in global issues such as climate change, food security, and human health. Given their vast dimensions and internal complexity, efficient monitoring and predicting of the planet’s ocean must be a collaborative effort of both regional and global scale. A first and foremost requirement for such collaborative ocean observing is the need to follow well-defined and reproducible methods across activities: from strategies for structuring observing systems, sensor deployment and usage, and the generation of data and information products, to ethical and governance aspects when executing ocean observing. To meet the urgent, planet-wide challenges we face, methods across all aspects of ocean observing should be broadly adopted by the ocean community and, where appropriate, should evolve into “Ocean Best Practices.” While many groups have created best practices, they are scattered across the Web or buried in local repositories and many have yet to be digitized. To reduce this fragmentation, we introduce a new open access, permanent, digital repository of best practices documentation (oceanbestpractices.org) that is part of the Ocean Best Practices System (OBPS). The new OBPS provides an opportunity space for the centralized and coordinated improvement of ocean observing methods. The OBPS repository employs user-friendly software to significantly improve discovery and access to methods. The software includes advanced semantic technologies for search capabilities to enhance repository operations. In addition to the repository, the OBPS also includes a peer reviewed journal research topic, a forum for community discussion and a training activity for use of best practices. Together, these components serve to realize a core objective of the OBPS, which is to enable the ocean community to create superior methods for every activity in ocean observing from research to operations to applications that are agreed upon and broadly adopted across communities. Using selected ocean observing examples, we show how the OBPS supports this objective. This paper lays out a future vision of ocean best practices and how OBPS will contribute to improving ocean observing in the decade to come.
103 citations
Cites methods from "From NASA to EU: the evolution of t..."
...NASA uses nine levels....
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...One maturity assessment tool is TRL which was a scheme developed in the 1970s by NASA (Heder, 2017)....
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TL;DR: A reusable classification framework—emerging technology literature classification level (ETLCL) framework—based on grounded theory and the technology readiness level for conducting literature reviews in various focus areas of an emerging technology is proposed.
Abstract: Through a systematic review of publications in reputed peer-reviewed journals, this paper investigates the role of blockchain technology in sustainable supply chain management. It uses the What, Who, Where, When, How, and Why (5W+1H) pattern to formulate research objectives and questions. The review considers publications since 2015, and it includes 187 papers published in 2017, 2018, 2019, and the early part of 2020, since no significant publications were found in the year 2015 or 2016 on this subject. It proposes a reusable classification framework—emerging technology literature classification level (ETLCL) framework—based on grounded theory and the technology readiness level for conducting literature reviews in various focus areas of an emerging technology. Subsequently, the study uses ETLCL to classify the literature on our focus area. The results show traceability and transparency as the key benefits of applying blockchain technology. They also indicate a heightened interest in blockchain-based information systems for sustainable supply chain management starting since 2017. This paper offers invaluable insights for managers and leaders who envision sustainability as an essential component of their business. The findings demonstrate the disruptive power and role of blockchain-based information systems. Given the relative novelty of the topic and its scattered literature, the paper helps practitioners examining its various aspects by directing them to the right information sources.
98 citations
References
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TL;DR: An outline is given of the process steps involved in the spiral model, an evolving risk-driven approach that provides a framework for guiding the software process and its application to a software project is shown.
Abstract: A short description is given of software process models and the issues they address. An outline is given of the process steps involved in the spiral model, an evolving risk-driven approach that provides a framework for guiding the software process, and its application to a software project is shown. A summary is given of the primary advantages and implications involved in using the spiral model and the primary difficulties in using it at its current incomplete level of elaboration. >
5,055 citations
TL;DR: The concept of “technology readiness assessments” is reviewed, and a retrospective on the history of ‘TRLs’ is provided, to conclude with observations concerning prospective future directions for the important discipline of technology readiness assessments.
453 citations
"From NASA to EU: the evolution of t..." refers background in this paper
...To evaluate whether the technology was ready to start such a program, a technology readiness review was suggested (Mankins, 2009)....
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TL;DR: The NASA technology program has been called upon to provide a solid base of national capabilities and talent to serve NASA's civil space program, commercial, and other space sector interests as mentioned in this paper.
141 citations
TL;DR: The Integrated Technology Analysis Methodology (ITAM) as discussed by the authors is a recently-formulated strategic technology management approach that attempts to address the question of uncertainty in technology development and applications, and how these tools might be used to facilitate coordination and discussions in an international setting.
104 citations
"From NASA to EU: the evolution of t..." refers background in this paper
...Mankins, who extended the TRL scale to nine levels at NASA, has written a white paper (Mankins, 2002) about the limitations of the TRL scale in the context of complex systems and proposed a new scale called R&D degree of difficulty (R&D3), which appraises systems at a “program” level....
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...Mankins, who extended the TRL scale to nine levels at NASA, has written a white paper (Mankins, 2002) about the limitations of the TRL scale in the context of complex systems and proposed a new scale called R&D degree of difficulty (R&D3), which appraises systems at a “program” level....
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08 May 2016
TL;DR: This is the first practical break of the full SHA-1, reaching all 80 out of 80 steps, and it further shows how GPUs can be used very efficiently for this kind of attack.
Abstract: This article presents an explicit freestart colliding pair for SHA-1, i.e. a collision for its internal compression function. This is the first practical break of the full SHA-1, reaching all 80 out of 80 steps. Only 10i¾?days of computation on a 64-GPU cluster were necessary to perform this attack, for a runtime cost equivalent to approximately $$2^{57.5}$$257.5 calls to the compression function of SHA-1 on GPU. This work builds on a continuous series of cryptanalytic advancements on SHA-1 since the theoretical collision attack breakthrough of 2005. In particular, we reuse the recent work on 76-step SHA-1 of Karpman et al. from CRYPTO 2015 that introduced an efficient framework to implement freestart collisions on GPUs; we extend it by incorporating more sophisticated accelerating techniques such as boomerangs. We also rely on the results of Stevens from EUROCRYPT 2013 to obtain optimal attack conditions; using these techniques required further refinements for this work.
Freestart collisions do not directly imply a collision for the full hash function. However, this work is an important milestone towards an actual SHA-1 collision and it further shows how GPUs can be used very efficiently for this kind of attack. Based on the state-of-the-art collision attack on SHA-1 by Stevens from EUROCRYPT 2013, we are able to present new projections on the computational and financial cost required for a SHA-1 collision computation. These projections are significantly lower than what was previously anticipated by the industry, due to the use of the more cost efficient GPUs compared to regular CPUs.
We therefore recommend the industry, in particular Internet browser vendors and Certification Authorities, to retract SHA-1 quickly. We hope the industry has learned from the events surrounding the cryptanalytic breaks of MD5 and will retract SHA-1 before concrete attacks such as signature forgeries appear in the near future.
69 citations