Application Areas

In order to develop and test automation methods, ASE must have competence in selected application areas. Three application areas have been chosen in focus on the basis of their nationally and internationally importance. The areas selected are deliberately rather distinct from one another in order to widely challenge the generic research on theories and technologies, and on their integration.

Industrial processes

The long term area of strength of ASE is supporting the economy of scale with advanced measurement and control. This will be further expanded to autonomous systems that find their economically justified applications also in small scale production. Autonomous manufacturing processes are agents that monitor the state of their production equipment and the demand, and optimize the production economy by agent-to-agent communication and cooperative games. Emphasis is in energy production in particular in small scales, and in new forest-based production processes in biorefineries.

Systems for cell and tissue technology

Research is conducted towards autonomous 3D growth of selected living cells and tissues in order to understand the mechanisms in diseases, effects of drug substances, and toxicity of environment and substances such tissues are exposed to. An autonomous platform, consisting of intelligent control, a sensor network, micro/nanoactuators stimulating the cells and a microfluidic nurturing system, all designed from the systems thinking perspective, will be developed. The department has been active in this application area in the last ten years.

Mobile autonomous machines

Mobile machines will have autonomous operation practices of sensing resources, such as vision systems, that aid optimally completing the tasks assigned. Several autonomous machines working in a joint environment are capable of cooperating by exchanging information and making distributed decisions also in the absence of a supervisory agent. Emphasis is on large working machines, e.g. in forestry, ports or at mining and construction sites. This is a new application area in which ASE has not yet established itself but on which several research initiatives have been recently launched.