and
research doctoral scholarships: 28 scholarships for innovative PhDs
Engineering
Applied Sciences Applied
The projects
• Development of artificial intelligence systems for performing testing of medium voltage power distribution switchboards
• Environmental assessment in territorial planning and infrastructure design
• Innovative techniques and technologies for small and mediumsized construction companies in view of the new challenges related to sustainability
• Life Cycle Thinking design for a new strategy of incremental, sustainable and integrated deep renovation of buildings to be adopted in the construction sector
• Develop Data Analysis pipelines that, starting from wearable sensors and other variables, are able to assess physical and cognitive effort of the workers
• Study, development and characterization of noninvasive wearable devices for real-time monitoring of physiological signals
• Sustainability criteria and performance of the window and door supply chain
• Identification, analysis and optimization of energy storage systems in highway applications for powering technological and electric charging facilities
• Life Cycle Thinking approach for the design of multifunctional construction elements with high technological content in resilient buildings and assemblable through innovative construction sites
• Study of innovative electric market configurations to support integration of distributed resources and flexible demand into the electric system
• Sustainable hydrogen compression
Development of artificial intelligence systems for performing testing of medium voltage power distribution switchboards
Company: ABB S.p.A.
Tutor: Fabio Previdi
The research will be focused on the development of new artificial intelligence methods and algorithms specifically designed for applications in the field of industrial automation.
The candidate’s objective is to find a common denominator in the methods of designing, applying and validating artificial intelligence methodologies for applications in the manufacturing industry with specific attention to those in industrial automation.
Particular attention will be devoted to the choice and customization of existing algorithms as a consequence of an adequate and personalized formulation of the requirements and specifications of the proposed problems.
From the point of view of applications, the developed methodologies will be tested in the context of projects/demonstrators to improve the digital level of the ABB plant in Dalmine.
Possible application domains will be: production processes, quality testing, prototyping, office workflows and administrative processes.
The development of the designs/demonstrators will take place in close collaboration with ABB plant personnel.
Environmental assessment in territorial planning and infrastructure design
Company: Ambiente Italia srl
Tutor: Fulvio Adobati, Mario Paris
The research project moves from the recognition of the opportunity to address some critical issues found in environmental assessment practices. Specifically, based on Decreto legislativo 3 aprile 2006, n. 152- Norme in materia ambientale, two assessment procedures are referred to:
• A first field concerns the Strategic Environmental Assessment of territorial planning/programming tools, recognizing two problematic nodes with respect to the objectives attributed to the tool by the community and national law: (i) the weak identification of scenario alternatives in the structuring of plan choices; (ii) the ineffective ability of the tool to configure itself as a moment of participatory confrontation;
• The theme of experimenting with systematic and innovative approaches to the environmental impact assessment of infrastructure projects.
The candidate, starting from a set of national case studies, compared with european experiences, will explore the most effective and innovative ways of environmental assessment, in order to outline functional elements for a better effectiveness of the aforementioned procedures.
Innovative
techniques and technologies for small and medium-sized construction companies in view of the new challenges related to sustainability
Company: ANCE Bergamo - Associazione Costruttori Edili
Tutor: Alessandra Marini
The research project, conceived for small and medium-sized construction companies, aims at providing an overview of the latest technologies available in the construction sector, with particular regard to ways to improve and optimize construction site activities, trying to minimize waste of both resources and time.
Construction companies will be provided with tools that allow, with a reduced commitment, to obtain a series of benefits linked to the adoption of what both the current market and leading-edge technologies can offer.
Particular attention will be paid to the current regulations on sustainability for the construction sector, and an attempt will be made to understand which aspects will be considered by the forthcoming regulations, in order to correctly inform the construction sector, especially in the management of both public and private contracts.
Life Cycle Thinking
design for a new strategy of incremental, sustainable and integrated deep renovation of buildings to be adopted in the construction sector
Company: Fratus Restauri srl - Benis Costruzioni srl – Arpostudio srl
Tutor: Alessandra Marini
In the first phase, starting from an analysis of the European directives and the main environmental sustainability standards for the construction sector, this project will analyze the most widespread energy/seismic requalification solutions, identifying their strengths and weaknesses and also considering the innovative solutions proposed in the rest of Europe.
In the second phase, the focus will be on the study of a ‘standardizable’ and optimized solution in terms of costs and times for selected residential construction types, widespread throughout the country, focusing on design according to the principles of Life Cycle Thinking for maximizing energy, functional and structural performances, while minimizing costs and impacts on the life cycle of a building.
The third phase of the research project will develop a technical-financial analysis of the incremental integrated redevelopment model applied to the standardized solution identified in the previous phase.
The analysis will focus on the identification of financing incentives and on the economic return of the retrofit intervention, with the conceptual design of an intervention protocol.
Company: Consorzio Intellimech
Tutor: Fabio Previdi
The debate on the role of people in factories is increasingly making it urgent to study models that place people in a position to do their job better with a centric role in the evolution of production processes, also introducing systems that exploit Artificial Intelligence (AI) considering the diversity of the cognitive and physical abilities of the workers involved.
Among the most relevant challenges is the creation of safe and comfortable workplaces capable of reducing the physical and cognitive effort of the workers.
A recent internal survey showed a strong interest among companies in the field of safety for both their operators within production facilities (user perspective) and users during interaction with the produced machines and the tools (vendor perspective).
More than 50% of the companies would be interested in adopting an innovative technological solution able to reduce the number of accidents and increase the safety of people.
The project aims to develop and deploy dynamic human-machine interaction systems, ranging from adaptive control logics to the simple monitoring of working conditions.
The envisaged objective will be reached by integrating real-time data collected thorough various enriched and enhanced wearable devices and persistent data (age, skill, environment, etc.) to achieve information concerning physical, sensing and cognitive humans‘ capabilities.
Despite recent developments and efforts in the field, the solutions still lack a holistic approach capable of considering multiple variables from both the point of view of sensors (number of variables collected and usable within AI models) and the physical and psychological characteristics as well as
Develop Data Analysis pipelines that, starting from wearable sensors and other variables, are able to assess physical and cognitive effort of the workers
attitudes of people.
The starting point for this investigation will be a literature analysis to identify the most promising signals and devices worth being integrated to achieve the envisaged holistic solution.
These tangible specific objectives are to be achieved during the development of the project:
• Based on the literature, identify the most interesting physiological signals to create an over-sensorized system. Signals may include: facial movements, brain activity, breath activity, cardiovascular activity, and body movements.
• Starting from the over-sensorized system, apply dimensionality reduction algorithms to identify the minimum subset of sensors maximizing the information content.
• Use the minimum subset to develop Data Analysis Pipelines able to assess the physical and cognitive state of the workers that are wearing the devices.
Study, development and characterization of noninvasive wearable devices for real-time monitoring of physiological signals
Company: Consorzio Intellimech
Tutor: Giuseppe Rosace
Intellimech is a no-profit private research consortium founded in Bergamo in 2007 to fill the gap between the research and the industrial sector, promoting the collaboration of companies of different sizes and from various industrial domains.
The project seeks to create safe and comfortable workplaces capable of reducing workers’ physical and cognitive effort relying on new-generation devices, integrating the opportunities deriving from new technological developments in the wearable and healthcare consumer fields.
To achieve this purpose, it will be necessary to develop and deploy a system able to create new human-machine dynamic interactions with human physical and cognitive capabilities through various enriched and enhanced wearable devices technologies.
The ambition of the project is, therefore, to overcome current research in this field by integrating their principles and results with the opportunities deriving from new technological developments in the wearable and healthcare fields.
The project satisfies the crucial requirements to support the development of stimuli-responsive fabrics, aiming to create wearable sensors.
Furthermore, thanks to the flexibility and lightness of the selected substrate, the properties of the advanced coating, without forgetting the efficiency of the applications in perspective of the desirable industrial scale-up, the project will make it possible to increase current scientific knowledge, introducing advanced solutions concerning the technologies currently used in the field of sensors.
Sustainability criteria
and
performance
of the window and door supply chain
Company: Legnolegno sc
Tutor: Elisabetta Palumbo
The literature gives evidence of how sustainability and resilience of production chains play a crucial role for both more robust market positioning and beneficial for growth.
It is well known that in order to achieve standards consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) outlined in the United Nations 2030 Agenda and have a greater impact issues, the involvement of the entire supply chain is crucial.
This is the direction in which the proposed research project intends to work, to integrate sustainability strategies and objectives into the window and door supply chain.
To do so, it will develop a model for managing the environmental, economic-financial and ethical-social impacts of current and future supply chains.
The focus will be on encouraging the interaction between innovation, increased production quality and consequently differentiation and competitiveness of the final product and/or service.
Identification, analysis and optimization of energy storage systems in highway applications for powering technological and electric charging facilities
Company: Milano Serravalle – Milano Tangenziali S.p.A.
Tutor: Giuseppe Franchini
The objective of the Ph.D. is to investigate the important topic of electric energy distribution and storage along the highway network, particularly with regard to the infrastructure required to support the future needs of electric vehicle charging points and associated technological installations.
The research aims to identify effective and efficient solutions to rationally manage electricity, produced from renewable energy sources (mainly through photovoltaic systems) considering the time difference between production and consumption.
In this context, the main objective is the analysis, evaluation and optimization of energy storage systems in order to improve the balance between energy availability and demand, minimizing the operating and maintenance costs of the whole infrastructure.
In addition, the project involves the comparative analysis of different technological solutions in terms of energy storage, from those already commercially available to those to be introduced to the market in the medium term: this will allow the performance, reliability and efficiency of such systems to be evaluated over time, providing valuable insights for future large-scale implementations.
In the context of this research, hydrogen storage and accumulation is excluded, as these aspects are already the subject of ongoing study and experimentation.
Life Cycle Thinking approach for the design of multifunctional construction elements with high technological content in resilient buildings and assemblable through innovative construction sites
Company: Impresa Percassi
Tutor: Alessandra Marini
The objective of this research is to design and build prefabricated and multifunctional building components that can be easily repaired or replaced in the event of damage (for example from an earthquake).
These are construction elements that integrate several functions (mechanical resistance, thermal and acoustic insulation, air and water tightness, fire and earthquake protection, customizable finishing layer, etc.) and which are equipped with standardized connections and smart sensors.
The approach adopted is based on Life Cycle Thinking, which considers the building in its life cycle and aims at environmental, economic, and social sustainability.
The research aims to consider innovative construction sites that use digital tools (BIM-based) and Industry 4.0 logic to optimize times and costs of construction, worker safety, and work quality.
Study of innovative electric market configurations to support integration of distributed resources and flexible demand into the electric system
Company: RSE S.p.A.
Tutor: Maria Teresa Vespucci
The EU Directive 2018/2001-REDII, on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources, and the EU Directive 2019/944-EMI, on common rules for the internal market in electricity, aim to give a central role to distributed resources and demand.
The proposed research activity will start from an in-depth study of the state of the art of regulation with respect to the future needs of energy systems with the aim of identifying, in accordance with the aforementioned Directives, possible innovative market configurations that allow increasing the integration of distributed generation and the active participation of demand.
Particular attention will be paid to:
• decentralised configurations, such as local energy markets, and innovative contracting and market clearing methodologies made possible by the evolution of enabling IT tools (e.g. blockchain);
• new roles of network operators in managing flexibility services provided by resources connected to the distribution network, and the related impacts on the electricity system downstream of the adoption of different supply techniques.
These innovative configurations for the energy market and ancillary services (aimed at transmission and distribution network operators) will be represented through the development of mathematical models.
The tools developed (including the models mentioned above) will be used to carry out feasibility and impact analyses on the energy system for the configurations identified, in particular by verifying the support they can give to the fulfilment of decarbonisation objectives.
The main objective of the project is to analyse innovative configurations
for the electricity market that facilitate active participation of distributed resources - both generation and demand.
Analyses of such configurations will be carried out:
• from a regulatory point of view, to identify any barriers that may exist in current regulation and the necessary innovations;
• from a quantitative point of view, through the use of appropriate models for the mathematical description of the interaction of the various participants - among themselves and with the electricity system; at the distribution level to the transmission level.
The development of these models is also an objective of this project.
Sustainable hydrogen compression
Company: SIAD Macchine Impianti S.p.A.
Tutor: Giovanna Barigozzi
Green hydrogen global demand is expected to increase exponentially over the next 20 years, playing an important role in the energy transition.
In the mobility sector, for final use in filling stations, the hydrogen produced by electrolysis must be compressed without oil by a dedicated reciprocating compressor and then supplied in tanks.
SIAD MI already developed a very high-pressure compression hydrogen module, but is looking for more ways to green their solutions and become eco-friendlier.
Using a more environmentally friendly hydrogen compressor module is one-way SIAD MI can go green in their product portfolio, making the use of hydrogen as an energy carrier more economically viable.
SIAD MI targets to study and implement cutting-edge solutions with a special focus on compressor components, electric motor, transmission line and valves with the goal of drastically reducing the absorbed power.
SIAD MI is also interested in raising its consciousness about Sustainable Development Goals, to develop standardized design and manufacturing protocols in view of SDG’s certification.
