Section: Partnerships and Cooperations

European Initiatives

FP7 Projects

DISC

• Title: Distributed supervisory control of large plants

• Type: COOPERATION (ICT)

• Defi: Networked embedded and control systems

• Instrument: Specific Targeted Research Project (STREP)

• Duration: September 2008 - December 2011

• Coordinator: Univ. of Cagliari (Italy)

• Others partners: Univ. of Cagliary (IT), CWI (NL), Univ. of Gent (B), Tech. Univ. Berlin (G), Univ. Zaragosa (S), Akhela (IT), CyBio (G)

• See also: http://www.disc-project.eu/

• Abstract: Supervisory control is a formal approach for the control of discrete event systems that aims to solve logical problems of safety, resource allocation, liveness, and fault diagnosis that can be encountered in all systems with a high degree of automation. It provides a conceptual framework for developing methods and tools for system design.

  An open issue is the application of this methodology to those control problems that arise in networked embedded systems. These distributed plants are composed by several local agents that take concurrently decisions, based on information that may be local or received from neighbouring agents; they require scalable and self-organising platforms for advanced computing and control. An important feature of this type of processes is the possibility of studying them at an appropriate level of abstraction where the resulting model is a purely discrete event one. The evolution is guided by the occurrence of asynchronous events, as opposed to other real-time models where the event occurrence is time-triggered.

  We plan to use several techniques to reduce the computational complexity that is one of the major obstacles to the technology transfer of supervisory control methodologies to distributed plants. These techniques are: modularity in the modelling and control design phases; coordinating control; fluidisation of some discrete-event dynamics to reduce state-space cardinality; modular state identification and modular fault detection based on the design of decentralized observers.

Univerself

• Title: UniverSelf

• Type: COOPERATION (ICT)

• Defi: The Network of the Future

• Instrument: Integrated Project (IP)

• Duration: September 2010 - August 2013

• Coordinator: Alcatel Lucent (France)

• Others partners: Alcatel Lucent (F, Ir, G), NEC (G), Thales (F), Orange (F), Telecom Italia (It), Telefonica (E), Univ. College London (GB), Univ. of Surrey (GB), Univ. of Twente (NL), Univ. of Piraeus (G), Univ. of Athens (G), IBBT (B), VTT

• See also: http://www.univerself-project.eu/

• Abstract: UniverSelf unites 17 partners with the aim of overcoming the growing management complexity of future networking systems, and to reduce the barriers that complexity and ossification pose to further growth.

  While there has been undeniable progress in the field of autonomics research over the past several years across the world and especially in Europe, widespread deployments of self-management techniques are still missing. At the same time the need for techniques enabling the transformation of operational models, the evolution of networks towards a flexible playground for operators, and more generally techniques participating to the increase of the return on investment, is becoming more and more evident. Further, most efforts and initiatives have been focussed on solving manageability bottlenecks in a given technological domain, while services extend anywhere, regardless of the technological boundaries (e.g., wireline/wireless). UniverSelf arises from this context and is thus driven by the need and objective to take self-management a leap further, and, in doing so, be both a federating and impactful project.

Danse

• Type: COOPERATION (ICT)

• Defi: Studying Systems of Systems (Dynamical Systems)

• Instrument: Integrated Project (IP)

• Duration: November 2011 - October 2014

• Coordinator: Alcatel Lucent (France)

• Others partners: OFFIS Institute for Information Technology (Germany), IBM Israel - Science and Technology LTD (ISRAEL), Israel Aerospace Industries (ISRAEL), Advanced Laboratory on Embedded Systems S.R.L (Italy), INRIA (France), Loughborough University (United Kingdom), EADS Innovation Works (United Kingdom), Selex Sistemi Integrati (Italy)

• Abstract: Our objective is to build theory and practice for Systems of Systems (SoS). More precisely, we shall provide more important insights on SoS and understand why they must be treated differently to conventional systems.

Dali

• Title: Devices for assisted Living

• Type: Collaboration (ICT)

• Defi: Building an automatic machine capable of assisting elderly people.

• Instrument: STREP

• Duration: November 2011 - October 2014

• Coordinator: Trento (France)

• Others partners: University of Trento (Italy), Visual Tools (Spain), Forth (Greece), Northumbria University (United Kingdom), University of Siena (Italy), INRIA (France), INDRA Software (Spain), Siemens AG √ñsterreich (Austria)

• Abstract: The objective is to build a machine that can help an elderly personn to avoid obstacle. The role of INRIA is to design the algorithm that will run within the engine of the machine.