Centre of Technology and Systems
The centre aims to develop research recognized at international level in all the research lines and groups. The centre encourages technology transfer mostly supported by spin offs and dip involvement in international R&D projects. Scientific results are expected to contribute to improve the graduate training in the academia and contribute to internationalization of our graduate students. We participated in about 400 specific international actions as joint papers, international events organization, etc. This effort will be intensified. Research lines and research groups have different levels of scientific and organizational development.
They still operate mostly isolated from each other but with strong international links. Existing potential, as cross cooperation examples shows, anticipates the possibility of stronger in house integration and creation of scientific synergetic valour.
For microelectronics the objective besides the recent integration of new skills on materials and processes, is to embrace microelectronics (analog and digital), telecommunications and signal processing and to make directly technology available (materials and circuits) for further developments. Hosted activities are planned to incrementally contribute to integration of research. Motivation supported by recent development after two years of careful preparation (under Galileu project, the EU alternative to GNSS, with ESA and CAST, the Chinese Space Agency) is to promote the creation of a local based international research institute of microelectronics, telecommunication and signal processing backed by Uninova, FCT/UNL and the Peoples Republic of China through CAST. Plans to foster PhD and MSc thesis are consistent with the recent signed protocol relative to the graduating training of Portuguese and Chinese engineers working in Madeira Station for Search and Rescue.
The research line on Computational Intelligence, Decision, Modelling and Control has a strong interface with space activities and with astrophysics (projects GAIA- mapping of the galaxy and Solar information system). Also pos-docs involved in data mining and knowledge discovering are meant to contribute to that research. Cooperative links have a chance to develop within the microelectronics/telecommunications merge, mainly at graduation level (new foreign PhD students). Intelligent control deals with the development of advanced control algorithms for distributed parameter systems, that is, systems modelled by partial differential equations addressing transport phenomena. An interface with space related activities is expected to occur.
Research on Collaborative Networks, hopes to contribute to establishing the topic as a scientific discipline, targeting two new domains at model formalization level: telecommunications and energy. Reference curriculum for education in CN and launching of the SOCOLNET will be pursued. The objective is the continuous reinforcement of the group reputation, strengthening it as a world reference but also to bridge activities with the two identified fields.
Concerning Interoperability, dynamic evolution of systems based on models supported by standards creates a challenge, how can interconnectivity be updated automatically still assuring conformance of information. Also research on distributed interoperable context-aware-service architectures will benefit from previous developments. Building & Construction, furniture, telecommunications and aero spatial industry will continue to be our target domains. Besides the economical, industrial and societal impact we want to continue contributing to establish a more solid and rigorous base of science in those domains of research.