Categories
Conferences Publications Research

Paper on intelligent virtual prototyping of offshore cranes accepted for ECMS 2015

ECMS_15smallSoftICE members Robin T. Bye and Ottar L. Osen have together with eminent automation student Birger Skogeng Pedersen written a scientific research paper called “A Computer-Automated Design Tool for Intelligent Virtual Prototyping of Offshore Cranes.” The paper has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the 29th European Conference on Modelling and Simulation (ECMS’15) and will be presented in the Simulators for Virtual Prototyping and Training (SVT) track (chaired by Robin T. Bye and AAUC colleague Vilmar Æsøy) at the conference in Varna, Bulgaria 26-29 May 2015.

knuckleboom
Example of an offshore knuckleboom crane.

AAUC researchers have been regular attenders and contributors at ECMS conferences over the years, which have resulted in AAUC chairing several own tracks and even hosting the conference in Ålesund in 2013 (chairs were AAUC staff Webjørn Rekdalsbakken, Robin T. Bye, and Houxiang Zhang), a conference that was honoured to have recent Norwegian Nobel Prize laureate May-Britt Moser as a keynote speaker.
We will make the full paper available when the conference proceedings have been released. In the meantime, we provide the paper abstract below.

Categories
Conferences Education Publications Research

SoftICE presenting pedagogical research at STEM-conference

SoftICE members Hans Georg Schaathun and Robin T. Bye together with first author Welie A. Schaathun will be presenting pedagogical research on “Active Learning Using Microcontrollers (Aktiv læring i Mikrokontrollarar)” at the Norwegian STEM conference in Bergen 18-19 March (MNT-konferansen 2015).
AAUC is also represented with other work, including “Development and Testing of Method to Avoid Quitting in Engineering Education (Utvikling og utprøving av metode for å hindre frafall i ingeniørutdanningene)” and “Student-Active Research in the Course Real-Time Computer Engineering (Studentaktiv forskning i emnet Sanntids datateknikk)“.
Abstract of our paper (in Norwegian only):

Categories
Projects Research

DRAMA project completed

The research project Dynamic Resource Allocation with Maritime Application (DRAMA) was funded by Regionalt Forskningsfond (RFF) Midt-Norge and the Research Council of Norway,  grant no. ES504913. A complete final report can be downloaded here.
The project was officially ended during summer 2014, although work has continued since then through a PhD candidate, Brice Assimizele, and the professor scholarship of the project manager, Robin T. Bye.
Please visit the DRAMA website to read more!


The main goal of the project was to develop new and stringent algorithms for fleet optimisation based on methods from areas such as artificial intelligence, cybernetics, stochastic optimisation, and others.

vardovts
Figure 1: Ship traffic along pink corridor along northern Norwegian coast. NOR VTS is the vessel traffic service centre in Vardø.

In particular, the project focussed on the the tug vessel preparedness in the north of Norway (see Figure 1). Annually more than 1500 high risk ships transit along the Norwegian coast, out of which about 300 carry oil or petroleum-related cargo. A fleet of three tugs as depicted in Figure 3 (two tugs since January 2014) need to be dynamically positioned along the coast in order to reduce the risk of oil tankers or other ships causing oil spill from drift grounding accidents.
tugs
Figure 2: The tug fleet of the Norwegian Coastal Administration.

Categories
Education

Master in Simulation and Visualisation

On Wednesday 11 March, Aalesund University College invited students, professionals, and others interested in commencing master studies at AAUC to our campus for a half-day seminar filled with invited talks and presentations of our master programmes.

Students using the Oculus Rift glasses for virtual reality.

The master programme that SoftICE is involved in is the new Master in Simulation and Visualisation, which says that

Industry and society is getting more complex, providing engineers with new challenges. Simulation and visualization are powerful tools to test new ideas, to optimize performance of systems, and to provide support for making decisions. They are also used to analyze big amounts of data, and to connect information to real and virtual landscapes and cities. The use is rapidly increasing in industry, in public planning and management, as well as widely used in dedicated simulators to train pilots, sea captains and police.

Please visit the link to read more, and please apply before 15 April!
Photos from the seminars:

Categories
Vacancies

PhD position in computing available

A PhD position in computing is available in the SoftICE lab (please see information below).
To submit an application, please go here.
Important dates

  • Application deadline: 22.03.2015
  • Expected Start Date: 01.08.2015
Categories
Conferences

SoftICE members chairing the Joint IT Conference 2015 (NIK-NOKOBIT-NISK-UDIT)

Three SoftICE members, Hans Georg Schaathun, Arne Styve, and Robin T. Bye, are co-chairing the Joint IT Conference 2015 (Felles IT-konferanse 2015) together with AAUC colleague Anniken Karlsen. The conference, which consists of four co-located conferences (NIK, NOKOBIT, NISK, and UDIT), takes place in Ålesund on 23-25 November.

Town of Ålesund.

NIK, NOKOBIT, and NISK are well established, Norwegian, academic conferences within different branches of computing and IT.
The art noveau city and its surrounding region is home to a long range of high technology companies, especially within the maritime industry. Aalesund University College has an active role in the maritime cluster (Global Centre of Expertise). Among computing related innovations, we find increasing use of simulation and visualisation, both for training on demanding marine operations and for virtual prototyping used in the design and development process, as well as artificial intelligence and cybernetics in control systems.
Important dates:

  • Submission deadline (NIK/NOKOBIT/UDIT): 1/7/15
  • Deadline for proposals for workshops and other programme items: 1/8/15
  • Submission deadline (NISK): 31/8/15
  • Author notification : 21/9/15
  • Camera-ready papers: 9/10/15
  • Conference: 23-25/11/15

Please see the conference website for more information, and please submit a paper!
Follow the conference on Twitter and Facebook, and please hashtag us: #itkonferanse2015

Categories
Seminars

Seminars by the SoftICE lab

We have added a page with upcoming and past seminars. Please bookmark!
Dates have not been set yet for the upcoming spring seminars but will come shortly.
Past and planned seminars so far include work on virtual prototyping of offshore cranes, tug fleet optimisation algorithms, and pedagogical research.

Categories
SoftICE

SoftICE blog

The SoftICE lab was formed during autumn 2014. Today is the start of our blog, which has been created adherring to the principle «don’t get it right, get it written». Over time we will provide glimpses of our research. Or so we hope.
A research lab with a fancy acronym (SoftICE) is an attempt to consolidate a group of people with largely overlapping research interests and activities. The team members span computing and automation, but we have a common interest of putting theory to practical use. The projects we are involved in are industrial.
SoftICE stands for Software and Intelligent Control Engineering. We can contribute expertise and methodology from disciplines like cybernetics, artificial intelligence, and software engineering. In projects we work with domain experts from other engineering disciplines or even other areas of research.
A core interest is simulation and visualisation. We work with domain experts to develop models, and we can implement the models in software to create simulators.