Plenaries

We are pleased to confirm the following Plenary speakers (in alphabetical order):

Guidance Navigation and Control of future aircraft: an industrial vision

Abstract:

Air transport is a major contributor to global economic prosperity. The sector is the cornerstone of global commerce with a myriad of economic and societal benefits. Aviation plays a vital role in facilitating economic growth, particularly in developing countries. A few decades from now, and given the anticipated increase in traffic volume and continuing expansion of the world’s aviation network with greater aviation connectivity, improving air transport in a sustainable way will be a serious worldwide challenge. From an aircraft point of view, this will need technological breakthroughs in the design of all aircraft systems: airframes, propulsion systems, airborne systems, software and hardware, communications, navigation, control and guidance, etc.

This semi-plenary session proposes to focus on the Guidance Navigation and Control (GNC) of future aircraft by giving an industrial perspective by an aircraft manufacturer. Ranging from the current industrial state of practice to the future GNC: advanced Fault Detection and Diagnosis, full-time all-event available control and innovative cockpit, this presentation will be exemplified through different past and present projects dedicated to this topic, among them some recent and current European projects. This talk will as well show the importance to bridge the gap between basic research levels and industrial needs. Some concrete examples will demonstrate how advanced methods advocated by the academic community have been finally applied on some of the most modern aircraft.

Optimizing Cooperative Driving for Road Goods Transportation

Goods transportation is of outmost importance for our society and is continuously increasing. Already today, goods transportation on roads accounts for about 23% of CO2 emissions from all fossil fuel combustion and 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent study by the International Transport Forum. Despite the influence the transportation system has on our energy consumption and the environment, road transportation is mainly done by individual long haulage trucks with no real-time coordination. In this presentation, we will discuss how modern information and communication technology supports a future integrated goods transportation system where fleet of trucks are coordinated to travel together in vehicle platoons. From the reduced air drag, platooning trucks traveling close together can save about 10% of their fuel consumption. Control and estimation challenges and solutions on various level of this transportation system will be presented. It will be argued that a system architecture utilizing vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication enable receding horizon optimal control of individual trucks as well as optimized platoons and fleets of platoons. Experiments done on test trucks will illustrate system performance and safety requirements. Some preliminary results from a large-scale evaluation currently being performed on the highway road network in Northern Europe will also be discussed. The presentation will be based on joint work with collaborators at KTH and at the truck manufacturer Scania.

Aerial Robot Swarms

Autonomous micro aerial robots can operate in three-dimensional, indoor and outdoor environments, with applications to search and rescue, first response and precision farming. I will provide an overview of our work, and describe the challenges in developing small, agile robots and our recent work in the areas of (a) control and planning, (b) state estimation and mapping, and (c) coordinating large teams of robots.

Energy Management, Voltage and Frequency Control for Smart Grids — A Technology Providers View

Smart Grids are one of the cornerstones for our future power system guaranteeing sustainability, cost efficiency and security of supply. With respect to sustainability they help to increase the share of power generation based on renewable sources. The crucial point with integration of renewable plants into the existing grid infrastructure is their distributed and volatile character. Smart Grids help to minimize necessary extension of the grid infrastructure, resulting in minimal costs. The security of supply can be held constant or even increased using Smart Grid concepts like Virtual Power Plants, Demand Response or Microgrids. The topic Smart Grids is very broad and has at least three technology pillars: control systems, power engineering, information and communication technology. All are equally important, but the control systems part is the crucial one, thinking about power system stability and performance. This semi-plenary talk gives an overview about the challenges caused by the integration of renewable and distributed energy resources and answers the question how control technology contributes to the solution. This is done from the perspective of a company providing products and solutions. At the moment the Smart Grid discussion often focuses on the necessary information and communication platforms. When it should comes to real business, one has to talk about the functionality the customer is willing to pay for. Innovations here are often based on new control and operation concepts. Some results from first field tests are provided.