Embedded and Intelligent Systems (EIS)

Research goal

The goal of the research within EIS is to provide and develop knowledge (solutions, theories, methods, tools) that are relevant for the creation of innovative IT-based products and services – from enabling technologies, via system solutions and applications, to value-creating IT utilisation. With this, we intend to contribute to strengthening the competitiveness of Swedish industry.

Research leader at the School of Information Technology and the research environment EIS: Slawomir Nowaczyk.

Publications from EIS

Four Technology Areas and one Center

Research at EIS is conducted within four Technology Areas:

• Digital Service Innovation
• Aware Intelligent Systems
• Smart Electronic Systems
• System of Cyber Physical Systems

The competence in these technology areas include signals and systems, informatics, mathematics, computer science and engineering, forensics, electronics and physics. These competences form the Information Technology research environment.

Center for Applied Intelligent Systems Research (CAISR), is a long-term research program on intelligent systems established by Halmstad University. The program is funded by the University and the Knowledge Foundation with support from Swedish Industry.

Center for Applied Intelligent Systems Research, CAISR

Research in collaboration

Through our joint competences we can be an attractive partner and deal with projects where the whole range is treated, from enabling technologies – like low-power technologies and semiconductor sensors – to value-adding IT use, considering user aspects. In between, system and application aspects are treated, that is intelligent algorithms, application-specific computer architectures and efficient interconnection technologies.

Our strategy is to focus on a limited number of application areas in which we get recognised by industry and society as a key player and natural cooperation partner. Currently, the selected application areas are: health technology, traffic and transport systems, process industry, high-performance signal processing applications, experience industry, together with the (non-application) area of ground breaking electronics.

• EIS shall be an internationally recognised research environment with advanced and postgraduate education.
• EIS shall be characterised by well-developed research collaborations with the business sector and the public sector.
• EIS should be a leading environment within embedded and intelligent systems in Europe.

Research focus

The goal with artificial intelligence (AI) research and development is to construct systems that behave intelligently. Today it is common to assume that human experts define the task to be performed, what data should be collected, how should it be represented, and what metrics to use for performance evaluation. This means that these systems are designed or programmed, which leads to them breaking when the context changes.

Our aim with Aware Intelligent Systems research is to approach the construction of systems that can do life-long learning; systems that require less supervision and can handle surprising situations. In order to do so, the systems must become more aware and able to learn on their own, to handle events that are unknown at the time of design. Our research focuses on creation of systems that, as autonomously as possible, can construct knowledge from real life data capturing the interaction with the environment.

Technology Area leader: Slawomir Nowaczyk.

Application areas

When large amounts of data are collected and analysed by these intelligent systems, new solutions to several of today's societal problems can be developed. For example, recent developments in wearable sensors has inspired a vision of personalised health; modern energy production is becoming more volatile, diverse and distributed; transport efficiency depends on better maintenance and monitoring solutions. All those areas require novel solutions that build upon available data and require autonomous knowledge creation.

The research questions we explore include selecting what data to collect and how to find general and robust representations; how to do (semi-)autonomous deviation detection, dealing with concept drift and seasonal variations; how to associate events from different data sources; is it possible to explain why certain things have happened.

Aware systems research is a systems science, so there are many interconnected parts and the results need to address several aspects, tying them together. To enable this, we build demonstrators to showcase what this means, with sets of tools for all levels.

Research focus

Informatics at Halmstad University develops the Scandinavian Informatics tradition, which integrates Information Systems (IS) and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research. We profile Informatics towards Digital Service Innovation (DSI). This implies a focus on how value is created for users, organizations and societies through combining, re-combining and integrating resources into digital services. We also investigate how and why DSI may promote or create improvements in the wellbeing of different societal actors, by studying for example stakeholder involvement in innovation processes, digital service logics and architectures, innovation ecosystems and value network governance.

DSI research in Informatics combines theorizing (identifying models, patterns, structures, relations, processes) with applied and action-oriented research in co-creation with industrial and public-sector partners, and covers process innovation research focused on stakeholder involvement and value co-creation as well as the intersection between digital services and business. The core competence areas include innovation process knowledge, digital service and business innovation, interaction design and design science. We often use qualitative research methods such as qualitative interviews, focus group and workshop methods (e.g. co-design, participatory design, personas) participant observation, and design ethnography. Research output includes insights, theory and method development, prototypes and demonstrators.

Technology Area leader: Magnus Bergquist.

Application areas

Empirically Informatics research at Halmstad University focus on DSI in different application areas in companies, public sector and for individuals. Healthcare studies aims develop an understanding of digitalization of hospitals and healthcare to empower health professionals in their work. This is done by studying the use and meaning of health technologies, and developing innovative solutions to health-related challenges for individuals, groups, organisations, companies and society at large.

In the transport sector, we study how for exampel embedded sensors in buses and intelligent systems create new opportunities for digital service innovation. A growing strand of research focuses on users’ appropriation of autonomous driving (AD) cars and digital service design for future mobility solutions.

The media application area has been the main focus for Informatics at Halmstad University for long. In collaboration with the Swedish and international media industry research has centered on exploring new IT concepts and services enabling new forms of value creation and value capture.

Research on public sector DSI focus on how digitisation in the form of civic services transforms the relationship between citizens and government, and what innovation means for the services purchased by public authorities.

Research focus

Connected technology is everywhere. Artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things have changed our world. New innovations in health, energy, future homes and cities, autonomous vehicles and everyday technology all require a smart core of electronics. This massive integration of electronics everywhere introduces challenges like integration, miniaturisation, building practice, new sensors, low energy consumption, electromagnetic interference (EMI), architectures for high performance computing, resource efficient communication and affordable components.

Within the Technology Area Smart Electronic Systems we have ongoing research on antenna design, electromagnetic interference and compatibility, nanoelectronics and photonics, radar and radio systems, high performance computing architectures, and building practice for components and systems.

Technology Area leader: Pererik Andreasson.

Research focus

There is growing consensus that many important future innovations will involve closely coupled computational (or “cyber”) and physical components, often in a networked or distributed setting. Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) is a term coined to describe such systems, and has served as a flag for a large community of researchers working in this area.

At the Technology Area, we develop model-based methods that enable innovation within CPS. New methods are being developed for specification, simulation, and testing. Specification is the process of creating the models, which serve as the central artefact in model-based methods. Simulation provides a mechanism for “animating” or “running” models, and provides a fundamental tool for understanding the dynamics of a given model. At Halmstad University, focus has been on rigorous simulation methods which take into account round, discretization, and quantization errors and are guaranteed to produce correct results. Research on testing focuses on developing notions of conformance of software product lines and hybrid systems, as well as test-case generation.

Application areas for the research within cyber physical systems include robotics, automotive, and healthcare systems.

Technology Area leader: Wojciech Mostowski.

The scientific focus for the Center for Applied Intelligent System Research (CAISR) is “aware” intelligent systems – human aware, situation aware, and self-aware. These systems can communicate with people, assess people's intentions and combine different sources of information to get an overall picture and monitor themselves. The subject expertise in the center is in signal analysis, machine learning and mechatronics. CAISR also has an emphasis on cooperating systems, in line with the research focus for the research environment Information Technology.

The video shows Baxter, a social robot who is trained by the researchers to perceive and interpret people's feelings and needs. For example, the robot can help people who fall and make sure that the cooked food is healthy.

The video explains the research project AIMS (Automatic Inventory and Mapping of Stock) which started in 2015 and deals with intelligent warehouse trucks. The research has been done in collaboration between the CAISR at Halmstad University, Toyota Material Handling, Kollmorgen and Optronic. The project has led to continued cooperation in the coming years between the parties involved in order to further develop and improve the automatic storage trucks.