ISIE2021- Kyoto (The 30th International Symposium on Industrial Electronics)

Industry Forum

Industry Forum is an IES program for Industry to engage with research in a productive manner. Industry speakers are invited to discuss industry, technology directions, and, most importantly, challenges for the companies. We want all conference attendees to engage in the Industry Forum and listen to the presentations of our industry speakers so all communities can benefit.

Session 1 Power Directions in a Post-COVID World
7:00 – 8:00 pm JST, June 20, 2021

Chairs:

Dr. Thomas Strasser, Ms. Regina Roos

Talk 1:

Future of Power Electronics: expectations and challenges (7:00 – 7:20 pm)

Abstract: The acceleration of the energy transition and electrification of transport and industry calls for more and faster deployed power electronic solutions. New market players access this growth market, more and more of these smart, digital controlled devices are produced and installed and future expectations of power electronics are sky-high. This combination of factors are also the ingredients of jeopardizing the safety of people, equipment and even the stability of the electrical power delivery system. In this contribution testing experience is shared, developments highlighted, and future developments presented.

Dr. Peter Vaessen (KEMA Labs, Netherlands)

Bio: Peter Vaessen received a cum laude MSc degree in electrical power engineering from Eindhoven Technical University, The Netherlands in 1985. In his 35-year KEMA career he held research positions in the field of large power transformers and high voltage measurement & testing, headed the Transmission & Distribution high voltage department and has experience in (U)HVDC technology. He is innovation manager for KEMA Laboratories, chairman of the board of DERLab association and member of several national and international working groups. He is part-time professor at the Technical University Delft where he teaches high voltage technology and HVDC.

Talk 2:

Digital Twins and HILs are changing the co-creation of value between suppliers and users (7:20 – 7:40 pm)

Dr. Debora Santo (Typhoon HIL, Switzerland)

Bio: Debora Santo works as a Business developer at Typhoon HIL, a company that builds solutions for ultra-high-fidelity controller-Hardware-in-the-Loop (C-HIL) simulation for power electronics, microgrids, and distribution networks. Debora’s role mostly involves marketing and sales activities. She’s engaged in process optimisation, as well as blog and website content writing and editorial activities marketing-wise. In sales, her focus is on nurturing the partnerships within the Italian academic community, which came naturally, as she did her PhD in Italy at the Polytechnic University of Marche.

Talk 3:

Methods and Concepts for the System Level Validation of Power and Energy Systems (7:40 – 8:00 pm)

Abstract: The complexity in smart energy systems is increasing due to the integration of renewable energy resources which also results in a higher complexity in planning and operating the corresponding energy infrastructure. However, solutions and development like intelligent automation, smart control, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), etc. provide the technical basis to turn the existing power system into an intelligent entity, a cyber-physical energy system and therefore to cope with the raising complexity. While reaping the benefits with new intelligent behaviours, it is expected that system-level developments (architectural concepts, advanced automation and control, etc.) as well as the validation and testing will play a significantly larger role in realising future solutions and technologies. The implementation and deployment of these systems of systems are associated with increasing engineering complexity resulting also in increased engineering costs. Therefore, this talk tackles this trends and provides an overview about the provision of system-level validation methods and concepts for cyber-physical energy systems.

Dr. Thomas Strasser (AIT Austrian Institute of Technology)

Bio: Thomas Strasser received a master's and a PhD degree from the Technische Universität Wien (TU Wien) and he was awarded with the venia docendi (habilitation) in the field of automation from the same university. For several years, he has been a senior scientist in the Center for Energy of the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology. His main responsibilities involve the strategic development of smart grid automation and validation research projects. He is also active as a docent at TU Wien and involved in several IEEE activities.

Session 2 Industrial Automation and 5G Applications
8:00 – 9:00 pm JST, June 20, 2021

Chairs:

Dr. Victor Huang, Dr. Michael Condry

Talk 1:

5G Evolution for Vertical Industry (8:00 – 8:20 pm)

Dr. Gaoke Du (HuaWei, China)

Bio: Du Gaoke, Manager of Huawei Wireless System Innovation Research Dept, Senior Wireless Research Expert on Vertical Industry. He graduated from Beijing University of Post and Telecommunication in 2001 with Master Degree, deeply involved in HSDPA, LTE, NB-IoT, NR standardization since 2002. He has more 30+ patents/publications. Meanwhile, he initiated wireless research for vertical industry since 2011, research project covers LTE-Trunking, Video transmission, Internet of Things, industrial Internet of things, some research results were taken into 3GPP and produced several new features, such as NB-IoT, LTE-V. In past three years, he focus on UL transmission enhancement for industry Video, Low power high accurate positioning, Passive IoT/RFID, integrated Sensing and communication in mm-Wave etc. On cellular system, some new technologies e.g. ELAA, IRS was also studied recently.

Talk 2:

5G and Manufacturing – how Wireless transforms the factory (8:20 – 8:40 pm)

Abstract: Mitsubishi Electric has been conducting 5G tests with their own Local 5G network in their factory. Hajime will touch the current position of 5G technology and go through use cases in manufacturing sites based on hands-on experiences. It is a technology that has many / dreams and possibilities, but on the other hand misunderstandings, so Hajime will give you an on-the-ground overview.

Mr. Hajime Sugiyama (Mitsubishi Electric, Japan)

Bio: Hajime Sugiyama is the Digital Manufacturing Evangelist, Factory Automation Systems Group of Mitsubishi Electric Co. Hajime has 20+ years experience in Automation, like PLC (factory automation) production planning as well as experience in a greenfield U.S. Big3 Powertrain plant, and in Europe. He has been leading the expansion and ecosystems of the e-F@ctory (Mitsubishi Electric's Digital Manufacturing) concept, and helped many customers with IIoT installations globally. His latest focus is on evangelizing how advanced technologies (e.g., 5G, AI, data analytics, edge computing and robotics) will evolve and elevate the modern factory floor.

Talk 3:

New Trends in Communications and Computing Technologies towards the Cloud-Fog Automation (8:40 – 9:00 pm)

Abstract: Pushed by the advancement of fog or edge computing and new generation wireless networks such as 5G and WiFi6, a new paradigm of automation system, the Cloud-Fog Automation is emerging. In the Cloud-Fog Automation, the higher level automation applications such as ERP and MES will be deployed in public or private cloud infrastructure while the lower level applications such as SCADA and soft PLC deployed in the fog infrastructure over deterministic wireless networks. Disruptive reduction of CAPEX as well as engineering barriers will be enabled by largely eliminating the purpose-specific hardware such as hardware PLC and expensive cabling. To realize this vision, major technical challenges need to be solved including the deterministic wireless networks, deterministic edge computing, functional safety, and security.

Dr. Zhibo Pang (ABB, Sweden)

Bio: Dr. Zhibo Pang, MBA & PhD, is currently a Senior Principal Scientist at ABB Corporate Research Sweden, Adjunct Professor at University of Sydney, and Affiliated Faculty at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). He is a Senior Member of IEEE and Co-Chair of the Technical Committee on Industrial Informatics. He is Associate Editor of IEEE TII, IEEE JBHI, and IEEE JESTIE, and was Guest Editor of Proceedings of the IEEE, IEEE IoT-J, and IEEE RBME, etc. He was awarded the “2016 Inventor of the Year Award” and “2018 Inventor of the Year Award” by ABB Corporate Research Sweden.

Session 3 Medical Opportunities
9:00 – 10:00 pm JST, June 20, 2021

Chairs:

Dr. Michael Condry, Ms. Regina Roos, Dr. Zhibo Pang

Talk 1:

Is Embedded Vision ready to go? (9:00 – 9:20 pm)

Abstract: In the last years the advent of deep learning, the last frontiers of artificial intelligence, has allowed to achieve impressive performance in different image analysis tasks (such as objects detection, just to provide an example). Anyway, this accuracy is paid back in terms of resources required for using such neural networks (typically huge servers equipped with GPU). Anyway, in the last decades a new trend emerged: the Embedded Vision. It refers to the capability of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision algorithms to run directly on board of embedded devices such as the ones smart cameras are equipped with. Such devices are typically low size, low power and low energy. Is it then possible to run top deep learning algorithms on board of embedded devices and smart cameras? Let's discuss about that during this talk.

Prof. Alessia Saggese (University of Salerno, Italy)

Bio: Alessia Saggese is a Professor of the University of Salerno, Italy. She got her PhD in Computer Engineering in 2014, from the University of Salerno and from the ENSICAEN (France). Her PhD thesis has been awarded by the “Italian-French University” (UIF-UFI) within the Project Vinci Framework and also in 2016-2018 by Italian Chapter of the IAPR with the "Best PhD Thesis award". She co-authored over 80 papers, published to international journals and conferences. Her research mainly interests computer vision and artificial intelligence techniques applied to video and audio surveillance applications and cognitive robotics. She is also co-owner of A.I. Tech, a spinoff company of the University of Salerno developing cutting edge video analytics solutions running over smart cameras.

Talk 2:

Mobile Manipulation for Healthcare and Logistics at ABB Corporate Research (9:20 – 9:40 pm)

Dr. Pietro Falco (ABB Corporate Research, Sweden)

Bio: Pietro Falco received the Research Doctorate degree in Electronic Engineering in 2012 and until February 2015 he held a Post-Doc position at Second University of Naples. From December 2010 to July 2011 he was a Visiting Scholar at Karlsruher Institute of Technology (KIT) in Karlsruhe, under the supervision of Prof. Dillmann. He participated in several European projects concerning mobile manipulation in unstructured environments such as DEXMART, ECHORD, SAPHARI, EUROC. In 2011, he co-founded the company Aeromechs s.r.l., still very active in research and development of energy management systems for more electric aircrafts. In order to work full time on research, Pietro left the active co-leadership of the company and moved to Munich. In March 2015, he was appointed "TUM Foundation Fellow" at Technical University of Munich and in February he earned a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship for Experienced Researchers with the project proposal LEACON “LEArning-CONtrol tight interaction: a novel approach to robust execution of mobile manipulation tasks". Pietro joined ABB Corporate Research in 2018, driving and participating in both internal and European research projects on service robotics for logistics and healthcare. His research interests include machine learning for robotics, observation of human manipulation, robotic mobile manipulation, and Bayesian sensor fusion.

Talk 3:

Connecting Mobility in the last mile by digitalization for senior citizens (9:40 – 10:00 pm)

Abstract: Smart mobility for elder generation as a concept has its roots within the smart cities model. Driven by policy, technology, and community, the primary goal of smart cities is to deliver productivity, innovation, livability, wellbeing, sustainability, accessibility, and good governance and planning. This includes to overcome the last mile in transport as part of the mobility. But also the health and mental mobility by being digital engaged with community and health centers. The talk presents a concept how a life that is self-determined as long as possible can be designed for elderly people by mean of digital concepts which combine communication and information platforms in cybersecure safe environment.

Mr. Ludwig S. Sahesch-Pur (Airpur Drones GmbH, Switzerland)

Bio: 15 years international experience in risk management, contract management, industry segment & utilities: Change manager for organizations and dealing with peoples’ lives and project management. Dynamic leader: Build and motivate high performing teams across diverse cultures within multiple global locations. Successfully implemented global health and safety guidelines working on and off-site construction. Implementing maintenance operation guidelines and skill matrix for building information modeling (BIM) on construction site. Insourcing-outsourcing topics for SME. “Sub-Suppler” AG, Head Quality Management (2019-2020), SBB AG (Swiss Federal Railway) Head, Program Multiproject Management (2017 – 2020), BVB, Dept. Head, Maintenance (2015-2016), Alstom/ABB Power, Inspection Commissioning Manager (2007-2015), Siemens Power, R&D; Engineer (2007). He holds a MBA, (MAS), Dipl. Ing Mech. Eng, IWS.

Ms. Regina Roos (Airpur Drones GmbH, Switzerland)

Bio: Regina Roos is Vice President Business Development and Key Account Management, Typhoon-HIL GmbH. She joined Typhoon-HIL GmbH in 2020 , an organisation in the power electronic sector which focus on Digital Twin and HIL Solutions. Her strength is bold transformation of business opportunities in profitable revenues. She challenges innovation with customers and within her organization. She is presently managing two start-ups in the sector Mobility and Streaming Concepts . Prior, Regina Roos worked for Schneider Electric as Vice President, Segment Leader East Asia Pacific for the Mineral, Mining and Metals business. Her role had a strong focus on Digitalization and embracing change by working through co-creation of value with partners.
During her career at ABB, she lived in various countries in Asia and Australia. She led the Global Account Management implementation program. She owned the major Mining Company BHP in this capacity.
During various assignments at ABB, she restructured Sales Organisations and built up high-performing sales teams. She has spent her entire career in International Assignments after graduation at DHBW as Master Electrical Engineering. She has an MBA at the Business School INSEAD in France and Singapore. In 2014, she qualified at INSEAD for Board Positions. In 2020 she obtained the Swiss-Asia MBA at the FHNW in Switzerland. She is IEEE Senior Member and holds a Seat at the Queensland Government Safety Committee in Australia.