A significant part of the research activity concerns basic research, with the aim to increase understanding of fundamental principles. This provides a solid cultural starting point for the development of a number of activities more oriented to the application. A natural bridge in this sense is provided by the presence, within the Department, of a number of Laboratories.
A short list is as follows:
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LabMACS |
| It is a research and didactical structure operating in the area of underwater robotics, industrial automation, home automation and mechatronics. The laboratory’s main equipment includes two Remotely Operated Vehicles, USBL acoustic tracking system, imaging sonars, underwater cameras. More information can be found at LabMACS web site. |
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Automation Laboratory (Fermo) |
| It is a research and didactical structure operating mainly in the area of industrial automation. The laboratory’s main equipment includes a 6DoF anthropomorphic manipulator, a two finger pneumatic gripper, a flexible work cell installation. |
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Optics and Microscopy Laboratory |
| The main activities of this laboratory concern the experimental characterization of integrated polymeric optical waveguides for Optical Printed Board Circuits applications, the realization of sensors and fiber optic systems based on low coherence interferometry, for application in the biomedical field and in the civil/industrial area for the monitoring of huge structures and gyroscope sensors. Recently, the study and the realization of nano-sensors. |
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Information Systems and Databases |
| The laboratory hosts a server farm composed of one Window and two Linux servers, UPS and back up system to which a number of clients can be connected. The system also exploits the departmental virtual infrastructure composed of a cluster of forty eight processors implementing an IaaS architecture. The hardware is exploited for the study and development of Service Oriented Architectures, Business intelligence test beds and prototypes, software engineering projects, both with research and teaching objectives. |
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Microelectronics Lab |
| The main activities of this laboratory concern: Measurement instruments and software for the design of electronic systems and integrated circuits, FPGA, RFId |
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AIRTLAB |
| The activities of this laboratory are currently focused primarily on Real-time Operating Systems. Various research activities are carried out that have as their field of application two real-time operating systems: Shark and Erika. The objective is to conduct experiments to evaluate the performance of the two real-time operating systems comparing them with those of the most popular general purpose operating systems. |
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Microscopy LAB |
| The activities of this laboratory concern: near field scanning microwave microscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy, atomic force microscopy (contact/semi and non-contact; air and liquid), magnetic force microscopy; ongoing development of new devices, including near field optic microscopy |
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Bioengineering LAB | ||
The laboratory is equipped with a 16 channel surface electromyographic system for the kinesiologic analysis of muscle electric activity during motion. The system manages also electrogoniometers and foot-switch for basography. The software allows the statistical analysis of sEMG signal in case of very long data acquisition tests, both for level walking and on tapis-roulant. Suitable webcams and Kinect system allow the quantitative and markerless analysis of simple, yet significant, motor tasks, usually adopted in a rehabilitation context as functional evaluation scales.
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Movement Analysis Laboratory | ||
The activities of this laboratory is focused on: Data capture protocols; Data processing; Information retrieval; GUI for supporting and facilitating referral and understanding of the MA data; Definition of significant evaluation protocols/revealing Motor tasks; Modeling of sensory motor control in different environmental conditions.
More information can be found at Movement Analysis Laboratory web pages |
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Microwave Lab |
| This laboratory is involved mainly in measurement of microwave components and subsystems |
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DOMOLAB | ||
This laboratory is devoted to the development of tools and procedures for modelling home automation systems, designing control strategies and analysing their performances. Distributed and centralized control strategies have been investigated and implemented to allocate the resources and to regulate their use in an optimal way. The research group collaborates with several companies in national and international projects on these topics: Indesit, Freescale, National Instruments, Bticino, MTS, Loccioni, ENEL, Thermowatt.
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Operations Research and Optimization |
| This Laboratory develops research in the field of the optimization and management science, with particular attention to discrete optimization, including the development of models and optimization algorithms for complex decision problems that arise in real contexts. The most frequently covered topics deal with manufacturing system optimization, supply chain management, transportation/logistics etc. In particular the group is active in the development of optimization algorithms for the management and planning of manufacturing systems and public transport systems. More informations can be found at RICOP web site. |
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Antennas and EMC | ||||
The antenna laboratory allows the antenna radiation pattern determination and the antenna impedance measurement. The EMC laboratory allows the emission and immunity measurement of equipments in reverberation chamber, including ESD and EFT tests.
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Microelectronics |
| The main laboratory activities are related to the design, measurements, analysis and testing of integrated circuits and electronic systems. |
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Artificial Intelligence |
| The main laboratory activities are related to: the study of biological and synthetic signals, neural networks, signal processing and identification, the implementation of electronic embedded system for signal processing and recognition. |
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Automatic Control Didactical Laboratory |
| The laboratory is used for the design of embedded control systems. A specific micro controller is used in detail as embedded controller. The analysis of the resources incorporated and integrated with this micro controller are improved. Analog to digital conversion, PWM outputs and serial communications are used as functional blocks for real-time controllers. For all the items developed, different laboratories activities have been planned. Students are invited to develop a project on a topic of the course. All projects have a hardware realization, the electronics of the I/O interface will be analyzed. Students will learn how to analyze data-sheets of interface devices with the micro controller in order to allocate processor resources and to define driver electronics. |
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LISA – Laboratory for Interconnected Systems Supervision and Automation |
| This laboratory was created with the aim to provide students some tools for the studies of complex interconnecting systems. The laboratory is equipped with multiple interconnecting stations on scale that realize a flexible system, which carry out different processes according to various automated layout. The aim is to study of the automation and control of interconnected systems and propose solutions for the management and interpretation of data from various phases of the production process so to increase the overall efficiency. Study of systems modeling, control and supervision of production systems by means of logical discrete event (DES). In addition, with the collaboration with an external company, the Lab will be equipped with apparatus and tools so to emulate the functioning of a Building and Home Automation system that integrates energy-consuming sources for heat and light power supply, such as heat pumps and artificial lights with green energy-supplying sources like fresh air flow and natural illuminance. The main interest is to be able to test different control architecture solutions combined with supervisory logic modules with respect to both typical control performance index and energy consumption reduction. |
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ITA3 Laboratory of Industrial plants, Technologies and Automation (Fermo) |
| This laboratory was created with the aim to provide students some of the most modern tools for the study of production processes, production systems and logistics, industrial automation and supervision control. The laboratory is equipped with a CNC workstation and with multiple interconnecting stations on scale that realize a flexible system, which carry out different processes according to various automated layout. The possibility offered by the laboratory to verify, by means of simulation analysis and control, the methods learned in courses of study constitutes a significant contribution in the completion of the course of studies. The availability of both simulation software and hardware models gives the possibility of analyzing from a multi-disciplinary point of view the system performance. The distinctive industrial features of the activities carried out contributes to reinforcing the link between academia and manufacturing by promoting the integration of graduate students into future work. |
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3Medialabs (A3lab, Semedia) |
| The laboratory activity is focused on Audio and Speech processing applications. The lab is provided with tools and equipments for real time experiments, composed by several professional sound cards, professional microphones, loudspeakers, headphones, amplifiers, preamplifiers, two professional audio mannequins used for spatial audio experiments and several workstations. Furthermore, a large audio semi-anechoic chamber with dimensions of 11x9x6m is under construction and it will be used for the experiments. |
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Advanced Robotics Laboratory |
| The Advanced Robotics Laboratory is place where graduate students carry small research projects in the areas of industrial and assistive robotics and electrical engines control. |
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TBD | ||
The main activities of the TBD laboratory are the control and management of cooperative unmanned systems (aerial, ground) applied in different practical context as the structure/building inspection, surveillance, safe & robust navigation, assisted living for people with special needs. The laboratory is equipped with state of art instruments and systems where students, doctoral, post-doc and professors cooperate in order to explore and then deal new frontiers for unmanned system.
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Laboratorio di Misure Elettriche "A. Menchetti" |
| The main activity of the Laboratorio di Misure Elettriche is concerning the test of components, circuits and systems for the Electrical and Electronics Measurements. |
