Project pitch by Himanshu Gupta

MORE is an innovative European Industrial Doctorate (EID) research and training programme. We are the first industry-academia partnership to jointly educate researchers on heavy-duty mobile machinery. The first of its kind that will address the need for dramatic improvements in HDM machinery and fill the gap in related research and training. 

Eight early stage researchers (ESRs) will be equipped with a set of research skills including robotics, machine learning, energy systems, as well as transferable skills such as entrepreneurship and career management. 

In this video, Himanshu Gupta presents his individual project in MORE on Robust all-weather environment 3D perception and obstacle avoidance.

 

Project Pitch by Amirmasoud Molaei

Amirmasoud is one of the eight Early Stage Researchers in MORE who are all researching on individual projects to address the need for dramatic improvements in HDM machinery. In this video, Amirmasoud Molaei presents his individual project in MORE on work performance evaluation of mobile machines in earth moving tasks by using process models and sensor data.

Project Pitch by Daniel Eriksson

Daniel’s research focuses on Automatic Bucket Filling for Wheel Loaders Using Machine Learning Techniques. Currently, he is at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and will switch to Liebherr in Austria to benefit both from our academic and industry partners. He is one of eight Early Stage Researchers in MORE that are working on individual research projects all with the main aim to address the need for dramatic improvements in HDM machinery. Watch his project pitch to find out MORE.

Project pitch by David Fassbender

David Fassbender’s research focuses on novel energy-efficient powertrain architecture for implements and optimized power management. He started in MORE back in Spring 2020 as the first of the eight Early Stage Researchers working in MORE at Tampere University in Finland and has since moved to Germany to carry on his research at Bosch Rexroth AG. Watch his project pitch to get a better understanding of his role within MORE.

Second Industry Workshop held online

The second Industry Workshop was organised by Örebro University on the 3. – 4. March 2021. The focus of the two day workshop was on Autonomous Navigation of HDM Machinery and consisted of a number of presentations from experts in the field.

In total, there were eight presentations:

  • Autonomous HDM operation  – Reza Ghabcheloo (TUT)
  • Model predictive control autonomous haulers – Johan Sjöberg (VCE)
  • Positioning and mapping for field robots – Juhana Ahtiainen (GIM Robotics)
  • Robot Operating System (ROS) – Henrik Andreasson (ORU)
  • Fully Automated Harbours: Position Measurement of the Container Handling Machine – Pekka Yli-Paunu (HIAB)
  • Under the Radar – System-Level Self-Supervision for Perception and Navigation – Ingmar Posner (Oxford)
  • Human Motion Prediction for save and efficient operation in shared environments – Andrey Rudenko (Bosch)
  • Decision making under uncertainty – Joni Pajarinen (TUD & Aalto)

The workshop was closed with a round table between the speakers and Early Stage Researchers to present their topics and ask any open questions in relation to the presented topics. In total, MORE will organise five Industry Workshops with the objective to provide ESRs and other experts with the knowledge and the tools to better understand the current and future challenges in the research topics covered by MORE.

Project Pitch by Paolo Forte

Paolo is one of the eight Early Stage Researchers in MORE who are all researching on individual projects to address the need for dramatic improvements in HDM machinery. Paolo’s project focuses on material flow coordination and optimization in construction sites. Currently, he is hosted in Sweden at Örebro University and will later join Novatron Oy in Finland to carry on his research within MORE.

Project pitch by Tyrone Machado

Tyrone is currently hosted at Tampere University in Finland and will join our industry partner Bosch Rexroth AG in Germany later this year. Within MORE, Tyrone is researching business cases for robotization, AI, and fuel efficiency in heavy duty machinery which he explains in more detail in his four-minute project pitch in an easy to understand way. Watch his pitch here or visit our YouTube channel for all Early Stage Researcher’s project pitches.

Early Stage Researcher’s pitch their projects

During the MORE kick-off meeting held online, 14.-16- September 2020 the MORE Early Stage Researchers all prepared a pitch to introduce their individual projects within MORE to the network. To make these available to interested individuals from outside of the consortium the eight Early Stage Researchers have recorded their project pitches to create a series of short project pitches.

The short introductory videos are an effective way to convey the highly complex content of the Early Stage Researcher’s projects to everyone interested in the project. The videos will be published over the course of the next weeks. Follow us on LinkedIn or subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive updates on the project pitches and MORE.

David (ESR4) presenting his work at IeCAT 2020

The 1st International Electronic Conference on Actuator Technology (IeCAT) was held online from the 23-27 November 2020. MORE’s ESR4, David, participated at the conference as an author, giving a video presentation and showing his paper with the title “Finding the Perfect Match—Different Heavy-Duty Mobile Applications Call for Different Actuators”.

The conference was sponsored by the MDPI open access journal Actuators and covered a wide range of actuation aspects in webinars and online sessions, such as actuator materials, miniaturization, soft or biohybrid designs, but also applications. In the session on Actuators for aircrafts and on- and off-road vehicles/machines, David could present his work on developing an algorithm for the evaluation of potential matches between actuator concepts (such as EHAs or LS actuators) and heavy-duty mobile applications. The paper and presentation video can be found on the conference webpage.

First MORE training event held online

The first MORE training week was organised by Tampere University (TAU) from the 14. – 16. September 2020. Due to the COVID 19 outbreak and all the travel restrictions MORE was required to organise the Introduction Week as an online meeting. Organising virtual meetings brings new challenges especially when the participants have never met before in person. However, the MORE project sees the first training event as successful given the difficult circumstances and saw very nice discussions on the research topics with the consortium members.

MORE managed to organise a successful three days online event with a variable program; a good compilation of technical lectures, soft skills and project management. All project beneficiaries and partners attended the online event. The seven recruited Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) attended the Introduction week. The main objective of the MORE Introduction week was to introduce all ESRs to the scientific and technological challenges in the HDM machinery sector.

Day 1 – Icebreaker
The first day of the meeting focused on introducing the project and the MORE ESRs. Each ESR prepared a three minute presentation to present their individual projects. The participants gave feedback on the talks and had the opportunity to ask questions.  The company partners Deere, Liebherr and HIAB also introduced their organisations and roles in the project.

Day 2 – Automation and Autonomy: Today and Tomorrow 

The second day consisted of further company introductions from Bosch Rexroth, Volvo, Novatron and GIM who are all involved in the MORE project. Presentations on mobile and autonomous mobile machines were held to bring the innovations being researched in MORE closer to the ESRs.

Day 3 – Dialogue

The final day of the meeting aimed to facilitate creating a dialogue and networking between the participants, especially the ESRs. For this, the ESRs received training on the principles of dialogue in action which is extremly important in online meetings. Afterwards, TAU organised online “sauna sessions”to bring participants together in smaller teams for deep discussions on the different ESR projects.

In the coming events we will give more floor to ESRs to present their research results and work progress and to obtain valuable input from their supervisors, industrial collaborator and external experts.