Research promotes innovation in "district betterment" programs through multidisciplinary experimentation of long-term actions aimed at mitigating the structural health and hygiene vulnerability of the inhabitants of the Chamanculo district in Maputo, combining health and environmental projects in a holistic and systemic
The recent pandemic has highlighted the vulnerability of the population living in Chamanculo , which had pre-existing problems due to the lack of health services, as well as revealed the inadequacy of waste management, the limited supply of safe water, both in private and public areas, and the impossibility of guaranteeing adequate personal hygiene.
HANDS is aimed at activating a “Social Laboratory” dedicated to the production of Polichina, the sanitizing liquid Made in Politecnico and to promote better waste management and an appropriate energy production model on a urban and domestic scale, ultimately transferring the related technological skills to local stakeholders.
"We have imagined an automated system just a bit bigger than a coffee machine", explains Alumnus and researcher Mattia Sponchioni , "with four different dispensers connected containing the elements to produce Polichina: water, ethanol, hydrogen peroxide and glycerol. You set a specific quantity and the system produces it. We aim to arrive at a prototype to be installed in some key points of Chamanculo: a school, a square, a market". Refueling stations to be integrated with an intelligent management system for waste generated following the health emergency: from masks to Polichina dispensers .
Credits Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu on Unsplash
In the "Social Laboratory", new methods of electricity production will also be tested for the power supply of Polichina distributors and for the local procurement of raw materials from renewable sources on site.
In this particular situation, the use of Polichina also has a positive impact in terms of water saving .
"We aim to reduce consumption from the liter scale to that of milliliters", comments Sponchioni, "when washing hands, liters of drinking water are consumed, with Polichina just a spray of a few milliliters is enough, saving over 95% of water which is in short supply in degraded places and where there is the danger of other pathologies such as tuberculosis."
“Science has no gender: the reason girls don't seem fond for science it sometimes is because they aren't encouraged. For this reason, the Politecnico has been organizing events open to children for years (including Researchers' Night ), to teach them with simple words what is scientific research".
So says to Elle the executive vice rector of the Politecnico di Milano and delegate for Research and Diversity Donatella Sciuto , interviewed on the STEM professions which, even today, are subject to a cultural resistance imposed by society, which continues to see these professions as “ men's interests” .
"In the collective imagination, technical professions are perhaps still a natural gift for men, a great achievement for women. It still happens that female engineers feel the need to justify or belittle their role. I believe that the real step forward will be taken when most of us think that the choice to devote ourselves to a technical profession is simply a legitimate aspiration. An answer to the curiosity, interest and desires of the person ", as written by the Vice Rector in the preface of the book“ Alumnae. Engineer and technologies ”.
In the interview Donatella Sciuto discusses the future of new STEM professionals, who will increasingly favor an interdisciplinary approach, combining the "mathematical"aspects with the "humanistic" one: nowadays, in fact technological skills are not enough to develop new technologies.
"We need innovative capacity, creativity and a humanistic approach, because we need to be able to understand the social and personal impact of what we achieve".
This is the case of professions growing in the last few yars, such as those in the field of cybersecurity , which require IT skills but also management and law skills, taught at the Politecnico in two master's courses (Computer Engineering and Cyber Risk Strategy and Governance), and the study and management of efficient mobility for citizens , studied in depth in the degree course in Mobility Engineering, which combines technological skills with those of logistics and planning.
THE GENDER REPORT: A SNAPSHOT OF THE UNIVERSITY AND THE ACTIONS TAKEN WITH RESPECT TO THE GENDER PERSPECTIVE
In accordance with the strategic actions of the Politecnico di Milano in favor of greater diversity and inclusion, the Gender Report takes a snapshot of the University every year with respect to the gender perspective in study and work paths, among students and internal staff of the teaching staff and the technical-administrative staff.
From this analysis are made clear the policies and positive actions to be implemented to promote equal opportunities, thus tracing new goals and points of arrival.
In the book “ALUMNAE, Engineer and Technologies” we have collected the stories of 67 engineers in our community. The target? Telling a set of positive examples for the “STEM” girls of today and tomorrow. This book is one of the many initiatives created by Alumni Politecnico di Milano. If you like our activities, you can donate to support them .
The Pandemics is forcing us to re-discuss the paradigms according to which we live, work, live and think: design has a central role in this process.
On this topic professors, professionals and Alumni of Politecnico di Milano discuss on project culture: how to re-think the process in light of the recent events? Through 30-minutes talks, promoted and realised by POLIMI Design System of Politecnico di Milano with the involvement of designers coming all over the world, 48 guests have centered a key word they proposed, and consider to be significant in defining the design and its changes.
We present to you the Alumni that have taken part in this world journey in 24 hours.
Intro | IN-EQUALITY
The first appointment is with the Alumni Alessandro Biamonti, Alessandro Deserti, Anna Barbara and Matteo Ingaramo that have centered their talks around the word In-Equality.
ILHA
The Alumna Francesca Piredda talked with Susana Gonzaga and the Alumnae Elisa Bertolotti and Valentina Vezzani on the concept of "Ilha” in the world of Design.
VULNERABILIDADE
Professors and Alumnae Beatrice Villari and Carla Cipolla talk about the concept of “vulnerability” in Design.
DISRUPTION
Davide Fassi , associate professor at the Politecnico di Milano, converses with Alumna Teresa Franqueira , associate professor at the Universidade de Aveiro on the topic "disruption" - the "rupture" - in Design and in the post-Covid era.
SPECULATION
Francesco Scullica , Alumnus, full professor and member of the design department of Politecnico di Milano talks with Francesca Murialdo , Alumna of the Polytechnic and professor at Middlesex University on the concept of "speculation".
BOUNDARIES
Alessandro Biamonti , Alumnus and Design researcher at the Politecnico di Milano, talks about boundaries in Design with Alumna Elena Pacenti , dean of the School of Design at NewSchool.
APAPACHAR
Silvia Maria Gramegna, Alumna and Postdoctoral researcher at the Politecnico di Milano, interview Erik Ciravegna , Alumnus of Politecnico and professor of Design at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile on the meaning of "apapachar" and how it can be accommodated in the post-pandemic world.
PEOPLE
Alessandro Biamonti , Alumnus and Design researcher at the Politecnico di Milano, talks with Mauro Porcini , Alumnus, Senior Vice President and Chief Design Officer of PepsiCo on "people", or how the world of post-pandemic work and design will be able to really focus on people in the future.
DATUM
Beatrice Villari , Alumna and professor at the Department of Design at the Politecnico di Milano, and Paolo Ciuccarelli , Alumnus at the Polytechnic and professor at Northeastern University converse on the concept of “datum”.
PASSION
Alessandro Biamonti , Alumnus and Design researcher, converses with Raffaella Colombo , Alumna and professor at the Politecnico di Milano on the meaning of “passion”.
Ethics, health, physics of ultra-fast processes, space exploration, energy and sustainability: these are just some of the themes pursued by young researchers at Politecnico di Milano, in an increasingly central perspective of responsible research and the impact of technologies in society.
Since 2014, through the European Horizon 2020 program, Politecnico has welcomed 24 MSCA fellows. Six of them will begin their project at Politecnico in 2021: let’s learn more about them.
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN PLANNING
What does it mean to be a subject in the 21st century? Diletta De Cristofaro, 34 years old, wonders. Hers project, SCRAPS: writing the Sleep CRisis: 24/7 cAPitalism and neoliberal Subjectivity, will study what doctors and psychologists around the world call the "sleep crisis". The researcher will analyze works of fiction, nonfiction and digital culture to investigate the impact of the times of productivity on health and the relationship between individual health and neoliberal ideologies.
Its base will be the META, a research group of Politecnico that deals with philosophical, epistemological, ethical and social issues related to the processes of science, technology and innovation.
De Cristofaro has a degree in philosophy in Milan and a doctorate in American studies in England, where she worked for 10 years before arriving at Politecnico: "it's the right place to explore the relationship between human beings and technology - comments De Cristofaro - fundamental relationship of our identities ".
She is one of the researchers who have leaned on the MSCA Master Class of Politecnico, a path that supports the best post-docs from all over the world who want to apply for a Marie Curie grant and choose Politecnico as host institution: "it was a ' priceless opportunity. Through this masterclass, I developed a deeper understanding of the MSCA application and assessment process and learned the best tips and strategies that helped me shape a successful application, ”commented the researcher.
DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS
Michele Loi also comes from a humanistic background: he is 42 years old, with a degree in philosophy in Cagliari and a doctorate from Luiss in Rome. For 5 years In Switzerland, first working in ETH Zurich and then at the University of Zurich, he has been dealing with ethics applied to data, in particular medical data, big data and algorithms.
“Data is not everything - comments Loi. The way you look at the data leads to different conclusions. And it is not based only on scientific but also moral considerations. It is our ideas, our values that tell us how to read the data to come up with a judgment on the algorithm's fairness.
"The debate is particularly relevant in reference to clinical care, where machine learning algorithms have been used to improve diagnoses, therapeutic choices and, in general, the actions of the health system. Loi's MSCA project will focus on this: "Fair predictions in health".
In fact, since automatic learning models depend on historically collected information, comments that have suffered or suffer structural discrimination risk further damage due to inaccurate projections which, for example, can lead to unfair choices in the allocation of resources, reinforcing inequalities in access to health services.
“Il mio obiettivo è quello di sviluppare un framework di lavoro condiviso che permetta di tradurre alcuni assunti morali in vincoli di programmazione. Questi assunti morali devono essere resi espliciti e comunicati in modo comprensibile agli stakeholders. Dovremo identificare una serie di problemi di equità nei modelli utilizzati, ad esempio, per prevedere come un paziente reagirà ad una cura e capire come collegare alcuni principi etici con alcune formulazioni matematiche tipiche della computer science.
Vorrei anche lavorare alla costituzione di un “Fairness Lab”, un laboratorio che visualizzi i possibili significati e modi diversi di leggere i dati sotto la guida di principi etici. Per questo ho scelto il Poli: mi sono reso conto che, per poter dare un reale contributo alla società, da filosofo mi devo confrontare con persone che si occupano di matematica e statistica. Oggi non è possibile fare etica senza confrontarsi con ciò che è matematicamente impossibile.
PHYSICS DEPARTMENT
Maurizio Reduzzi, 33, Physical Engineering Alumnus and former PhD student of Politecnico, has sinced worked at UC Berkeley, California, and at ICFO - The Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona. He has always dealt with the physics of ultra-fast processes (in particular attosecond science), a discipline in which Politecnico is historically at the forefront.
“Tomatto deals with studying charge transfer processes on a very short time scale (from a few femtoseconds to a few tens of attoseconds) in organic matter”, explains Reduzzi. "With HETRUSQ I will use similar techniques, with the aim of exploring the interaction, on the same extreme temporal streams as TOMATTO, between molecules and their natural surrounding environment, water".
The experiments will mainly concern heteroaromatic molecules, which constitute the fundamental components of DNA and a large part of organic matter. The final step will be to compare the results of the studies in a gaseous state with those in a liquid environment, to which the molecules react.
"The development of optical technology will be crucial, which will allow us to synthesize light pulses tunable in frequency in the ultraviolet state of the art (lasting a few femtoseconds). The integration of this light source with a monochromator for the extreme ultraviolet (a very advanced instrument already present in the laboratories of Prof. Nisoli) will allow time-resolved spectroscopy studies that have never been carried out before".
Armando Genco, 32, studied materials engineering at the University of Salento, has obtained a PHD at the Research Center for Nanotechnologies in Lecce and has completed his post-doc at the University of Sheffield.
He is an expert in polaritons, particles composed of a photon and an exciton (ie an electron energetically excited in a luminescent material) which, in very particular conditions within micro- or nanometer-sized devices can bind.
“This type of condition is called a strong coupling regime,” explains Genco. "It has characteristics that can be exploited to obtain coherent light sources (lasers) with innovative and low-threshold materials, which require very little energy: the potential repercussions in the world of telecommunications and computing, for example, are very promising both in terms of speed and environmental impact ".
Genco's MSCA project, ENOSIS: ENhancing and prObing Strong light-matter Interactions in 2D materials by ultrafaSt optical techniques, will study the properties of 2D materials (materials with a thickness of a few atoms). In particular the coupling between 2 different layers of these materials in relation to the possibility of creating the conditions for the emission of polaritons.
"In a strong coupling regime and as a function of the twist angle (i.e. reciprocal torsion), these bi-layers can create very favorable conditions for producing coherent light through polaritons. To move forward in my research I needed a perspective in the field of ultrafast spectroscopy, to look at what happens to electrons and photons a few tens of femtoseconds after coupling, and the group of prof. Cerullo at Politecnico is at the forefront in this field ".
Today still few groups of research in the world have studied 2D materials with "twisted" angles and specific characterization techniques are needed for these devices. In order to study them, Genco will rely on the "hyperspectral imaging" technique (using a Politecnico patent), which allows to obtain a spectral analysis of the light for each single wavelength almost simultaneously for each point of the analyzed sample.
DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND AREOSPACE TECHNOLOGIES
Mirko Trisolini, 32, deals with the dynamics of celestial bodies, satellites and space debris, in particular the motion of fragments and particles around minor bodies of our Solar System, such as asteroids and comets.
"I chose Politecnico as host institution for the experience and technical background of the research group in which I work and the deep-rooted collaborations, including international ones, to which he has access". Trisolini, in fact, will work with the University of Padua and the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) to develop an innovative and autonomous system for the extraction of rare and precious materials that could be found inside asteroids and comets.
"Being able to explore the composition of these celestial bodies will allow us to improve our knowledge of the Solar System, but also to learn how to exploit the resources of space: mineral resources, for example, but also vital for future manned missions, such as water that it could be under the surface ”.
The intermediate step of the project will lead Trisolini to develop more precise models for the collection and behavior in orbit of materials extractable from asteroids (with image processing techniques and reconstruction of the characteristics of the particles). The development of these models and algorithms will help improve the autonomy of satellites for long-range missions.
DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS AND CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
One of the greatest challenges of our time is energy transition and especially implementing ‘energy smart’ chemical manufacturing processes. Mark Bajada, 30, is working with goal in mind: he holds a degree in chemistry at the University of Malta and a master in energy engineering at Cambridge, where he is continuing his PHD, focusing on artificial photosynthesis (generational solar fuels).
His MSCA project, SSEFR: Single-Site Electrocatalytic Flow Reactor for C-C Coupling, aims at identifying and creating new materials capable of storing energy to solve intermittency problems associated with renewable energy.
“The excess supply could be directed and stored in a stable chemical bond. However, to achieve this goal, efficient and selective electrocatalysts are needed”. Bajada will work on single-site catalysis an interesting and new research field.</p
The first objective will be the design, development and understanding of precious-metal-free single-site electrocatalytic systems that can be produced with cheap and available materials. The following step will be to engineer and manufacture catalytic flow reactors that use this type of fuel instead of conventional electrochemical cells, to obtain economical energy from renewable sources and without the risk of fluctuating availability.
"I chose Politecnico di Milano for its excellent reputation: I am interested in Italian culture and this is the best place for what I want to develop".
Starting from the next academic year, the Cremona pole of the Politecnico di Milano will host the new master's degree course in Agricultural engineering , organized with in collaboration with Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.
The Politecnico di Milano is the first Italian university to propose a study course fit for the new challenges that companies and organizations in the agricultural sector have highlighted in recent years.
To do this, a training course specifically dedicated to the agricultural and agri-food sector was created, aimed at training professionals to face the future challenges of a fundamental and distinctive sector for Italy and the European Union.
Credits: www.age.polimi.it
AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING: GOALS
This project is part of a rapidly developing context: in the last three years the average annual growth of Agriculture 4.0 (the so-called" precision agriculture", created thanks to the use of digital 4.0 technologies) in Italy was 104% (Smart Agrifood Observatory, 2021), while the search for ever greater sustainability, an area where the European Union is a leader, is creating new innovative pushes.
"Our goal is to train engineers working in the agro-industrial sector with a systems vision - declared Gianni Ferretti, Vice Rector of the Cremona Campus -, that is a approach to the study and implementation of application solutions based on an overall vision of the various multidisciplinary aspects of the technological, agronomic, environmental supply chain, on the ability to model and manage the interactions between the various components, supported by basic knowledge of the sector ".
Credits: www.age.polimi.it
The degree course in Agricultural engineering is one of the few of its kind in the world and stems from the desire to give the right attention to issues such as innovation and sustainability and from the interaction of hundreds of companies that have collaborated in research in recent years. in this context together with the Politecnico di Milano.
"More and more players in the sector, in all positions of the supply chain, - explains Filippo Renga , director of the Smart Agrifood Observatory of the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano - highlighted the need for new skills capable of facing and combining the future challenges of the sector: technological innovation, sustainability and collaboration ”.
Credits home: www.age.polimi.it
MAP is the magazine of the Alumni of Politecnico di Milano
The magazine is your compass to navigate everything that is developing and changing in our University.
Below you will find a related article : if you like what you are seeing, support us . You will be able to collect your copy for free.
Marco Donolato, Alumnus Physical Engineering, is the inventor of an innovative system able to detect infectious diseases, including Dengue fever, Zika and SARS-CoV-2 . The test requires only a drop of blood and produces accurate results in less than 10 minutes, allowing for prompt patient treatment.
Very easy to use, cheap, and requires very little training for medical personnel, making it particularly suitable for low-income and developing countries. It is one of the 3 finalist inventions in the "Research" category of the European Inventor Award 2021 , the European Patent Office's annual award to inventors who have made a significant contribution to innovation, the economy and society.
Credits www.epo.org
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The device is called BluBox and was developed by BluSense Diagnostics, the start-up that Donolato co-founded with his colleague and Alumnus Filippo Bosco, in Denmark, in 2014.
It uses the Immuno-Magnetic Assay technology: a laser beam passes through a blood sample mixed with synthesized magnetic nanoparticles to bind to a biological target, for example antibodies to a virus; an optical reader detects the clustering dynamics of the nanoparticles and identifies the presence of the biological target. It is able to quantify the virus concentration in the patient's blood in about 10 minutes.
The start-up has recently developed a version of BluBox that allows detecting the presence of COVID-19 antibodies in 5-7 minutes . The test will be launched in the next few days in some Italian hospitals.
«The test kit - explained Donolato , interviewed by Sole 24 Ore - was created with the aim of being cheap, but fast and accurate and requires little training for medical personnel. The test for Covid-19 will be marketed by half May and sold to public hospitals and clinics in Europe ». "Marco Donolato and his team demonstrated how it is possible to combine different lines of research to provide solutions to some of the biggest global health problems - commented the President of the European Patent Office, António Campinos, announcing the finalists of the 2021 edition of the European Inventor Award - It could potentially have a very significant impact on the health of some of the world's most vulnerable people ».
Among these projects there is also MakingMEV (Multiple Emergency Ventilator), a complete reinterpretation of the emergency support for respiratory ventilation: a ventilator capable of supporting the breathing of 10 patients at the same time , safe and customizable for each patient, and able to prevent mechanical ventilator damage.
THE PROJECT ILLUSTRATED BY ALUMNUS AND RESEARCHER BENIAMINO FIORE
MakingMEV aims to create the first fully functional prototype of the ventilator, validate its functionality in the laboratory and analyze its realistic potential of being used in a clinical environment.
« The process of bringing a new technology to the clinic passes through a well-coded procedure of approval by the regulatory bodies," explains Alumnus, and researcher at the Politecnico di Milano Beniamino Fiore . "Over the next 18 months we aim to take the first of these steps, namely the validation of the prototype in the laboratory, which will be performed both here at the Politecnico and at the Policlinico di Milano, using simulators to replicate the respiratory biomechanical response of treated patients ".
Photo by Adhy Savala on Unsplash
MakingMEV was created in a multidisciplinary context : «In the project - explains Fiore - researchers from three Departments of the Politecnico provided synergistic skills in bioengineering, mechanical engineering, automation and engineering management. The team is completed by the staff of the Anesthesia and Intensive Care Department of the Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, which gives its research contribution to the project on a completely voluntary basis ".
The project (we talked about in number 8 and issue 9 of the MAP) has already attracted the interest of various institutions of social utility and bodies active in the promotion of highly sustainable projects.
"The idea emerged during the pandemic wave of early 2020 in Italy. However, the project could be of benefit for emergency situations in general, and especially for less organized health systems in developing countries", and adds "MakingMEV was our reaction to the emergency, our way of saying: “let's do something concrete! “».
Producing water on the surface of the Moon is now possible thanks to a chemical-physical process that allows oxygen to be extracted from the regolith (lunar sand), as demonstrated by the experiments conducted by the Politecnico di Milano and OHB Italy .
The project, carried out as part of the demonstration mission ISRU (In-Situ Resource Utilization) , conceived and funded by ESA , European Space Agency and with the important contribution of ASI , Italian Space Agency is a fundamental element for the colonization of space , and in particular of the Moon.
The ability of humans to produce water on the lunar surface is of prime importance for the survival of crews over long periods of time. This production capacity also frees future colonies from the use of systems that would require a continuous supply from the Earth.
"The result obtained by the Politecnico di Milano and OHB Italia - says professor Michèle Lavagna of the Politecnico di Milano at the helm of the project - opens up new stimulating perspectives in scope of lunar exploration and a permanent and sustainable human presence. It is a process that presents innovative elements of an exquisitely Italian matrix that places our country in a position of international importance in the scenario of the next extra-terrestrial human exploration activities. "</em
HOW THE WATER PRODUCTION PROCESS ON THE MOON WORKS
The extraction process takes place using a plant built and installed in the laboratories of the Department of Aerospace Sciences and Technologies of the Politecnico. This plant, after being "fed" with sand simulating the lunar soil, managed to produce water , extracting oxygen from the oxides present in the minerals that make up the soil of the Moon.
“Produrre ossigeno in ambiente lunare – dichiara Roberto Aceti, Alumnus in Aeronautical Engineering and CEO of OHB Italia - testifies how the close collaboration between science, university research and businesses can lead to the development of an industrial product of the highest technological value capable of changing the prospects of our future as well as reconfirming Italy's very high spatial skills on the world stage. "
MAP is the magazine of the Alumni of Politecnico di Milano
The magazine is your compass to navigate everything that is developing and changing in our University.
Below you will find a related article : if you like what you are seeing, support us . You will be able to collect your copy for free.
The Politecnico di Milano has allocated 10 million euros to the post-Covid restart plan. The investments concern the innovation of education, the right to study and the innovation and research laboratories.
«After dealing with the emergency - declares the Rector Ferruccio Stay at Il Sole24Ore - the Politecnico di Milano has worked in recent months in a great work of revaluation and redesign. A dutiful act to redefine the positioning and attractiveness of the university; to think about the university of the future and accelerate innovation processes in response to new needs; to consolidate the relationship with the city and the territory, with companies and international realities. The greatest damage we could do to ourselves and our students is that of not being able to transform this moment, even if dramatic, into an element of advantage ".
Credits La Repubblica
INNOVATION OF TEACHING
Innovation in tools and contents, as also explained by Lamberto Duò, Rector's delegate for teaching, in the latest issue of MAP . Enhancing the experience of the last year but in the wake of a reflection already underway for some time, the attention of the University is directed to the technologies tested every day by teachers and students in the classrooms of the Politecnico di Milano to rethink the organization of the teaching by finding a balance between distance learning and classroom experience , reducing the hours of frontal lessons and promoting planning moments in face-to-face groups.
Pilot projects will also be promoted in some strategic directions, such as co-teaching with international universities . Finally, a strong investment will also concern the creation of new spaces for the socialization and well-being of students and workers.
LABORATORIES
The University has also launched a plan to upgrade research laboratories: technologies for space , quantum communications , materials , prints 3D biological materials are some of the sectors that today represent a priority in terms of investment.
In a period post-pandemic what will be technology's role in our new lives?
What will be the changes to education in this new normal? What are the competences?
In the Digital Talk organized by the North America Chapter in collaboration with Alumni Politecnico di Milano and MIP Politecnico di Milano we will answer these questions together with:
Paolo Juvara | VP of Engineering & CIO, Google Cloud Elena Pacenti | Dean School of Design, NewSchool of Architecture & Design Alessandro Treccani | Senior VP, HR Luxottica North America – Operation, Distribution, Logistic
Moderator: Tommaso Agasisti | Associate Dean, International at MIP Politecnico di Milano Graduate School of Business, Professor of Public Management at Politecnico di Milano School of Management
Politecnico di Milano, ATM and the Municipality of Milan, together with Vodafone and IBM, unveil the TECH BUS , the first bus developed through an innovative research project on mobility. The project implements hybrid cloud technologies connected to the 5G network for assisted driving.
"Mobility is a key sector for the development and growth of the territory and cities, a crossroads between cutting-edge technology and organization - says Ferruccio Resta , Rector of the Politecnico di Milano - Here are some of the great challenges of the future. Milan, like other cities in the world, is the backdrop of experiments that combine the skills of the university with technologies made available by some large companies, with which the Politecnico di Milano has been working in synergy for some time. A project that aims to become a proof of the combination of technologies for sustainable and safe mobility ”.
The project, which has just started and is being tested, was developed in the Joint Research Lab for autonomous and connected electric urban mobility (JRL), an ecosystem that includes universities, industry and institutions: its primary mission is to implement autonomous driving and the creation of an urban circuit with a smart and technologically advanced infrastructure , which allows the transit of experimental vehicles to improve the movement of citizens and visitors to the city.
It is a test for Milan, which has always been at the forefront as a green and innovative city, to be carried out together with the leaders of research (Politecnico di Milano and Fondazione Politecnica), technology (IBM and Vodafone) and transport ( ATM Milan). It is the first step on the path towards autonomous driving, with the aim of raising even more the levels of regularity and safety of local public transport .
HOW DOES THE TECH BUS WORK?
The first TECH BUS will be a Bus of the 90/91 ATM line , chosen because most of its route takes place in a dedicated preferential lane, and will be recognizable by the blue and indigo colors, which represent the technological evolution and green, which represents the environmental sustainability of the electric traction vehicle.
On a technological level, the V2I (Vehicle to Infrastructure) communication will allow the dialogue between the intelligent sensors on board the bus and road infrastructures such as traffic lights, street lamps and shelters. This continuous flow of information is guaranteed by the Vodafone 5G network and the IBM application interfaces , which in parallel allow the continuous availability of additional information such as the presence of traffic jams , obstacles, people close to pedestrian crossings , on-board systems and the driver, to support safe driving.
ECH BUS represents further progress in the New Urban Mobility chessboard, which combines technology and sustainability towards the avant-garde of Milanese public transport.
The experimentation has just begun, but the timetable currently foresees that in two years the project can be extended to the other trolleybuses of the ATM fleet in service on the 90/91 line.
MAP is the magazine of the Alumni of Politecnico di Milano
The magazine is your compass to navigate everything that is developing and changing in our University.
Below you will find a related article : if you like what you are seeing, support us . You will be able to collect your copy for free.
Credits header: Photo by Ant Rozetsky on Unsplash Credits home: allaguida.it
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