Project acronym BOTMED
Project Microrobotics and Nanomedicine
Researcher (PI) Bradley James Nelson
Host Institution (HI) EIDGENOESSISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE ZUERICH
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE7, ERC-2010-AdG_20100224
Summary The introduction of minimally invasive surgery in the 1980’s created a paradigm shift in surgical procedures. Health care is now in a position to make a more dramatic leap by integrating newly developed wireless microrobotic technologies with nanomedicine to perform precisely targeted, localized endoluminal techniques. Devices capable of entering the human body through natural orifices or small incisions to deliver drugs, perform diagnostic procedures, and excise and repair tissue will be used. These new procedures will result in less trauma to the patient and faster recovery times, and will enable new therapies that have not yet been conceived. In order to realize this, many new technologies must be developed and synergistically integrated, and medical therapies for which the technology will prove successful must be aggressively pursued.
This proposed project will result in the realization of animal trials in which wireless microrobotic devices will be used to investigate a variety of extremely delicate ophthalmic therapies. The therapies to be pursued include the delivery of tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) to blocked retinal veins, the peeling of epiretinal membranes from the retina, and the development of diagnostic procedures based on mapping oxygen concentration at the vitreous-retina interface. With successful animal trials, a path to human trials and commercialization will follow. Clearly, many systems in the body have the potential to benefit from the endoluminal technologies that this project considers, including the digestive system, the circulatory system, the urinary system, the central nervous system, the respiratory system, the female reproductive system and even the fetus. Microrobotic retinal therapies will greatly illuminate the potential that the integration of microrobotics and nanomedicine holds for society, and greatly accelerate this trend in Europe.
Summary
The introduction of minimally invasive surgery in the 1980’s created a paradigm shift in surgical procedures. Health care is now in a position to make a more dramatic leap by integrating newly developed wireless microrobotic technologies with nanomedicine to perform precisely targeted, localized endoluminal techniques. Devices capable of entering the human body through natural orifices or small incisions to deliver drugs, perform diagnostic procedures, and excise and repair tissue will be used. These new procedures will result in less trauma to the patient and faster recovery times, and will enable new therapies that have not yet been conceived. In order to realize this, many new technologies must be developed and synergistically integrated, and medical therapies for which the technology will prove successful must be aggressively pursued.
This proposed project will result in the realization of animal trials in which wireless microrobotic devices will be used to investigate a variety of extremely delicate ophthalmic therapies. The therapies to be pursued include the delivery of tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) to blocked retinal veins, the peeling of epiretinal membranes from the retina, and the development of diagnostic procedures based on mapping oxygen concentration at the vitreous-retina interface. With successful animal trials, a path to human trials and commercialization will follow. Clearly, many systems in the body have the potential to benefit from the endoluminal technologies that this project considers, including the digestive system, the circulatory system, the urinary system, the central nervous system, the respiratory system, the female reproductive system and even the fetus. Microrobotic retinal therapies will greatly illuminate the potential that the integration of microrobotics and nanomedicine holds for society, and greatly accelerate this trend in Europe.
Max ERC Funding
2 498 044 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-04-01, End date: 2016-03-31
Project acronym COMCOM
Project Communication and Computation - Two Sides of One Tapestry
Researcher (PI) Michael Christoph Gastpar
Host Institution (HI) ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE7, ERC-2010-StG_20091028
Summary Networks have been studied in depth for several decades, but one aspect has received little attention: Interference. Most networks use clever algorithms to avoid interference, and this strategy has proved effective for traditional supply-chain or wired communication networks. However, the emergence of wireless networks revealed that simply avoiding interference leads to significant performance loss. A wealth of cooperative communication strategies have recently been developed to address this issue. Two fundamental roadblocks are emerging: First, it is ultimately unclear how to integrate cooperative techniques into the larger fabric of networks (short of case-by-case redesigns); and second, the lack of source/channel separation in networks (i.e., more bits do not imply better end-to-end signal quality) calls for ever more specialized cooperative techniques.
This proposal advocates a new understanding of interference as computation: Interference garbles together inputs to produce an output. This can be thought of as a certain computation, perhaps subject to noise or other stochastic effects. The proposed work will develop strategies that permit to exploit this computational potential. Building on these ``computation codes,'' an enhanced physical layer is proposed: Rather than only forwarding bits, the revised physical layer can also forward functions from several transmitting nodes to a receiver, much more efficiently than the full information. Near-seamless integration into the fabric of existing network architectures is thus possible, providing a solution for the first roadblock. In response to the second roadblock, computation codes suggest new computational primitives as fundamental currencies of information.
Summary
Networks have been studied in depth for several decades, but one aspect has received little attention: Interference. Most networks use clever algorithms to avoid interference, and this strategy has proved effective for traditional supply-chain or wired communication networks. However, the emergence of wireless networks revealed that simply avoiding interference leads to significant performance loss. A wealth of cooperative communication strategies have recently been developed to address this issue. Two fundamental roadblocks are emerging: First, it is ultimately unclear how to integrate cooperative techniques into the larger fabric of networks (short of case-by-case redesigns); and second, the lack of source/channel separation in networks (i.e., more bits do not imply better end-to-end signal quality) calls for ever more specialized cooperative techniques.
This proposal advocates a new understanding of interference as computation: Interference garbles together inputs to produce an output. This can be thought of as a certain computation, perhaps subject to noise or other stochastic effects. The proposed work will develop strategies that permit to exploit this computational potential. Building on these ``computation codes,'' an enhanced physical layer is proposed: Rather than only forwarding bits, the revised physical layer can also forward functions from several transmitting nodes to a receiver, much more efficiently than the full information. Near-seamless integration into the fabric of existing network architectures is thus possible, providing a solution for the first roadblock. In response to the second roadblock, computation codes suggest new computational primitives as fundamental currencies of information.
Max ERC Funding
1 776 473 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-05-01, End date: 2016-04-30
Project acronym COOPNET
Project Cooperative Situational Awareness for Wireless Networks
Researcher (PI) Henk Wymeersch
Host Institution (HI) CHALMERS TEKNISKA HOEGSKOLA AB
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE7, ERC-2010-StG_20091028
Summary Devices in wireless networks are no longer used only for communicating binary information, but also for navigation and to sense their surroundings. We are currently approaching fundamental limitations in terms of communication throughput, position information availability and accuracy, and decision making based on sensory data. The goal of this proposal is to understand how the cooperative nature of future wireless networks can be leveraged to perform timekeeping, positioning, communication, and decision making, so as to obtain orders of magnitude performance improvements compared to current architectures.
Our research will have implications in many fields and will comprise fundamental theoretical contributions as well as a cooperative wireless testbed. The fundamental contributions will lead to a deep understanding of cooperative wireless networks and will enable new pervasive applications which currently cannot be supported. The testbed will be used to validate the research, and will serve as a kernel for other researchers worldwide to advance knowledge on cooperative networks. Our work will build on and consolidate knowledge currently dispersed in different scientific disciplines and communities (such as communication theory, sensor networks, distributed estimation and detection, environmental monitoring, control theory, positioning and timekeeping, distributed optimization). It will give a new thrust to research within those communities and forge relations between them.
Summary
Devices in wireless networks are no longer used only for communicating binary information, but also for navigation and to sense their surroundings. We are currently approaching fundamental limitations in terms of communication throughput, position information availability and accuracy, and decision making based on sensory data. The goal of this proposal is to understand how the cooperative nature of future wireless networks can be leveraged to perform timekeeping, positioning, communication, and decision making, so as to obtain orders of magnitude performance improvements compared to current architectures.
Our research will have implications in many fields and will comprise fundamental theoretical contributions as well as a cooperative wireless testbed. The fundamental contributions will lead to a deep understanding of cooperative wireless networks and will enable new pervasive applications which currently cannot be supported. The testbed will be used to validate the research, and will serve as a kernel for other researchers worldwide to advance knowledge on cooperative networks. Our work will build on and consolidate knowledge currently dispersed in different scientific disciplines and communities (such as communication theory, sensor networks, distributed estimation and detection, environmental monitoring, control theory, positioning and timekeeping, distributed optimization). It will give a new thrust to research within those communities and forge relations between them.
Max ERC Funding
1 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-05-01, End date: 2016-04-30
Project acronym DELPHINS
Project DESIGN AND ELABORATION OFMULTI-PHYSICS INTEGRATED NANOSYSTEMS
Researcher (PI) Thomas Ernst
Host Institution (HI) COMMISSARIAT A L ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE7, ERC-2009-StG
Summary The innovation of DELPHINS application will consist in building a generic multi-sensor design platform for embedded multi-gas-analysis-on-chip, based on a global modelling from the individual NEMS sensors to a global multiphysics NEMS-CMOS VLSI (Very large Scale Integration) system. The latter constitute a new research field with many potential applications such as in medicine (specific diseases recognition) but also in security (toxic and complex air pollutions), in industry (perfumes, agribusiness) and environment control. As an example, several studies in the last 10 years have demonstrated that some specific combination of biomarkers in breath above a given threshold could indicate early stage of diseases. More generally, patterns of breathing gas could constitute a virtual fingerprint of specific pathologies. NEMS (Nano-Electro-Mechanical Systems) based sensor is one of the most promising technologies to get the required resolutions and sensitivities for few molecules detection. We will focus on the analytical module of the system (sensing part + embedded electronics processing) that will include ultra-dense (more than thousands) NEMS arrays with state-of the art CMOS transistors. We will obtain integrated nano-oscillators individually addressed within an innovative architecture inspired from memory and imaging technologies. Few molecules sensitivity will be achieved thanks to suspended resonant nanowires co-integrated locally with their closed-loop and reading electronics. This would make possible the analysis of complex gases within an integrated portable system, which does not exist yet.
Summary
The innovation of DELPHINS application will consist in building a generic multi-sensor design platform for embedded multi-gas-analysis-on-chip, based on a global modelling from the individual NEMS sensors to a global multiphysics NEMS-CMOS VLSI (Very large Scale Integration) system. The latter constitute a new research field with many potential applications such as in medicine (specific diseases recognition) but also in security (toxic and complex air pollutions), in industry (perfumes, agribusiness) and environment control. As an example, several studies in the last 10 years have demonstrated that some specific combination of biomarkers in breath above a given threshold could indicate early stage of diseases. More generally, patterns of breathing gas could constitute a virtual fingerprint of specific pathologies. NEMS (Nano-Electro-Mechanical Systems) based sensor is one of the most promising technologies to get the required resolutions and sensitivities for few molecules detection. We will focus on the analytical module of the system (sensing part + embedded electronics processing) that will include ultra-dense (more than thousands) NEMS arrays with state-of the art CMOS transistors. We will obtain integrated nano-oscillators individually addressed within an innovative architecture inspired from memory and imaging technologies. Few molecules sensitivity will be achieved thanks to suspended resonant nanowires co-integrated locally with their closed-loop and reading electronics. This would make possible the analysis of complex gases within an integrated portable system, which does not exist yet.
Max ERC Funding
1 723 206 €
Duration
Start date: 2009-11-01, End date: 2014-10-31
Project acronym DEMOVE
Project DECODING THE NEURAL CODE OF HUMAN MOVEMENTS FOR A NEW GENERATION OF MAN-MACHINE INTERFACES
Researcher (PI) Dario Farina
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAETSMEDIZIN GOETTINGEN - GEORG-AUGUST-UNIVERSITAET GOETTINGEN - STIFTUNG OEFFENTLICHEN RECHTS
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE7, ERC-2010-AdG_20100224
Summary The generation of a movement is the combination of discrete events (action potentials) generated in the brain, spinal cord, nerves, and muscles. These discrete events are the result of ion exchanges across membranes, electrochemical mechanisms, and active ion pumping through energy expenditure. The ensemble of spike trains discharged in the various parts of the neuromuscular system constitutes the neural code for movements. Recording and interpretation of this code provides the means for decoding the motor system. The main limitation in the investigation of the motor system is the current impossibility of detecting and processing in the intact human, during natural movements, the activity of a sufficiently large number of motor neurons and sensory afferents (neural code) to associate a functional meaning to the cellular mechanisms that ultimately determine a movement. This limitation in turn impedes to answer to many fundamental questions on the control of human movements. These questions have tremendous implications in the development of man-machine interface systems. In this project, we propose the development of advanced electrode systems for in-vivo electrophysiological recordings from nerves and muscles in humans and new computational methods/models for extracting functionally significant information on human movement from these recordings. The highly innovative focus is that of providing the link between the cellular mechanisms and the behavior of the whole motor system in the intact human, i.e. to build the bridge between the neural and functional understanding of movement. On the basis of these new technologies, we aim at answering open questions in movement neuroscience and using novel principles for man-machine interaction. Specific applications in man-machine interaction will be related to neurorehabilitation technologies, such as functional electrical stimulation, myoelectric and peripheral neural prostheses.
Summary
The generation of a movement is the combination of discrete events (action potentials) generated in the brain, spinal cord, nerves, and muscles. These discrete events are the result of ion exchanges across membranes, electrochemical mechanisms, and active ion pumping through energy expenditure. The ensemble of spike trains discharged in the various parts of the neuromuscular system constitutes the neural code for movements. Recording and interpretation of this code provides the means for decoding the motor system. The main limitation in the investigation of the motor system is the current impossibility of detecting and processing in the intact human, during natural movements, the activity of a sufficiently large number of motor neurons and sensory afferents (neural code) to associate a functional meaning to the cellular mechanisms that ultimately determine a movement. This limitation in turn impedes to answer to many fundamental questions on the control of human movements. These questions have tremendous implications in the development of man-machine interface systems. In this project, we propose the development of advanced electrode systems for in-vivo electrophysiological recordings from nerves and muscles in humans and new computational methods/models for extracting functionally significant information on human movement from these recordings. The highly innovative focus is that of providing the link between the cellular mechanisms and the behavior of the whole motor system in the intact human, i.e. to build the bridge between the neural and functional understanding of movement. On the basis of these new technologies, we aim at answering open questions in movement neuroscience and using novel principles for man-machine interaction. Specific applications in man-machine interaction will be related to neurorehabilitation technologies, such as functional electrical stimulation, myoelectric and peripheral neural prostheses.
Max ERC Funding
2 431 473 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-07-01, End date: 2016-06-30
Project acronym DPI
Project Deep Packet Inspection to Next Generation Network Devices
Researcher (PI) Anat Bremler-Barr
Host Institution (HI) INTERDISCIPLINARY CENTER (IDC) HERZLIYA
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE7, ERC-2010-StG_20091028
Summary Deep packet inspection (DPI) lies at the core of contemporary Network Intrusion Detection/Prevention Systems and Web Application Firewall. DPI aims to identify various malware (including spam and viruses), by inspecting both the header and the payload of each packet and comparing it to a known set of patterns. DPI are often performed on the critical path of the packet processing, thus the overall performance of the security tools is dominated by the speed of DPI.
Traditionally, DPI considered only exact string patterns. However, in modern network devices patterns are often represented by regular expressions due to their superior expressiveness. Matching both exact string and regular expressions are well-studied area in Computer Science; however all well-known solutions are not sufficient for current network demands: First, current solutions do not scale in terms of speed, memory and power requirements. While current network devices work at 10-100 Gbps and have thousands of patterns, traditional solutions suffer from exponential memory size or exponential time and induce prohibitive power consumption. Second, non clear-text traffic, such as compressed traffic, becomes a dominant portion of the Internet and is clearly harder to inspect.
In this research we design new algorithms and schemes that cope with today demand. This is evolving area both in the Academia and Industry, where currently there is no adequate solution.
We intend to use recent advances in hardware to cope with these demanding requirements. More specifically, we plan to use Ternary Content-Addressable Memories (TCAMs), which become standard commodity in contemporary network devices. TCAMs can compare a key against all rules in a memory in parallel and thus provide high throughput. We believ
Summary
Deep packet inspection (DPI) lies at the core of contemporary Network Intrusion Detection/Prevention Systems and Web Application Firewall. DPI aims to identify various malware (including spam and viruses), by inspecting both the header and the payload of each packet and comparing it to a known set of patterns. DPI are often performed on the critical path of the packet processing, thus the overall performance of the security tools is dominated by the speed of DPI.
Traditionally, DPI considered only exact string patterns. However, in modern network devices patterns are often represented by regular expressions due to their superior expressiveness. Matching both exact string and regular expressions are well-studied area in Computer Science; however all well-known solutions are not sufficient for current network demands: First, current solutions do not scale in terms of speed, memory and power requirements. While current network devices work at 10-100 Gbps and have thousands of patterns, traditional solutions suffer from exponential memory size or exponential time and induce prohibitive power consumption. Second, non clear-text traffic, such as compressed traffic, becomes a dominant portion of the Internet and is clearly harder to inspect.
In this research we design new algorithms and schemes that cope with today demand. This is evolving area both in the Academia and Industry, where currently there is no adequate solution.
We intend to use recent advances in hardware to cope with these demanding requirements. More specifically, we plan to use Ternary Content-Addressable Memories (TCAMs), which become standard commodity in contemporary network devices. TCAMs can compare a key against all rules in a memory in parallel and thus provide high throughput. We believ
Max ERC Funding
990 400 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-11-01, End date: 2016-10-31
Project acronym ESKIN
Project Stretchable Electronic Skins
Researcher (PI) Stephanie Perichon Ep Lacour
Host Institution (HI) ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE7, ERC-2010-StG_20091028
Summary Future electronic systems will be soft and elastic. I propose to explore the materials, technology and integration of stretchable electronic systems, which will transform at will, evenly coat a spherical lens, or smoothly interface with a delicate biological organ. Electronics will be anywhere as well as everywhere. The proposed programme has the potential to emulate yet another revolution in the microelectronics industry and trigger transformations in the biomedical sector.
The ESKIN programme is an ambitious and highly interdisciplinary endeavour requiring expertise at the frontier of engineering, material sciences, biotechnology and neuroscience. Stretchability in an electronic system is its ability to negotiate mechanical deformations without letting them interfere with its electrical functionality. This is a novel and challenging demand on electronic device technology, which has, to date, mainly pushed for smaller scale fabrication and increased performance. Furthermore the natural compliance of biological tissues and cells calls for softer electronic biomedical interfaces. Overcoming the hard to soft mechanical mismatch will, without doubt, open up new horizons in biomedical research and its related industries.
The manufacture of stretchable electronic skins will then require working out the underlying science and technology for active device materials on soft, elastic substrates. This capability will further be implemented to demonstrate various soft and elastic electronic systems ranging from stretchable displays to long-term neural implants. My philosophy is to exploit as much as possible current micro/nanofabrication techniques available for hard surfaces but to tailor them to soft surfaces , optimizing and improving them where needed, in order to ensure rapid transition to worldwide distributed consumer and healthcare products.
Summary
Future electronic systems will be soft and elastic. I propose to explore the materials, technology and integration of stretchable electronic systems, which will transform at will, evenly coat a spherical lens, or smoothly interface with a delicate biological organ. Electronics will be anywhere as well as everywhere. The proposed programme has the potential to emulate yet another revolution in the microelectronics industry and trigger transformations in the biomedical sector.
The ESKIN programme is an ambitious and highly interdisciplinary endeavour requiring expertise at the frontier of engineering, material sciences, biotechnology and neuroscience. Stretchability in an electronic system is its ability to negotiate mechanical deformations without letting them interfere with its electrical functionality. This is a novel and challenging demand on electronic device technology, which has, to date, mainly pushed for smaller scale fabrication and increased performance. Furthermore the natural compliance of biological tissues and cells calls for softer electronic biomedical interfaces. Overcoming the hard to soft mechanical mismatch will, without doubt, open up new horizons in biomedical research and its related industries.
The manufacture of stretchable electronic skins will then require working out the underlying science and technology for active device materials on soft, elastic substrates. This capability will further be implemented to demonstrate various soft and elastic electronic systems ranging from stretchable displays to long-term neural implants. My philosophy is to exploit as much as possible current micro/nanofabrication techniques available for hard surfaces but to tailor them to soft surfaces , optimizing and improving them where needed, in order to ensure rapid transition to worldwide distributed consumer and healthcare products.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 738 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-03-01, End date: 2016-02-29
Project acronym FLINT
Project Finite-Length Information Theory
Researcher (PI) Albert Guillen I Fabregas
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD POMPEU FABRA
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE7, ERC-2010-StG_20091028
Summary Shannon's Information Theory establishes the fundamental limits of information processing systems. A concept that is hidden in the mathematical proofs most of the Information Theory literature, is that in order to achieve the fundamental limits we need sequences of infinite duration. Practical information processing systems have strict limitations in terms of length, induced by system constraints on delay and complexity. The vast majority of the Information Theory literature ignores these constraints and theoretical studies that provide a finite-length treatment of information processing are hence urgently needed. When finite-lengths are employed, asymptotic techniques (laws of large numbers, large deviations) cannot be invoked and new techniques must be sought. A fundamental understanding of the impact of finite-lengths is crucial to harvesting the potential gains in practice. This project is aimed at contributing towards the ambitious goal of providing a unified framework for the study of finite-length Information Theory. The approach in this project will be based on information-spectrum combined with tight bounding techniques. A comprehensive study of finite-length information theory will represent a major step forward in Information Theory, with the potential to provide new tools and techniques to solve open problems in multiple disciplines. This unconventional and challenging treatment of Information Theory will advance the area and will contribute to disciplines where Information Theory is relevant. Therefore, the results of this project will be of benefit to areas such as communication theory, probability theory, statistics, physics, computer science, mathematics, economics, bioinformatics and computational neuroscience.
Summary
Shannon's Information Theory establishes the fundamental limits of information processing systems. A concept that is hidden in the mathematical proofs most of the Information Theory literature, is that in order to achieve the fundamental limits we need sequences of infinite duration. Practical information processing systems have strict limitations in terms of length, induced by system constraints on delay and complexity. The vast majority of the Information Theory literature ignores these constraints and theoretical studies that provide a finite-length treatment of information processing are hence urgently needed. When finite-lengths are employed, asymptotic techniques (laws of large numbers, large deviations) cannot be invoked and new techniques must be sought. A fundamental understanding of the impact of finite-lengths is crucial to harvesting the potential gains in practice. This project is aimed at contributing towards the ambitious goal of providing a unified framework for the study of finite-length Information Theory. The approach in this project will be based on information-spectrum combined with tight bounding techniques. A comprehensive study of finite-length information theory will represent a major step forward in Information Theory, with the potential to provide new tools and techniques to solve open problems in multiple disciplines. This unconventional and challenging treatment of Information Theory will advance the area and will contribute to disciplines where Information Theory is relevant. Therefore, the results of this project will be of benefit to areas such as communication theory, probability theory, statistics, physics, computer science, mathematics, economics, bioinformatics and computational neuroscience.
Max ERC Funding
1 303 606 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-08-01, End date: 2017-07-31
Project acronym FUN-SP
Project A functional framework for sparse, non-gaussian signal processing and bioimaging
Researcher (PI) Michael Unser
Host Institution (HI) ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE7, ERC-2010-AdG_20100224
Summary "In recent years, the research focus in signal processing has shifted away from the classical linear paradigm, which is intimately linked with the theory of stationary Gaussian processes. Instead of considering Fourier transforms and performing quadratic optimization, researchers are presently favoring wavelet-like representations and have adopted ”sparsity” as design paradigm.
Our ambition is to develop a unifying operator-based framework for signal processing that would provide the ``sparse"" counterpart of the classical theory, which is currently missing. To that end, we shall specify and investigate sparse stochastic processes that are continuously-defined and ruled by differential equations, and construct corresponding wavelet-like sparsifying transforms. Our hope is to be able to rigorously connect non-quadratic regularization and sparsity-constrained optimization to well-defined continuous-domain statistical models. We also want to develop a novel Lie-group formalism for the design of steerable, signal-adapted wavelet transforms with improved invariance and sparsifying properties, both in 2-D and 3-D.
We shall use these tools to define new reversible image representations in terms of singular points (contours and keypoints) and to develop novel algorithms for 3-D biomedical image analysis. In close collaboration with imaging scientists, we shall apply our framework to the development of new 3-D reconstruction algorithms for emerging bioimaging modalities such as fluorescence deconvolution microscopy, digital holography microscopy, X-ray phase-contrast microscopy, and advanced MRI."
Summary
"In recent years, the research focus in signal processing has shifted away from the classical linear paradigm, which is intimately linked with the theory of stationary Gaussian processes. Instead of considering Fourier transforms and performing quadratic optimization, researchers are presently favoring wavelet-like representations and have adopted ”sparsity” as design paradigm.
Our ambition is to develop a unifying operator-based framework for signal processing that would provide the ``sparse"" counterpart of the classical theory, which is currently missing. To that end, we shall specify and investigate sparse stochastic processes that are continuously-defined and ruled by differential equations, and construct corresponding wavelet-like sparsifying transforms. Our hope is to be able to rigorously connect non-quadratic regularization and sparsity-constrained optimization to well-defined continuous-domain statistical models. We also want to develop a novel Lie-group formalism for the design of steerable, signal-adapted wavelet transforms with improved invariance and sparsifying properties, both in 2-D and 3-D.
We shall use these tools to define new reversible image representations in terms of singular points (contours and keypoints) and to develop novel algorithms for 3-D biomedical image analysis. In close collaboration with imaging scientists, we shall apply our framework to the development of new 3-D reconstruction algorithms for emerging bioimaging modalities such as fluorescence deconvolution microscopy, digital holography microscopy, X-ray phase-contrast microscopy, and advanced MRI."
Max ERC Funding
2 106 994 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-04-01, End date: 2016-03-31
Project acronym HIGHWIND
Project Simulation, Optimization and Control of High-Altitude
Wind Power Generators
Researcher (PI) Moritz Mathias Diehl
Host Institution (HI) ALBERT-LUDWIGS-UNIVERSITAET FREIBURG
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE7, ERC-2010-StG_20091028
Summary A new class of large scale wind power generators shall be investigated via
mathematical modelling, computer simulation and multidisciplinary optimization methods. The underlying
technical idea is to use fast flying tethered airfoils that fly in altitudes of several hundred
meters above the ground. They will perform specially controlled loops accompanied by line length
and line tension variations, that are used to drive a generator on the ground.
Being a high risk / high gain technology, the applicant believes that the main focus in the first development
years should not be on building large and expensive experimental setups (as some courageous
experimentalists currently do in Europe and the US), but on mathematical modelling, computer
simulation and optimization studies, accompanied by only small scale experiments for model
and control system validation. This will help finding optimal system designs before expensive and
potentially dangerous large scale systems are built. The research requires an interdisciplinary collaboration
of scientists from mathematical, mechanical, aerospace, and control engineering, as well
as from the computational sciences. At the end of the project, a small scale, automatically flying prototype shall be realized, accompanied
by validated and scalable mathematical models and a toolbox of efficient computational methods
for simulation and multidisciplinary optimization of high altitude wind power systems. If successful,
the project will help to establish this new type of wind power generator that might provide electricity
more cheaply than fossil fuels and is deployable at considerably more sites than conventional windmills.
Summary
A new class of large scale wind power generators shall be investigated via
mathematical modelling, computer simulation and multidisciplinary optimization methods. The underlying
technical idea is to use fast flying tethered airfoils that fly in altitudes of several hundred
meters above the ground. They will perform specially controlled loops accompanied by line length
and line tension variations, that are used to drive a generator on the ground.
Being a high risk / high gain technology, the applicant believes that the main focus in the first development
years should not be on building large and expensive experimental setups (as some courageous
experimentalists currently do in Europe and the US), but on mathematical modelling, computer
simulation and optimization studies, accompanied by only small scale experiments for model
and control system validation. This will help finding optimal system designs before expensive and
potentially dangerous large scale systems are built. The research requires an interdisciplinary collaboration
of scientists from mathematical, mechanical, aerospace, and control engineering, as well
as from the computational sciences. At the end of the project, a small scale, automatically flying prototype shall be realized, accompanied
by validated and scalable mathematical models and a toolbox of efficient computational methods
for simulation and multidisciplinary optimization of high altitude wind power systems. If successful,
the project will help to establish this new type of wind power generator that might provide electricity
more cheaply than fossil fuels and is deployable at considerably more sites than conventional windmills.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 800 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-03-01, End date: 2017-02-28
