Name of institution: ABB Corporate Research, Poland
PEOPLE PRESENT IN PRONTO: Dr. James R. Ottewill, Mariusz Wojcik
HIRED ESRS: ESR-C: Anna Stief
VISITING ESRS: ESR-A: Tian Cong (AGH), ESR-B: Ruomu Tan (Cranfield)
The ABB Corporate Research Center located in the heart of Krakow, Poland was established in 1997. The location was selected on the basis of the strong academic population in Krakow enabling the Research Centre to recruit high-flying MSc and PhD researchers. Today, members of the multidisciplinary, multinational team at ABB Corporate Research Center in Kraków devise and execute projects in the areas of:
• Transmission and Distribution Power Systems
• Development of Medium and High Voltage Products
• Transmission and Distribution Power System Protection and Automation
• New Material Technologies
• Advanced Manufacturing Technologies
• Multiphysics numeric simulations
• Power Electronics
• Electronic, Mobile and Embedded Systems
• Industrial Communication
• Diagnostics and Monitoring
• Analytics and Machine Learning
These projects are regularly run in collaboration with colleagues at other research centers and universities from across the globe. In addition to bringing state-of-the art research to a level that is ready for productization and commercialization, ABB scientists look to disseminate their findings with both academic peers, through publications in international journals and presentations at leading conferences, and with the wider community through initiatives such as the European Commission’s Researcher’s Night.
In addition to Anna Stief, Dr. James Ottewill also participates in the PRONTO project. Dr. Ottewill, is a Senior Principal Scientist, specializing in the field of Analytics for Condition Monitoring. Locally he also coordinates activities in the area of “Applied Analytics”.
Both Anna and James work as part of the Condition Monitoring, Sensors and Electronics (CMSE) Group led by Mariusz Wojcik. The group conducts research in the areas of advanced service and condition monitoring systems for diagnostics, lifecycle management, and lifetime estimation of assets. For almost 20 years, the group has been combining its multidisciplinary competences in all aspects of asset monitoring, from state-of-the-art sensing technologies, through detailed modelling and simulation, up to advanced data analytics approaches, in order to deliver solutions for a wide range of diverse applications. An example of a flagship product which finds roots in an ABB research and development project is a diagnostic platform called DriveMonitor™, which in 2008 was awarded the Frost & Sullivan “Best practices award”. The group has access to a large number of recently established and well-equipped laboratories at the center, which provide the opportunity to perform detailed tests both at the very small scale, for example in the new electronics laboratory, and at the large, comprehensive scale such as in the gas compression facility.
In the PRONTO project, ABB Corporate Center Poland are the lead beneficiary of WP1: Managing Information, collaborating with other PRONTO Network partners in the development of advanced data analytics approaches for assessing the condition and performance of networks of equipment used for production in the process industries.