Pervasive Real-World Computing for Sustainability (SuPerWorld)

The “Pervasive Real-World Computing for Sustainability” (SuPerWorld) Multidisciplinary Research Group of the CYENS Center of Excellence involves technology in pervasive computing, which touches upon research that focuses on the real world towards (contributing in) making it more sustainable. As “real world”, we refer to humans, animals and plants, as well as to the physical and urban environment. As “pervasive computing”, we refer to sensing infrastructures and equipment that measure the real world, including the sensing capabilities of modern mobile phones. We employ principles and protocols of the “Internet of Things” (IoT) and “Web of Things” (WoT), towards common understanding and semantics of real-world services and data, and high interoperability among systems and infrastructures.

The main research question of the SuPerWorld group can be summarized as: how can we use emerging sensory technologies and AI, combining field and remote sensing, to better monitor and model complex environments, towards making them more sustainable, solving challenges related to their proper functioning and operation? The general application areas of the SuPerWorld group are smart cities and sustainable environments. More specific application areas involve food safety, smart agriculture and animal welfare, disaster and risk modeling, environmental and wildlife monitoring, digital twins, water quality and others.

The SuPerWorld group performs both basic and applied research in the scientific areas of machine learning and deep learning, geospatial analysis and Geographical Information Systems (GIS), IoT and WoT, data visualization, semantic web technologies, remote sensing (aerial photography based on drones and satellite-based imagery) and large-scale earth observation. Finally, the SuPerWorld team supports, encourages and promotes a lively ecosystem of interdisciplinary collaboration, which constitutes one of the strong aspects of CYENS.

Application domains:

Agriculture (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), Biodiversity (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), Digital twins (1, 2, 3), Food supply systems (1, 2), Climate change (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), Smart cities and urban environments (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), Robotics (1, 2, 3), Forestry (1, 2), Ecology and natural environments (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10), Renewable energy and smart electricity grid (1), Disaster management and response (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), Environmental policies (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), Migration (1), Space (1), Real estate (1, 2), Water quality (1), High-throughput phenotyping (1).

Technologies:

Satellite imagery (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10), LIDAR (1, 2, 3), RADAR (1), Drones and aerial photography (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7), Computer vision and deep learning (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12), Machine learning (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), Geospatial analysis and GIS (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9), Blockchain (1), Mobile apps (1, 2, 3), Internet of Things (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), Big Data (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7), Data Visualizations (1, 2, 3, 4), Environmental modelling and simulations (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), Hyperspectral sensing (1, 2, 3, 4).

Recent on-going projects: (complete list here)