Committed to Excellence

Current scientific papers show the high research competence at AIT.

Cross-regional R&D networks are essential for regional innovativeness. Yet, we lack insights into technology field specific effects of a region's network connectivity. This study investigates key enabling technologies (KETs) to compare knowledge creation effects of EU funded R&D networks for different technological fields. By applying spatially filtered regression models together with marginal effect interpretations for non linear models we quantify and compare network effects across KET fields. Results show that the generally positive network effects differ depending on region internal endowments and the nature of the underlying technologies. Policy implications arise for the interrelations between EU research, industrial and regional policy.

I. Wanzenböck, M. Neuländtner, T. Scherngell: "Impacts of EU funded R&D networks on the generation of Key Enabling Technologies: Empirical evidence from a regional perspective"; Papers in Regional Science, 99 (2019), 1; p. 3 - 24.

Digitalisation causes a complete paradigm shift of production and innovation options. Digitalisation understood as the use of digital technologies to change a business model and provide new revenue and value-producing opportunities. The term digitisation describes the technological shift of “analog information into digital format”. Digitalisation is the conversion of processes, interactions, communications, business functions and business models into digital ones. A digital transformation to refers to the process of organizational and societal changes, including the ability to adopt technologies rapidly which affects social as well as technical elements of business models, processes, products and the organizational structure.

M. Hörlesberger: "Innovation management in a digital world"; Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 30 (2019), 8; 10 pp. Movement data is ubiquitous. Whether via GPS or mobile radio, an increasing number of people, vehicles and goods can be traced using their data tracks. Exploratory analyses of movement data pose a considerable challenge due to the heterogeneity of movement data sets and analysis tasks. There is a lack of established tools for the exploratory analysis of movement data as well as a lack of guidelines for the implementation of existing movement data analysis concepts using generally available analysis tools. In order to close this gap, we present three open source technology packages for the exploratory analysis of movement data and discuss their capabilities and limitations.

A. Graser, M. Dragaschnig: "Open Geospatial Tools for Movement Data Exploration"; KN - Journal of Cartography and Geographic Information, (2020), p. 1 - 8.

From impact drills to complex driver assistance systems – intelligent mechatronic systems accompany us in our daily lives. Early simulative verification of the entire system behaviour is essential for the development of modern control concepts, since development cycles are becoming increasingly shorter and quality and safety assessments have to be carried out on the real system already prior to validation . In this context, oscillations are often a gauge of insufficient stability of a closed (non-linear) control loop. This article shows how oscillations can be detected in a computationally efficient way using Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD). For the closed loop of a mechatronic system, a systematic signal processing is presented and a standardized oscillation index is proposed. The final part is the application of the presented theory to a complex mechatronic control loop by Robert Bosch GmbH.

M. Gurtner, P. Zips, M. Atak, J. Ophey, A. Kugi: “Improved EMD-based Oscillation Detection for Mechatronic Closed-Loop Systems”; IFAC-PapersOnLine, Volume 52, Issue 15, 2019, p. 370 - 375.

The use of equivalent circuit models to simulate the operating behavior of lithium-ion batteries is established. In this manuscript, a methodology for determining the required temperature-dependent simulation parameters from battery measurements is proposed. An algorithm analyses the correlation between electricity steps and the measured terminal voltage based on a specific load current and prior system knowledge, and then adjusts the originally estimated parameters from the first algorithm to the measured data by means of a combination of particle swarm optimization and Gauss-Newton algorithm. Finally, the dependency of each simulation parameter on both the state of charge and the battery temperature is determined. Ageing effects were not regarded in this article. The generated set of parameters makes it possible to reproduce and investigate the operating behaviour of the battery.

D. Dvorak, T. Bäuml, A. Holzinger, H. Popp: "A Comprehensive Algorithm for Estimating Lithium-Ion Battery Parameters From Measurements"; IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, Volume 9 (2018), 2; p. 771 - 779.

Monoclinic lithium vanadium phosphate, Li3V2(PO4)3, is considered a potential cathode material for the next generation of high-performance lithium ion batteries. However, the low intrinsic electronic conductivity of Li3V2(PO4)3, which poses a predominant challenge for olivine type compounds, inhibits commercial applications. Although the substitution of V3+ by other types of cations is a common method to increase the conductivity and electrochemical performance of Li3V2(PO4)3, the underlying mechanisms for the improved properties are not yet well understood. We use a thermodynamic approach to investigate the influence of the dopant, i.e. Mg2+ as well as vacancies at the V3+ location, on the stability of the resulting materials. Based on measured partial molar Gibbs energies, entropies and enthalpies of the electrochemical reaction, a discussion of substitution mechanisms and their influence on electrochemical performance is presented.

A. Beutl, D. Cupid: "A thermodynamic investigation on the substitution mechanism of Mg-doped lithium vanadium phosphate"; Electrochimica Acta, 311 (2019), 311; p. 103 - 113.

Metal oxide semiconductors are of major importance for energy conversion and storage. Their multifunctionality is based on their diverse electronic and structural properties. They are used as transparent electrodes or photon absorbers in photovoltaics and optoelectronics as well as catalysts for electrolytic water splitting. At AIT, we develop metal oxides that have a high potential for energy applications and are based on scalable, environmentally friendly manufacturing processes. This publication reports on the production of gallium oxide by spray pyrolysis, a cost-effective wet chemical process. Unlike the state of the art, our approach uses water-based solutions and a reduced deposition temperature, which facilitates industrial production.

N. Winkler, R. A. Wibowo, W. Kautek, G. Ligorio, E. J. W. List-Kratochvil and T. Dimopoulos: “Nanocrystalline Ga2O3 films deposited by spray pyrolysis from water-based solutions on glass and TCO substrates”; Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 2019, 7, 69-77.

Vienna has the fifth largest tram network in the world. An inspection vehicle with optical sensors that scans the rail heads for wear is used for maintenance. In recent years, a microphone has been added to the instrumentation. The data analysis was also carried out on on-board accelerometers, which were previously only used for the positioning system of the tram. Thanks to vibroacoustic data, the network is evaluated with regard to the immission hotspots where wheel-rail contact can lead to impairments such as rail squeal or ripple formation. The presentation showed results of the research work on the detection and classification of rail irregularities as well as of the ongoing work on the analysis of switches.

Karoline Alten: "Vibro-Acoustic Inspection of Vienna`s Tram Network"; lecture: WRI EU 2019 - Wheel Rail Interaction Conference EU, Vienna; 29 Oct. 2019 - 31 Oct. 2019 (lecture).

Networks and computer systems are a constant target of cyber threats. Forensic system log data records almost all events that occur and can be used to detect cyber attacks. However, system log data is unstructured data that is generated in large quantities and contains complex inherent dependencies. Correspondingly, the in-depth analysis of log data easily exceeds the cognitive abilities of humans. For this reason, cyber security experts use clustering methods from machine learning to aggregate large numbers of logs into representative groups and derive patterns that describe complex event relationships. Our study reviews existing approaches and discusses similarities and advantages of selected features. The paper provides an introduction to log analysis for cyber security and serves as a work of reference for future applications of system log clustering.

M. Landauer, F. Skopik, M. Wurzenberger, A. Rauber: „System log clustering approaches for cyber security applications: A survey“; Computers & Security, Volume 92, May 2020.

"Smart Home" is a strongly technology-driven area. A significant gap exists in the design based on the everyday context and the social and emotional nature of the home. We identify leverage points and functionalities for smart home design through three steps of cultural probing, participatory design fiction and focus groups. On the basis of empirical, real user data, we present features and system expectations that take a multi-faceted overall picture into account. The paper advises on the design process of future smart home solutions. We point out several design dimensions – time, space, relationships, individual factors and values – which enable a design for a heterogeneity of users and situations. Secondly, we derive specific design goals to guide the design of smart home systems: Design for control, low effort, integration, developability, identity, conviviality, and benefit.

M. Reisinger, S. Prost, J. Schrammel, P. Fröhlich: "User Requirements for the Design of Smart Homes: Dimensions and Goals"; "Ambient Intelligence“, Springer International Publishing.

Image processing systems are used for various tasks in autonomous road vehicles. In this paper we present RailSem19, the first public data set for semantic scene understanding for trains and trams. The data set consists of 8,500 annotated short sequences from a train perspective with over 1,000 sections of railway crossings and 1,200 tram scenes. We have developed a new annotation rule for this purpose. It focuses on rail-relevant labels that do not appear in other data sets. In addition to the manual annotations in geometric form, we provide dense semantic labels per pixel. We present prototypes for the image-based classification of trains, switches, points, platforms, buffer stops, rail traffic signs and signalling systems. Furthermore, a prototype for dense semantic scene comprehension of rail scenes was created by means of machine learning.

O. Zendel, M. Murschitz, M. Zeilinger,

D. Steininger, S. Abbasi, C. Beleznai: "RailSem19: A Dataset for Semantic Rail Scene Understanding"; Poster:

CVPR 2019 Workshops, Long Beach,

California; 16 June 2019 - 20 June 2019; in: "CVPR 2019", CVPR, (2019), 9 pp.

Systems designed for cell manipulation by electric fields are inherently challenged by energy dissipation along the electrode-electrolyte interface. A promising remedy is the introduction of an electrode coating with a high dielectric constant which enables efficient capacitive coupling of electric fields in biological samples. We present this strategy in the form of a reusable pipette tip design with a chamber volume of 10 μl for life science applications. The validation of prototypes and comparison with conductive gold-coated electrodes show a consistent and controllable biological effect that significantly increases the reproducibility of lysis events. The system provides precise descriptions of human endothelial cell lysis as a function of field strength, frequency, and conductivity. Over 80% of the cells were reversibly electroporated with minimal electrical lysis over a wide range of field settings.

T. Wimberger, J. R. Peham, E.-K.

Ehmoser and K. J. Wassermann: „Controllable cell manipulation in a microfluidic pipette-tip design using capacitive coupling of electric fields”; Lab on a Chip 2019.