Dr. Alexandra Pehlken, lecturer for 7 years of the bioenergy lecture for PPRE/SuRE/EMRE has being granted a new group in OFFIS e.V., an informatics institute located in Oldenburg. With her as group leader, Maria Davila (Mafe), a PPRE Alumnus (2018-20), and 2 other full-time researchers work on projects in order to assess the sustainability and optimize energy efficiency in the manufacturing sector.
Current projects include the development of a digital twin for energy consumption modeling and optimization of an airplane-part production company. The goal is not only to develop an energy management system, but also to include artificial intelligence methods, which allow the failure or anomaly detection, the optimization of energy efficiency and the evaluation and monitoring of the circularity and criticality of the resources within the process.
Another project works closely with a Waste-Power Plant (Waste-to-Energy), in order to use machine learning and computer vision methods to optimize the operation parameters. Using video information, the method is able to give insight about the calorific value of the waste, which is crucial in Waste-to-Energy, where the quality of the fuel (trash) is so heterogeneous.
One of the main focus of the manufacturing department in OFFIS is sustainable digitalization. Industrial Internet of Things and the Industry 4.0 have allowed a great level of detail for industrial data. Nevertheless, the impact of the digital technologies should never exceed those of the benefits it brings. All the projects of the group strive to have holistic approaches, which take into account both perspectives.
We are excited to network with the PPRE community and hopefully develop interesting projects together.
More information about the group can be found here:
https://www.offis.de/en/applications/manufacturing/sustainable-manufacturing-systems.html
Contact information:
https://www.offis.de/en/offis/person/alexandra-pehlken.html
https://www.offis.de/en/offis/person/maria-fernanda-davila-restrepo.html