Multidisciplinary Institute of Digitalisation and Energy

MIDE
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Multidisciplinary Institute
of Digitalisation and Energy
2008-2013
Julkaisija:
Aalto-yliopisto
Päätoimittaja:
Elina Karvonen
Konseptointi ja tekstit:
Jukka Hakala, Kotoba Oy
Graafinen suunnittelu ja taitto:
Virpi Vihervuori, Baasis Design
Valokuvat
Henkilökuvat ja artikkeleiden
kuvituskuvat:
Lasse Lecklin
Raporttien kuvituskuvat:
MIDE-projektit
Kirjapaino:
Unigrafia
Projektiorganisaatio:
Ohjelmajohtaja Yrjö Neuvo
Projektipäällikkö Sami Ylönen
Projektikoordinaattori Elina Karvonen
(2011-2013)
Projektiassistentti Annika Artimo
(2008-2010)
ISBN (print) 978-952-60-3643-4
ISBN (PDF) 978-952-60-3644-1
Luettavissa verkossa https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi
http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-60-3644-1
MIDE
Multidisciplinary Institute
of Digitalisation and Energy
2008-2013
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Monitieteistä ja pitkäjänteistä perustutkimusta
Aalto-yliopiston MIDE-
MIDE-tutkimusohjelmassa
MIDE-tutkimusohjelman
tutkimusohjelma keskittyi
oli kaikkiaan 11 eri projektia.
rahoitus, 20 miljoonaa euroa,
pitkäjänteiseen perustutki-
Tutkimusprojektit olivat
kerättiin useilta eri yrityk-
mukseen digitalisoitumisen
monitieteisiä ja yhteen pro-
siltä ja yhteisöiltä. Yritysten
ja energiakysymysten aloilla.
jektiin osallistui tyypillisesti
edustajat olivat mukana tut-
Ohjelman tavoitteena oli
useita eri laitoksia. Projektit
kimusprojektien etenemistä
huipputason osaamisen
liittyivät niin ICT:n mahdol-
käsitelleissä seurantaryh-
luominen, opetuksen vah-
listamiin uusiin sovelluksiin
missä.
vistaminen ja suomalaisen
kuin energiatehokkuutta
elinkeinoelämän kilpailu-
parantaviin innovaatioihin.
kyvyn lisääminen. MIDE-
Tutkimusprojektien
78 muuta opinnäytetyötä
ohjelma (Multidisciplinary
lisäksi MIDE-ohjelmaan
sekä 438 julkaisua. Tutki­
Institute of Digitalisation
kuului kolme opiskelija-
musprojektien tulosten
and Energy) toteutettiin
projektia sekä jatko-opin-
perusteella on syntynyt
vuosina 2008-2013.
tokurssi Bit Bang. MIDE-
useita jatkotutkimuksia sekä
ohjelmassa oli myös useita
myös tuloksia hyödyntäviä
vierailijaprofessoreja kan-
start-up -yrityksiä.
sainvälisistä huippuyliopistoista.
MIDE-tutkimusohjelmassa syntyi 34 väitöskirjaa,
sis.
MIDE Multidisciplinary Institute of Digitalisation and Energy 2008-2013
10 Toimintamalli 14 4D-Space MIDE luonut uutta yhteistyön kulttuuria
Kohti älykkäämpiä tiloja
18 CNB-E Hiilinanomateriaalit mahdollistavat
taipuisat aurinkokennot
22 Rahoittajat
26 E-Wood 30 Exergia 34 Opiskelijaprojektit
Investointi suomalaiseen osaamiseen
Metsäteollisuuden kilpailukykyä parantamassa
Pienin askelin merkittäviin tuloksiin
Opiskelijaprojektissa kurkotetaan avaruuteen
38 HighLight Ledejä piilolasinäyttöihin ja
fotonilämpöpumppuihin
42 HybLab
Teoriasta kaupalliseksi tuotteeksi
46 Bit Bang
Bit Bang opetti monialaista tiimityötä
50 IPPES
Helppokäyttöisiä polttokennoja
54 ISMO
Värähtely kertoo sillan kunnon
58 Seurantaryhmät
62 OtaSizzle
66 UI-ART
70 Vierailijaprofessorit
74 VinCo
78 Arviointi
Yhteistutkimuksesta ideoita tuotekehitykselle
Yhteisöllisyyttä ymmärtämässä Laajennettua todellisuutta
Vierailu vankisti Aallon ja Stanfordin yhteistyötä
Neuvottelut siirtyvät nettiin
Monitieteisyys ja pitkäjänteisyys korostuivat
MIDE-ohjelman arvioinnissa
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MIDE Toimintamalli
!
”Olemme osaltaan
vahvistaneet niitä
perusteita, joiden
varassa kansallinen
kilpailukykymme on”,
Yrjö Neuvo sanoo.
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Toimintamalli MIDE
MIDE luonut uutta yhteistyön kulttuuria
MIDE-tutkimusohjelman johtajan professori Yrjö Neuvon
mukaan MIDE onnistui luomaan uutta yhteistyön
kulttuuria, jonka vaikutukset heijastuvat laajemminkin
niin Aalto-yliopistoon kuin elinkeinoelämään.
MIDEn tavoitteina olivat huipputason osaamisen luominen,
opetuksen vahvistaminen ja suomalaisen elinkeinoelämän
kilpailukyvyn lisääminen.
”Olemme osaltaan vahvistaneet niitä perusteita, joiden
varassa kansallinen kilpailukykymme on. Perustutkimuksella
on tässä suuri rooli ja sen merkitys ymmärretään jo laajalti”,
Neuvo sanoo.
Neuvo on hyvin innostunut tutkimusohjelmasta: MIDE on
hänen mielestään toiminut suunnannäyttäjänä uudenlaiselle
tekemisen kulttuurille.
”Toivon, että olemme saaneet aikaan pysyviä toimintatavan muutoksia siihen, miten tutkimusta tehdään. Tästä on
jo esimerkkejä uudenlaisena yhteistyön kulttuurina Aallon
eri korkeakoulujen ja laitosten kesken sekä yhteistyönä
Aallon ja yliopiston ulkopuolisten sidosryhmien välillä.”
Yhteistyön kulttuuriin Neuvo laskee myös entistä vahvemman kansainvälisyyden. MIDE-ohjelmassa oli viisi
vierailuprofessoria eri puolilta maailmaa. Kukin professori
osallistui useampaan tutkimusprojektiin, joten he olivat
osaltaan edistämässä myös eri tieteenalojen yhteistyötä.
Perustutkimuksen tärkeä rooli
Varat MIDE-tutkimusohjelmaan kerättiin Teknillisen
korkeakoulun 100-vuotisjuhlien yhteydessä vuonna 2008
järjestetyllä Tekniikka elämään -kampanjalla. Yrityksiltä ja
yhteisöiltä kerättiin yhteensä 20 miljoonan euron rahoitus
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MIDE Toimintamalli
tutkimusohjelman toteuttamiseksi. Vii-
Avoin projektihaku tuotti yli sata hakemusta.
meiset MIDE-tutkimusprojektit saatiin pää-
Valittujen 11 tutkimusprojektin joukossa oli
tökseen vuoden 2013 aikana.
projekteja, joilla oli jo vahva pohja kyseiselle
Neuvo kiittelee MIDE-ohjelman syntyyn
tutkimusaiheelle ja joista oli lupa odottaa
vahvasti vaikuttaneen entisen Teknillisen
hyviä tuloksia. Lisäksi mukana oli muutamia
korkeakoulun rehtorin Matti Pursulan
villejä kortteja, jotka läpäisivät valintaseulan
panosta. Merkittävä rahoitus ja erityisesti
rimaa hipoen, mutta kasvoivat suoranaisiksi
hankkeen pitkä aikajänne antoivat erin-
menestystarinoiksi. Tutkimusprojektit muo-
omaiset lähtökohdat uudenlaisten toiminta-
dostivat Neuvon mielestä tasapainoisen
mallien rakentamiseen.
kokonaisuuden.
”Yliopiston näkökulmasta MIDE-
”Meillä oli varaa kokeilla ja ottaa riskejä.
ohjelman kaltainen vapaa tutkimusraha on
Pystyimme ottamaan mukaan hankkeita,
huomattavasti arvokkaampaa kuin useita
joiden rahoittaminen olisi muuten ollut vai-
reunaehtoja sisältävät lyhyemmän aikavälin
keaa tai jopa mahdotonta. Ilman riskejä ei
tutkimusrahoitukset”, Neuvo toteaa.
kuitenkaan synny mitään aidosti uutta.”
”Yliopistojen perustutkimuksella on erit-
Osassa projekteja alkuvaihe kului juuri
täin tärkeä rooli. Meillä on oltava mahdol-
tutkimusongelman parempaan ymmärtämi-
lisuus kehittää uusia ideoita vapaasti. Se
seen – samalla tutkimus suuntautui toisaalle
erottaa meillä tehtävän tutkimuksen esi-
mitä alkujaan ajateltiin.
merkiksi yritysten tuotekehitysyksiköiden
”Tämä ei olisi onnistunut ilman hankkeen
työskentelystä. MIDE on tarjonnut mahdol-
pitkäkestoisuutta. Viiden vuoden aikajänne
lisuuden tehdä pidemmän aikavälin perus-
on mahdollistanut sen, että tutkijat ovat voi-
tavaa tutkimusta – tutkimusta jossa löyde-
neet katsella ympärilleen, oppia ja muuttaa
tään uutta tietoa, joka aikanaan johtaa myös
tarvittaessa suuntaa. Heillä on ollut riittä-
kaupallisiin innovaatioihin.”
västi aikaa navigoida parhaaseen mahdolliseen lopputulokseen.”
Riskinotto kantoi hedelmää
MIDE-ohjelman keskeisiksi aloiksi valikoi-
mahdollisuuden tehdä pitkäjänteisempää ja
tuivat digitalisoituminen ja energia – jälkikä-
radikaalimpaa tutkimusta, mihin he olivat
teen tarkasteltuna valinta osoittautui sangen
olemassa olevien rahoitusmallien puitteissa
osuvaksi. Energiakysymykset ovat yksi mer-
tottuneet”, Neuvo toteaa.
kittävimmistä globaaleista haasteista ja ICT
on läsnä lähes kaikkialla.
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”MIDEn ansiosta tutkimusryhmät saivat
Toimintamalli MIDE
Monitieteistä yhteistyötä
tyksistä ideoita uusiksi tutkimusaiheiksi, ja
Monitieteisyys ja laaja-alainen yhteistyö
yrityksissä varmasti ymmärretään paremmin
olivat MIDE-ohjelmaan valittujen tutkimus-
perustutkimuksen merkittävä rooli innovaa-
projektien keskeisiä kriteerejä.
tioiden mahdollistajana. Ja syntyihän MIDE-
”Yhteistyön merkitystä ei voi liikaa
ohjelmasta muutama spin off -yrityskin.”
korostaa. Monet suurista ongelmista vaativat
nimenomaan monitieteistä lähestymistä.
Toimintamalli tuleville ohjelmille
Hyvää monitieteistä tutkimusta taas syntyy,
MIDE-ohjelman byrokratia haluttiin pitää
kun mukana on eri alojen huippuja.”
mahdollisimman pienenä – tavoitteena oli
MIDE käynnistyi Teknillisen korkeakoulun hankkeena, mutta jo ennen Aalto-
antaa tutkijoille mahdollisimman paljon
aikaa itse tutkimuksen tekemiseen.
yliopiston syntyä ohjelmaan haettiin mukaan
”Ohjelmassa oli koko ajan hyvä tekemisen
muitakin kouluja. Monitieteisyys on vahvasti
meininki. Toimimme osaltamme pioneereina
mukana myös MIDE-ohjelmaan kuuluvalla
ja teimme monitieteistä yhteistyötä jo ennen
Bit Bang -jatko-opintokurssilla. Vaativalla
kuin Aalto oli virallisesti aloittanut toimin-
kurssilla painotetaan erityisesti monialaista
tansa.”
ja monikulttuurista tiimityöskentelyä.
MIDEn johtoryhmä ohjasi tutkimus-
MIDE-ohjelman tuloksia Neuvo pitää
hyvinä. Määrälliset tulokset, kuten väitös-
projekteja lähinnä varmistamalla, että
kirjojen ja artikkeleiden lukumäärä, olivat
projekteissa oli riittävästi Aallon sisäistä
tavoitteiden mukaisella tasolla. Tärkeim-
yhteistyötä sekä kansainvälisyyttä. Samalla
mäksi anniksi nousee silti MIDEstä kum-
haluttiin avata kanavia pysyvälle monitie-
munnut kulttuurin muutos.
teiselle yhteistyölle ja luoda kulttuuria, jossa
”Uudenlainen yhteistyön kulttuuri on
korostuvat kokonaisuuksien hahmotta-
oikeasti suuri saavutus ja menee yli numee-
minen, uteliaisuus ja ketteryys.
risten mittareiden. Lisäksi olemme onnis-
Aallon sisäisen yhteistyön lisäksi MIDE
tuneet luomaan koetellun mallin muille
edisti myös Aallon ja elinkeinoelämän kes-
vastaavanlaisille ohjelmille. Samanlaista
kinäistä ymmärrystä. Kaikilla tutkimuspro-
toimintamallia hyödynnetään esimerkiksi
jekteilla oli relevanssia merkittäville suo-
Aallon uudessa energiatehokkuuden tutki-
malaisille yrityksille, jotka olivat aktiivisesti
musohjelmassa AEF:ssa.”
mukana myös projektien seurantaryhmissä.
”MIDE lisäsi nimenomaan molemminpuolista ymmärrystä. Tutkijat saivat yri-
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MIDE 4D-Space
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”Kiinteistöjen käyttöasteella
on huomattavaa
taloudellista merkitystä”,
Petri Saarikko sanoo.
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4D-Space MIDE
Kohti älykkäämpiä tiloja
Julkisten tilojen ihmisvirtojen tutkiminen antaa
paljon tietoa, jota voidaan käyttää niin tilojen
käyttäjälähtöiseen suunnitteluun kuin kiinteistöjen
energia-tehokkuuden optimointiin.
Älykkäitä ja oppivia julkisia tiloja tutkinut 4D-Space -projekti lähti liikkeelle erityisesti kauppakeskusten ihmisvirtojen analysoinnista ja uudenlaisten kaupan palveluiden
kehittämisestä.
Kauppakeskuksissa ihmisten liikkuminen määrittää liikkeiden sijaintia ja liikkeiden sijoittelu taas ohjaa ihmisten
liikkumista. Ihmisvirtojen dynamiikan tunnistaminen on
siksi keskeistä kaupan palveluiden ja sisäisten toimintojen
suunnittelulle.
Verkkokauppa on muuttanut kaupan alan kilpailutilannetta ja asiakkaiden suhdetta perinteisessä kivijalkakaupassa
asiointiin. Siksi uudet asiakkaiden asiointia helpottavat ja
kaupan omaa toimintaa tehostavat palveluinnovaatiot ovat
kaupalle tärkeitä.
Älykäs ja oppiva 4D julkinen tila – 4D-Space
Pituus: 2009-2013
Budjetti: 1 450 000 €
Projektin johto: Professori Petri Vuorimaa ja TaM Petri Saarikko, mediatekniikan laitos,
TkT Arhi Kivilahti, maankäyttötieteiden laitos
Mukana olevat laitokset: mediatekniikka, maankäyttötieteet, markkinointi, muotoilu,
energiatekniikka, elektroniikka, yhdyskunta- ja ympäristötekniikka
Seurantaryhmä: Elisa Oyj, EM Group Oy, Espoon kaupunki, Espoon seurakuntayhtymä,
Kone Oyj, NCC Oyj, Nokia Oyj, Suomen Rakennusinsinöörien Liitto - RIL,
Teknologiateollisuuden 100-vuotissäätiö
Julkaisujen määrä: 32
Väitöskirjat: 2
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miit tuotteet ihmisvirtojen mittaamiseen ja
niiden visualisointiin.
”Tuotteita on käytetty esimerkiksi jätteenkeräyksen logistiikan optimoinnissa sekä
metroasemien rullaportaiden käytön ja energiankulutuksen selvittämisessä ja analysoinnissa.”
Jätteenkeräyksen kustannuksia voidaan
alentaa älykkäällä reittisuunnittelulla, jonka
mahdollistaa reaaliaikainen tieto keräysreittien logistisista solmukohdista. Mitä suuremmista ihmis- tai tavaravirroista on kyse,
sitä merkittävämpiä ovat myös toiminnan
järkeistämisestä saavutettavat säästöt.
”Ihmisvirtoja tutkittiin muun muassa
Opend-hankkeen tuotteiden avulla on sel-
tiloihin sijoitetuilla sensoreilla sekä erilaisin
vitetty myös Aalto-yliopistokiinteistöjen eri
fotogrammetrisin tilamallinnusmetodein.
tilojen käyttöä. Muun muassa Aallon Design
Tutkimuksen pohjalta kehitettiin erilaisia
Factoryn tiloihin on asennettu useita eri-
palveluprototyyppejä, jotka voivat esimer-
laisia tilojen kävijävirtoja ja käyttöaikoja mit-
kiksi tunnistaa yksittäisiä tilan käyttäjiä ja
taavia sensoreita.
tarjota heille räätälöityä tietoa tilassa tapah-
”Design Factoryn käyttöaste on hyvä, se
tuvista toiminnoista”, projektipäällikkö Petri
on esimerkki toimivasta ja monikäyttöisestä
Saarikko sanoo.
tilasta. Joidenkin suurten luentosalien käyt-
Projektissa hahmotellut mobiilisovel-
töasteet taas ovat huolestuttavan alhaisia.
lukset helpottavat kuluttajan liikkumista:
Perinteiset luentosalit ja pitkät kapeat käy-
ne auttavat esimerkiksi löytämään kauppa-
tävät ovat haasteellisia ylläpidon ja energia-
keskuksesta vaivatta vapaan parkkipaikan tai
tehokkuuden kannalta.”
yksittäisiä kiinnostavia tuotteita.
”Kiinteistöjen käyttöasteella on huomattavaa taloudellista merkitystä, Aallonkin
Parempaa tietoa ihmisvirroista
budjetista noin 16 prosenttia on erilaisia tila-
Saarikon työryhmän työ on konkretisoitunut
kuluja”, Saarikko toteaa.
älykkäiden tilojen suunnittelua edesauttavaan Opend-hankkeeseen, jolla on jo val-
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Tutkittuja tiloja voidaan mallintaa fotogrammetrisesti 3D-muotoon. Kun näihin
4D-Space MIDE
yhdistetään kävijävirtamittausten tietoja,
tilojen käyttöastetta voidaan kuvata hyvin
havainnollisesti ja yksityiskohtaisesti. Se
auttaa suunnittelemaan tilojen lämmityksen,
ilmastoinnin ja valaistuksen entistä energiatehokkaammaksi. Samalla tarkempi kävijätieto auttaa kehittämään tilojen käyttäjille
räätälöityjä ja siten entistä merkityksellisempiä palveluita.
”Me tuotekehittäjät esimerkiksi olemme jo
projektin alussa kiinnostuneita valmiista
MIDEn monitieteisimpiä projekteja
tuotteista ja mallintamassa erilaisia pro-
4D-Space oli yksi MIDEn monitietei-
totyyppejä. Tutkijoilla on taas oma lähes-
simmistä tutkimusprojekteista. Mukana
tymistapansa. Tämä yksilöllisten erojen
oli kaikkiaan seitsemän Aallon laitosta
ymmärtäminen on avainasemassa toimivan
mediatekniikasta maanmittaustieteisiin ja
ja tuloksekkaan yhteistyökokonaisuuden
energiatekniikasta muotoiluun.
rakentamisessa.”
”Yhteistyön onnistuminen on kiinni ihmisistä. Toimiva yhteistyö vaatii aikaa ja eri
osapuolten lähtökohtien ja odotusten tunnistamista”, Saarikko sanoo.
MIDE CNB-E
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”Hiilinanoputki johtaa
sähköä erittäin hyvin. Lisäksi
se toimii katalyyttinä
ja on taipuisa. Pystyimme
korvaamaan sillä kalliimmat
indiumtinaoksidin
ja platinan”, Janne Halme
sanoo.
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CNB-E MIDE
Hiilinanomateriaalit mahdollistavat
taipuisat aurinkokennot
Voidaanko hiilinanoputkilla parantaa aurinkokennojen
ominaisuuksia? Se oli yksi keskeisiä kysymyksiä,
joita Aalto-yliopiston teknillisen fysiikan laitoksen
dosentti Janne Halme tutkimusryhmineen lähti CNB-E
-projektissa selvittämään.
Teknillisessä korkeakoulussa oli professori Esko Kauppisen
tutkimusryhmässä jo aiemmin keksitty uusi hiilen yhdistelmämateriaali nanonuppu (CNP), jossa pallohiilet ovat kiinnittyneet hiilen nanoputken (CNT) ulkoseinämiin kovalenttisin sidoksin. Samoin oli keksitty menetelmä hyvin ohuiden
ja taipuisten hiilinanoputkikalvojen valmistamiseen erilaisille alustoille.
Tutkimusta jatkettiin nanonuppu- ja nanoputkimateriaaleihin perustuvien sovellusten kehittämiseksi. Yhtenä keskeisenä tutkimuskohteena olivat uudenlaiset aurinkokennot.
Hiilen nanonuppumateriaaliin perustuvat
energian tuotto- ja varastointimenetelmät - CNB-E
Pituus: 2008-2012
Budjetti: 1 864 320 €
Projektin johto: Professori Esko Kauppinen,
TkT Toma Susi, teknillisen fysiikan laitos
Laitokset: teknillinen fysiikka, biotekniikka ja kemian tekniikka
Seurantaryhmä: Canatu Oy, Fortum Oyj, Nokia Oyj
Julkaisujen määrä: 56
Väitöskirjat: 5
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MIDE CNB-E
Halme kumppaneineen oli tutkinut väri­
aineaurinkokennoja jo ennen MIDEohjelman alkamista. Väriaineaurinkokennojen katalyyttina on perinteisesti käytetty
Taivutusta kestävä materiaali soveltuu myös
platinaa ja sähköä johtavana materiaalina
paremmin teolliseen rullalta rullalle -tuotan-
indiumtinaoksidia. Nämä materiaalit ovat
toon, mikä mahdollistaa edullisemman mas-
kuitenkin taipumattomia ja sisältävät harvi-
satuotannon. Lisäksi taipuisat kennot ovat
naisia ja kalliita metalleja.
aiempaa ohuempia, mikä säästää materiaalin
CNB-E -projektissa selvitettiin muun
muassa sitä, voisiko hiilinanoputkia käyttää
määrää.
Taipuisa materiaali tarjoaa myös mahdol-
väriaineaurinkokennon vaihtoehtoisena
lisuuden integroida aurinkokennot esimer-
vastaelektrodimateriaalina. Hiilinanoputket
kiksi vaatteisiin.
ovat ympärysmitaltaan vain muutaman
”Kankaat tuntuvat olevan tutkijoita kiin-
nanometrin paksuisia molekyylisylintereitä
nostava sovelluskohde. Eri tutkimusryhmät
ja yksi nanoteknologian lupaavista uusista
maailmalla ovat jo yrittäneet punoa lankaa,
materiaaleista.
jossa olisi sisäänrakennettuna aurinkokenno.
”Hiilinanoputki johtaa sähköä erittäin
Tässä on kuitenkin vielä paljon haasteita,
hyvin. Lisäksi se toimii katalyyttinä ja on
punottujen rakenteiden tulisi samalla olla
taipuisa. Pystyimme korvaamaan sillä kal-
pesunkestäviä, joka on toistaiseksi hanka-
liimmat materiaalit indiumtinaoksidin ja
lampi toteuttaa.”
platinan”, Halme sanoo.
Hiilinanoputkipinnoitetta voi valmistaa
myös musteena. Tulevaisuuden sovelluskoh-
Materiaali mahdollistaa massatuotannon
teita voivat olla esimerkiksi älytarrat, jotka
Hiilinanomateriaaleja hyödyntävät aurinko­
valvovat pakkausten säilytysolosuhteita
kennot voidaan valmistaa taipuisille alus-
kuten lämpötilaa tai kosteutta ja lähettävät
toille kuten muovi- tai metallikalvoille. Tai-
niistä tietoa eteenpäin. Älytarrojen mikro-
puisilla aurinkokennoilla on monia etuja.
piirit saavat tehonsa tarroihin painetuista
”Kun aurinkokenno on taipuisa ja kevyt,
sen voi kääriä rullalle ja ottaa mukaan esi-
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aurinkokennoista.
”Nämä ovat käyttökohteita, joihin perin-
merkiksi kannettavan elektroniikan teho­
teisellä aurinkokennoteknologialla ei edes
lähteeksi. Tai sitä voi kuljettaa laminaatti-
pyritä. Aurinkokennotarroissa ei enää myydä
rullana ja laminoida sen vaikka katolle tai
energiaa, vaan jotain mitä tuo energia mah-
purjeveneen kuperalle kannelle.”
dollistaa.”
Paksuuden ja johtavuuden
optimointia
Käytännön sovellustyössä haettiin eri elementtien optimaalisia keskinäisiä suhteita.
Kun hiilinanoputkikalvoa paksunnettiin,
sen katalyyttisyys parani, mutta paksut
kalvot eivät enää päästäneet valoa läpi.
Olennaista oli selvittää, kuinka ohueksi
kalvon voi tehdä, jotta se on edelleen riittävän johtava.
”Hyötysuhde on aurinkokennoissa aina
merkittävä asia, niillä olisi saatava mahdollisimman paljon energiaa mahdollisimman
pienellä pinta-alalla.”
Kalvojen ohuuden vuoksi sovellusten
integroiminen niihin oli haastavaa.
”Teimme paljon töitä, jotta saimme rakennettua kalvoihin oikeanlaiset kontaktit ja
kasattua materiaaleja niin, että kalvot eivät
rikkoutuneet.”
Halme ryhmineen sovelsi hiilinanoputkimateriaaleja aurinkokennoihin, mutta
CNB-E -projektissa materiaalin eri käyttökohteita tutkittiin laajemminkin – taipuisia
ja sähköä johtavia hiilinanomateriaaleja käytetään esimerkiksi erilaisiin kosketusnäyttöihin. Projekti kiihdytti myös alan kaupallisia sovelluksia kehittävän spin-off -yritys
Canatun toimintaa. Sen tuotteisiin kuuluu
myös hiilimateriaaleihin pohjautuvaa aurinkokennoteknologiaa.
MIDE Rahoittajat
!
”Tarvitsemme jatkossakin
kovan tason osaajia, joiden
ammattitaito kestää
kansainvälisen vertailun”,
Mervi Sibakov sanoo.
22
Rahoittajat MIDE
Investointi suomalaiseen osaamiseen
MIDEn suurimmalle rahoittajalle Teknologiateollisuuden
100-vuotissäätiölle tutkimusohjelma oli panostus
Suomen tulevaisuuden keskeisiin menestystekijöihin:
tietoon ja osaamiseen.
MIDE-tutkimusohjelman rahoitus kerättiin vuonna 2008
Teknillisen korkeakoulun 100-vuotisjuhlien yhteydessä järjestetyllä Tekniikka elämään -kampanjalla. Kampanjaan osallistui 51 yritystä ja yhteisöä useilta eri toimialoilta.
Rahoituksen määrä nousi 20 miljoonaan euroon, josta 10
miljoonaa euroa tuli Teknologiateollisuuden 100-vuotissäätiöltä.
”Summa on todella merkittävä säätiönkin näkökulmasta.
Meillä oli kuitenkin resurssit tämän kokoluokan panostukseen ja aito halu tukea MIDEn aihealueilla tehtävää tutkimusta”, Teknologiateollisuuden 100-vuotissäätiön asiamies
Mervi Sibakov sanoo.
”MIDEn kaltaiset hankkeet ovat erittäin tärkeitä, koska
Suomen menestys perustuu tietoon ja osaamiseen. Hyvällä
tutkimuksella ja tuotekehityksellä on meille suuri merkitys.
Tarvitsemme jatkossakin kovan tason osaajia, joiden ammattitaito kestää kansainvälisen vertailun.”
Teknologiateollisuuden 100-vuotissäätiön tarkoituksena
on edistää teknologiateollisuuden yritysten osaamista ja kilpailukykyä tukemalla alan tutkimus- ja koulutushankkeita.
Säätiön toistaiseksi suurin panostus on ollut Aalto-yliopiston
ja Tampereen teknillisen yliopiston pääomittamiseen osallistuminen yhteensä 64 miljoonalla eurolla.
23
MIDE Rahoittajat
Lisää ymmärrystä ja yhteydenpitoa
Omaehtoisuus innostuksen lähteenä
Sibakov toimi MIDEn ohjausryhmän
Ohjausryhmän puheenjohtajuuden lisäksi
puheenjohtajana. Ohjausryhmään kuului
Sibakov toimi kahden tutkimusprojektin eli
sekä aaltolaisia että eri rahoittajatahojen
4D-Spacen ja OtaSizzlen seurantaryhmissä.
edustajia.
Aihealueet olivat kiinnostavia ja projektien
”Ohjausryhmässä käytiin hyvää ja aktiivista keskustelua. Tutkimusohjelma on
muutenkin lisännyt elinkeinoelämän ja yli-
tutkijoiden innostus ja asiantuntemus
tekivät vaikutuksen.
”Tutkimusprojektien työlle oli varmasti
opistomaailman keskinäistä ymmärrystä ja
eduksi se, että tutkijat saivat kattoteeman
konkreettista yhteydenpitoa. Liikkuminen
puitteissa itse ehdottaa tutkimusaiheita.
Aallon ja yritysten välillä on lisääntynyt
Tämä omaehtoisuus oli selvästi suuri innos-
puolin ja toisin.”
tuksen lähde.”
Yritysmaailman ja yliopistojen vuoro-
”Kaikkiaan MIDE oli hyvin monipuolinen.
puhelua tulee Sibakovin mukaan edelleen
On ainutlaatuista, että yhden yliopiston
kehittää. Yhteiset hankkeet ovat tässä avain-
sisäisessä ohjelmassa on eri alojen tutkimus-
asemassa. Teknologiateollisuus ry järjestää
projekteja, opiskelijaprojekteja sekä vielä
esimerkiksi säännöllisiä ”Toimitusjohtajat
jatko-opiskelijoiden Bit Bang -kurssi, joka on
tentissä” -tapahtumia, joissa alan yritysten
sisällöltään ja toimintamalliltaan aivan lois-
johtohenkilöt tapaavat opiskelijoita ja vas-
tava – en ole törmännyt vastaavaan missään
taavat heidän kysymyksiinsä.
muualla.”
”Teknologiateollisuuden haasteena on
saada riittävästi hyviä opiskelijoita mate-
Toimintamalli osoitti toimivuutensa
maattis-luonnontieteellisille aloille. Siksi
MIDEn tutkimusprojektien tulosten arvi-
alan tarjoamista mahdollisuuksista on myös
ointi on Sibakovin mielestä vaikeaa.
kerrottava aktiivisesti.”
MIDEssä tehtiin Sibakovin mukaan paljon
24
”Tutkimuksen arviointi on aina haasteellista. Meillä on toki yksiselitteisiä määrällisiä
mielenkiintoista tutkimusta, joiden tulok-
mittareita, mutta laadullinen arviointi on
sista olisi voinut viestiä entistä näkyvämmin
todella vaikeaa, koska ohjelman päättyessä
myös yliopiston ulkopuolelle. Hän harmit-
sen vaikutukset eivät yleensä vielä näy. Arvi-
telee, että hieno hanke jäi nyt turhan vähälle
ointi onnistuu paremmin vasta pidemmän
huomiolle.
aikavälin kuluessa.”
Rahoittajat MIDE
”MIDEn toimintamalli on kuitenkin ollut
tuloksellinen. MIDE on lisännyt monitieteisyyttä, kansainvälisyyttä ja yhdessä tekemistä. Se on luonut mielenkiintoisia spin-off
-yrityksiä. Lisäksi hanke on tuottanut hyvätasoista koulutusta saaneita tohtoreita ja insinöörejä. Nämä ovat kaikki erittäin myönteisiä asioita.”
Sibakovin mukaan MIDEn kaltaiselle konseptille on tyypillistä, että osa projekteista
jää niille asetetuista tavoitteista.
”Tutkimuksessa on samanlaiset riskit
kuin alkuvaiheen teknologiayrityksissä.
Joistain tutkimusaiheista tai liikeideoista
aika vain ajaa ohi. Tämä riski pitää hyväksyä.
Mitään uutta ei synny, jos kaikki on lähtö­
hetkellä takuuvarmaa.”
25
MIDE E-Wood
1234
5678
91011
26
”Uusien kuitujen
kehittyneet ominaisuudet
soveltuvat mainiosti
hyvin erilaisiin
lopputuotteisiin”,
Tapani Vuorinen
sanoo.
E-Wood MIDE
Metsäteollisuuden kilpailukykyä
parantamassa
E-Wood -projektissa tutkittiin ja kehitettiin uusia tapoja
mekaaniseen paperikuidun valmistukseen. Uusien
kuitujen valmistus kuluttaa huomattavasti vähemmän
energiaa, lisäksi ne mahdollistavat uudenlaisia tuote­
innovaatioita.
”Mekaaniseen paperikuidun valmistukseen kuluu valtavasti
energiaa. Halusimme selvittää, mihin energiaa sitoutuu ja
miten energiankulutusta voisi vähentää. Tutkimme puun
käyttäytymistä erilaisissa rasitustilanteissa ja vaihtelevissa
olosuhteissa. Lisäksi mallinsimme puun rakenteita laskennallisesti ja tutkimme yksityiskohtaisemmalla tasolla puusoluseinämän rakenteita ja käyttäytymistä”, projektista vastannut professori Tapani Vuorinen sanoo.
Tutkimuksessa huomattiin, että korkeissa lämpötiloissa
puun soluseinämän kuitujen irtoaminen tapahtuu siistimmin
kuin tähän asti käytetyissä prosesseissa. Näin valmistetut
kuidut ovat myös kestävämpiä.
Energiatehokas puun prosessointi ja työstäminen – E-Wood
Pituus: 2009-2013
Budjetti: 1 892 388 €
Projektin johto: Professori Tapani Vuorinen, puunjalostustekniikan laitos
Mukana olevat laitokset: puunjalostustekniikka, sovellettu mekaniikka, teknillinen fysiikka
Seurantaryhmä: Fibic Oy, Metso Oyj, UPM Oyj, VTT
Julkaisujen määrä: 16
Väitöskirjat: 4
27
MIDE E-Wood
Vaikka uudessa kuidunvalmistusmenetel-
”Nyt mekaanista kuitua käytetään lähinnä
mässä käytetään korkeampia lämpötiloja,
painopapereissa. Uusien kuitujen kehittyneet
sen kokonaisenergiankulutus on alustavien
ominaisuudet soveltuvat kuitenkin mainiosti
laboratoriokokeiden mukaan vajaa puolet
hyvin erilaisiin lopputuotteisiin.”
nykyisin käytössä olevasta menetelmästä.
”Mekaaninen kuidunvalmistus kuluttaa
Mekaanisilla kuiduilla voidaan parantaa
huomattavasti esimerkiksi erilaisten pak-
vähemmän puuta kuin kemiallinen sellun-
kausten kosteudenkestoa. Pakkaukset ovat
keitto. Puuraaka-aineen hinta on merkittävä
muutenkin tuotekehittäjien mielenkiinnon
metsäteollisuuden kilpailukykyyn vaikuttava
kohteena, sillä niiden käyttö on trendinomai-
tekijä, joten uudenlaiselle kuidunvalmistus-
sessa kasvussa.
menetelmälle on varmasti kysyntää.”
Mekaaniset kuidut soveltuvat hyvin myös
erilaisiin komposiittituotteisiin. Luonnon-
Pakkauksissa paljon potentiaalia
materiaaleista valmistetuilla komposiiteilla
Kustannussäästöjä merkittävämpänä teki-
voidaan lisäksi korvata epäekologisia muovi-
jänä Vuorinen näkee uusien ja parempilaa-
tuotteita.
tuisten kuitujen mahdollistamat uudet tuoteinnovaatiot.
28
E-Wood MIDE
Uusia valmistusmenetelmiä tarvitaan
Uudet mekaanisesti valmistetut kuidut eivät
kuitenkaan sovellu nykyisenkaltaisiin paperinvalmistusprosesseihin. Seuraavaksi tutkijoiden työ suuntautuukin uudenlaisten valmistusmenetelmien kartoittamiseen.
”Saimme Proof of concept -rahoituksen,
jotta voimme testata uudentyyppisille kuiduille soveltuvia materiaalinvalmistusprosesseja. Minulla on vahva luottamus siihen,
että tulevaisuudessa metsäteollisuus voi
tehdä entistä parempia lopputuotteita entistä
paremmilla valmistusmenetelmillä.”
Uudet valmistusmenetelmät voisivat
heijastua radikaalisti myös itse paperitehtaisiin. Tulevaisuuden paperitehtaat eivät
välttämättä vaadi yhtä massiivisia koneita
sivät, että tutkimuksen teko on hidasta ja kal-
ja ne voivat siten olla nykyistä huomattavas-
lista. He jaksoivat olla kärsivällisiä ja kannus-
tikin pienempiä. Ne eivät myöskään vaadi
tavia. Tämä kantoi myös hedelmää.
yhtä suuria investointeja kuin nykymuotoiset
paperitehtaat.
”Meillä oli useampi tutkimusryhmä, jotka
eivät olleet aiemmin tehneet yhteistyötä –
ja he ryhtyivät tekemään tutkimusta jota ei
Metsäteollisuudella yhä merkitystä
ole aiemmin tehty. Saimme luotua toimivia
Vuorinen näkee metsäteollisuuden jatkos-
kumppanuuksia, joissa jatketaan hyvin alka-
sakin kansantaloudelle merkittävänä toimi-
nutta yhteistyötä myös tulevaisuudessa.”
alana.
”Alan yrityksillä on paljon uudenlaista liiketoimintaa ja erinomaisia tuotteita. Uskon,
että joidenkin vuosien kuluttua saamme
myös nähdä E-Wood-projektin tuloksia hyödyntäviä innovaatioita.”
MIDE tarjosi tutkimukselle hyvät puitteet.
Vuorisen mukaan ohjelman vetäjät ymmär-
29
MIDE Exergia
1234
5678
91011
”MIDE-ohjelmassa olemme
olleet kuin suuressa
tuotekehitysperheessä.
Se on ollut hyvin palkitsevaa”,
Markku Lampinen sanoo.
30
Exergia MIDE
Pienin askelin merkittäviin tuloksiin
Exergia-projektin löydökset voivat mahdollistaa uusien,
nykyisiä huomattavasti paremmalla hyötysuhteella
toimivien voimalaitosten kehittämisen.
Exergia-projektissa tutkittiin itsestään paineistuvaa polttoa.
Projektin tavoitteena oli lisätä merkittävästi polttoaineesta
hyötykäyttöön saatavan työn määrää eli exergiaa.
Voimalaitoksissa palamisilman paineistamiseen on perinteisesti käytetty kompressoreita, joiden työteho otetaan pakokaasuturbiinista. Kompressorit kuluttavat paljon energiaa ja
siten esimerkiksi kaasuturbiineja käyttävien kombivoima­
laitosten hyötysuhde jää tyypillisesti noin 60 prosenttiin.
Exergia-projektin tulosten pohjalta kehitetyillä ratkaisu­
malleilla kaasuturbiinilaitoksen hyötysuhde voidaan nostaa
noin 80 prosenttiin.
Exergiahäviöiden minimoiminen polttoprosesseissa – Exergia
Pituus: 2008-2010
Budjetti: 390 000 €
Projektin johto: Professori Markku J. Lampinen, energiatekniikan laitos
Laitokset: energiatekniikka, muotoilu
Seurantaryhmä: Fortum Oyj, Metso Power Oy, Outokumpu Oyj,
Outotec Oyj, UPM-Kymmene Oyj, YIT Oyj
Julkaisujen määrä: 1
31
MIDE Exergia
”Exergiahäviö johtuu siitä, että tavanomai-
Taistelu hapesta
sessa termisessä polttoprosessissa palamis-
”Kehitimme useita erilaisia mekaanisia mal-
ilma, polttoaine ja pakokaasut ovat kaikki
leja, kunnes lopulta keksimme käyttää rat-
polttokammiossa samassa paineessa. Ter-
kaisussa keraamista perovskiittikalvoa, joka
modynamiikan lakien mukaan palaminen
päästää läpi happea, mutta ei hiilidioksidia
on kuitenkin mahdollista toteuttaa niin, että
tai vesihöyryä. Näin pystyimme johtamaan
pakokaasujen poistumispaine on palamis-
happea polttokammioon, vaikka siellä olikin
ilman painetta merkittävästi korkeampi.
suurempi kokonaispaine.”
Tätä pohjimmiltaan palamisen kemialliseen
Lampinen konkretisoi kemiallisen pro-
reaktioon perustuvaa mahdollisuutta ei vain
sessin kulkua perovskiitin ja polttoaineen
ole aiemmin systemaattisesti tutkittu”, pro-
taisteluksi hapesta.
jektin vastuuhenkilönä toiminut professori
Markku Lampinen sanoo.
Lampinen tutkimusryhmineen ryhtyi sel-
johtaa hyvin suuria määriä happea. Kun palotilaan syötetään polttoainetta, se repii hapen
vittämään, miten happea saataisiin painei-
itselleen. Polttoaine palaa korkeassa lämpö-
seen tilaan ilman kompressoria.
tilassa ja paine nousee, kunnes se on riittävän
”Meillä oli koko tutkimukseen vähän filosofisempi lähestymistapa. Lähdimme tekemään
pieniä kokeita, joilla haimme tutkimuksen
32
”Perovskiittimateriaali sitoo itseensä ja
korkea pyörittääkseen turbiinia. Tämä oli
tutkimuksen keskeisiä oivalluksia.”
Lampisen tutkimusryhmä käytti labo-
isoa linjaa. Kartoitimme eri ratkaisuvaihto-
ratoriossaan perovskiittimateriaalista val-
ehtoja, kunnes löysimme lupaavimman.”
mistettuja putkia ja demonstroi teorian toi-
Exergia MIDE
Laboratoriossa (vas.) Juha Vanttola, Valtteri Mikkola,
Markku Lampinen ja Ville Ristimäki.
mivuuden. Putkien kestävyys osoittautui
ongelmaksi, mutta palamisen ongelma oli nyt
periaatetasolla ratkaistu. Aikaa tähän työhön
ja sitä mallintaviin kokeisiin kului runsaat
kaksi vuotta.
Kansainvälinen kumppani
tuotekehitykseen
Tutkimustulokset herättivät suuren saksalaisen tutkimuskeskuksen Fraunhoferin kiinnostuksen. Teknologiaa on kehitetty edelleen
yhteistyössä heidän kanssaan.
Lampinen on toiminut pitkään myös teollisuuden tuotekehitystehtävissä. Kokemukseensa perustuen hän arvioi, että Exergiaprojektin sovelluksilla on mahdollisuudet
onnistua ja edetä kaupalliseen tuotantoon.
”Jos onnistumme demonstroimaan paineistamisen riittävän korkeisiin paineisiin,
niin ensimmäiset teknologiaa hyödyntävät
sovellukset voisivat olla tuotannossa ehkä jo
viiden vuoden kuluttua. Teknologian skaalaamisen ei pitäisi olla enää vaikeaa.”
Lampisen mukaan Exergia-projekti on
ollut hyvä esimerkki siitä, mitä kaikkea voi
syntyä, kun asioita on mahdollisuus tutkia
vähän pidemmällä aikajänteellä.
”MIDE-ohjelmassa on ollut paljon ymmärrystä uusien teknologioiden kehittämisestä.
Olemme olleet kuin suuressa tuotekehitysperheessä. Se on ollut hyvin palkitsevaa.”
MIDE Opiskelijaprojektit
!
”Aalto-1 on kerännyt ympärilleen
erittäin vahvan yhteisön,
Opiskelijat rakentavat satelliittia
suurella intohimolla”,
Jaan Praks sanoo.
34
Opiskelijaprojektit MIDE
Opiskelijaprojektissa kurkotetaan avaruuteen
Aalto-yliopiston radiotieteen ja -tekniikan laitoksen
laboratoriossa valmistuu Suomen ensimmäinen
satelliitti, Aalto-1. Opiskelijavoimin rakennetun
satelliitin on määrä nousta radalleen vuoden 2014
syksyllä.
Aalto-1 on yksi MIDE-tutkimusohjelman kolmesta opiskelija­­
projektista. Maitopurkin kokoinen ja muutaman kilon painoinen CubeSat-standardia käyttävä satelliitti on suunniteltu
ja rakennettu pääosin opiskelijavoimin osana opinnäytteitä ja
kurssisuorituksia.
Idea omasta satelliitista syntyi muutama vuosi sitten avaruustekniikan opiskelijoiden ja opettajien keskuudessa, kun
opetukseen haettiin uusia muotoja. Projektin koordinaattorina toimii tutkija Jaan Praks.
”Aalto-1 on kerännyt ympärilleen erittäin vahvan yhteisön,
jossa on todella motivoituneita opiskelijoita. He rakentavat
satelliittia suurella intohimolla”, Praks kertoo.
Laboratoriossa satelliitin parissa työskentelevät opiskelijat Jaakko Jussila, Hannu Leppinen ja Elyas Razzaghi.
Monipuolinen projekti on opettanut heille paljon eri alojen
yhteistyöstä.
”Projektissa pitää ymmärtää laajoja kokonaisuuksia. Jos
tekee muutoksia yhteen alijärjestelmään, yleensä kaikkea
muutakin pitää muuttaa. Siksi tässä on oman erikoisalansa
lisäksi tiedettävä vähän kaikista muistakin alueista. Tämä on
kuin palapelin rakentamista”, satelliitin GPS-järjestelmän
integroinnista vastannut Leppinen sanoo.
35
MIDE Opiskelijaprojektit
”Lisäksi monet asiat tuntuvat usein toimivan
ICEYE:ssä, joka aikoo hyödyntää satelliitteja
teoriassa, mutta käytännössä niitä pitää vielä
arktisten meriväylien jäätilanteen kartoitta-
työstää laboratoriossa”, satelliitin tietoko-
miseen.
netta kehittänyt Razzaghi kertoo.
Kämmenelle mahtuva tietokone toimii
Opetus valmentaa työelämään
Aalto-1 -satelliitin aivoina. Sen keskusyk-
Aalto-1 on ollut poikkitieteellinen projekti,
sikkö ottaa komennot vastaan ja pyörittää eri
jossa on yhdistelty hyvin erilaista osaamista.
ohjelmistoja ja oheislaitteita.
Siihen osallistuneet opiskelijat ovat saaneet
”Pohjimmiltaan satelliitti on tietokone tai
robotti, joka on ohjelmoitu tekemään tiettyjä
asioita erittäin vaikeissa olosuhteissa”, Praks
kuvaa.
arvokasta projektikokemusta ja työllistyneet
hyvin.
”Olemme rakentaneet Suomeen uutta
osaamista: meillä on nyt verkosto, jolla on
paljon tietotaitoa pienistä satelliiteista ja
Osaaminen synnytti alan yrityksen
joka voi jatkossa edelleen kehittää alaa.
Satelliitti kantaa mukanaan kolmea hyöty-
Olemme jo mukana myös parissa uudessa
kuormaa: VTT:n spektrometriä, Ilmatieteen
satelliittihankkeessa.”
laitoksen plasmajarrua sekä Helsingin yliopiston ja Turun yliopiston kehittämää säteilymittaria.
Jussila on kehittänyt satelliitin radiojärjestelmää, joka välittää hyötykuormien
keräämiä tietoja maahan. Opiskelijoiden
osaamiseen luottanut projekti on hänen
mukaansa antanut mukana olleille paljon
myös yleisemmin työelämässä tarvittavia
valmiuksia.
”Yllätyin erityisesti siitä, kuinka kovaa
työtä hyvän dokumentaation kirjoittaminen
on. Tästä taidosta on varmasti hyötyä alalla
kuin alalla”, Jussila sanoo.
Satelliittiteknologiasta on tosin tullut
jo Jussilan ja Leppisen työkin. Molemmat
ovat mukana projektin spin-off-yrityksessä
36
Satelliittia kehitetään radiotieteen ja -tekniikan laitoksen
laboratoriossa. Kuvassa (vas.) jatko-opiskelijat Tuomas Tikka
ja Osama Khurshid, Jaan Praks, Petri Niemelä, Nuno Silva,
sekä Henry Sanmark.
Praksin mielestä Aalto-1 on toiminut hyvänä
esimerkkinä projektipohjaisen opetuksen
mahdollisuuksista.
”Projektipohjainen opetus auttaa opiskelijoita hahmottamaan laajoja kokonaisuuksia.
He oppivat esimerkiksi hallitsemaan han-
Näihin perinteinen opetus ei ole juurikaan
kintaketjua sekä tekemään dokumentaatiota.
valmentanut, vaikka työelämä on valtaosin
tiimityötä ja erilaisia projekteja.”
Laukaisu aloittaa uuden projektin
Tavoitteena on, että Aalto-1 on vuoden 2013
loppuun mennessä valmiina ja testauskunnossa. Kaikki järjestelmät on vielä testattava
laukaisutilanteen kovia tärinöitä ja kiertoradan suuria lämpötilavaihteluita silmälläpitäen.
”Laukaisu on sitten oman tieteellisen projektin alku. Tavoitteena on operoida satelliittia maata kiertävällä radalla pari vuotta,
tehdä hyötykuormilla mittauksia ja lopulta
jarruttaa satelliitti pois kiertoradaltaan, jotta
se ei jää avaruusromuksi”, Praks sanoo.
Konkreettinen ja pioneerihenkinen
tavoite on ollut projektille suuri voimavara.
”On ollut erittäin motivoivaa ajatella, että
rakentamamme satelliitti on jonain päivänä
avaruudessa”, Razzaghi sanoo.
”Samalla sitä toivoo, että mikään ei mene
vikaan ainakaan sen takia mitä on itse tehnyt.
Se on myös asenne, jolla kaikki mukana
olevat ovat tehneet töitä. Siksi satelliitin laukaisuun voi suhtautua luottavaisesti”, Leppinen kertoo.
37
MIDE HighLight
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”Halusimme yhdistää
kovatasoisen fysiikan ja
materiaalitutkimuksen
osaamisemme ja
led-teknologian
viimeisimmän tiedon”,
Jukka Tulkki sanoo.
38
HighLight MIDE
Ledejä piilolasinäyttöihin ja
fotonilämpöpumppuihin
HighLight-projektissa tutkittiin led-teknologiaan
perustuvia korkean hyötysuhteen valonlähteitä, jotka
vähentävät merkittävästi valaistukseen käytetyn sähkön
kulutusta. Ledeillä on lisäksi koko joukko muitakin
mielenkiintoisia sovelluskohteita.
Projektin käynnistyessä led-valaistuksen teknologia oli
vielä verraten uusi. Alan tutkimus oli laajan kiinnostuksen
kohteena, sillä lähes viidennes maailman sähköenergiasta
käytettiin valaistukseen, valtaosin heikon hyötysuhteen
valaisimilla. Led-teknologian kehittämisellä ja valaisimien
hyötysuhteen parantamisella on siten merkittäviä vaikutuksia maailman energiatalouteen.
”Halusimme yhdistää kovatasoisen fysiikan ja materiaalitutkimuksen osaamisemme ja led-teknologian viimeisimmän
tiedon. Olemme tehneet valikoiduilla kapeilla alueilla tutkimusta, joka toivottavasti näkyy aikanaan myös patentoitavina
innovaatioina”, Aalto-yliopiston lääketieteellisen tekniikan ja
laskennallisen tieteen laitoksen professori Jukka Tulkki ja
vanhempi tutkija Jani Oksanen sanovat.
LED-teknologiaan perustuvat korkean hyötysuhteen valonlähteet – HighLight
Pituus: 2008-2013
Budjetti: 1 884 000 €
Projektin johto: Professori Harri Lipsanen, mikro- ja nanotekniikan laitos
Mukana olevat laitokset: mikro- ja nanotekniikka, kemia, teknillinen fysiikka, elektroniikka
Seurantaryhmä: Espoon kaupunki, Fortum Oyj, Helsingin yliopisto,
Teknologiateollisuuden 100-vuotissäätiö
Julkaisujen määrä: 70
Väitöskirjat: 8
39
MIDE HighLight
Optisia jäähdytyssovelluksia
tehoa, esimerkiksi mitta-antureiden jäähdy-
Led-teknologia tarjoaa laaja-alaisuudessaan
tyksessä tai lääketieteen jäähdytyssovelluk-
suuren joukon mielenkiintoisia tutkimus-
sissa”, Oksanen sanoo.
aiheita. Yksi HighLight-projektin tutkimuskohde liittyi siihen, miten teknologiaa
Ledeillä runsaasti käyttökohteita
voidaan soveltaa erittäin korkealla hyöty­
Toinen esimerkki ledien lukuisista sovel-
suhteella toimivien ledien ja elektrolumine-
luskohteista on piilolinsseihin asennettavat
senssin mahdollistamaan jäähdytykseen.
näytöt. Linssien sisään upotettavat led-sirut
Termodynamiikan kannalta lediä voi-
saavat kuvat näkymään ihmisen näkökentän
daankin tietyissä olosuhteissa tarkastella
päällä. Aihetta tutkittiin HighLight-projektin
eräänlaisena fotonilämpöpumppuna, jonka
alkuvaiheessa, yhteistyössä Washingtonin
toimintaa hallitsevat samat termodyna-
yliopiston kanssa. Aallon vastuulla oli led-
miikan lait kuin tavanomaisia ilmalämpö-
sirujen tutkiminen ja valmistaminen.
pumppujakin.
”Ledistä ulos tulevan valon energiamäärä
ensimmäisessä vaiheessa käyttää erilaisiin
on sama riippumatta siitä millaisella jännit-
lääketieteen sovelluksiin, vaikkapa varoitta-
teellä lediin on syötetty sähköenergiaa. Jos
maan diabeetikkoja liian alhaisesta verenso-
jännite jolla lediä käytetään on kohtalaisen
kerista. Teknologian kehittyessä linsseihin
pieni, puuttuva energia otetaan lämpöenergi-
voi rakentaa kehittyneempiä näyttöjä. Tällai-
asta. Tämä lämpöenergian talteenotto jääh-
siin sovelluksiin on kuitenkin vielä matkaa”,
dyttää siis samalla lediä”, Oksanen kertoo.
Oksanen sanoo.
Tällaisilla optisilla jäähdytyssovelluksilla
”HighLight-projektissa käytettiin piilo­
on teoriassa mahdollista saavuttaa korkea
linssialustaksi soveltuvaa muovikalvoa,
hyötysuhde sekä monia muita etuja perintei-
johon asennettiin toisiinsa kytkettyjä ledejä.
siin ratkaisuihin verrattuna.
Projektissamme aiheesta tutkimusta tehnyt
”Ledeihin perustuvia ratkaisuja voidaan
40
”Ledejä hyödyntäviä piilolaseja voisi
yhdysvaltalainen vierailuprofessori siirtyi
hyödyntää sovelluksissa, joissa pienestä
sittemmin Googlelle kehittämään vastaavaa
rakenteesta tarvitaan riittävästi jäähdytys-
teknologiaa”, Oksanen kertoo.
HighLight
”Tällaiset siirrot ovat lopulta
positiivisia asioita. Ne kertovat,
että suuret ja menestyvät yhtiöt
ovat kiinnostuneita tutkimusaiheistamme
ja projekteissa olevasta osaamisesta”,
Tulkki toteaa.
HighLight-projektissa oli tutkijoita lääke­
Projekti vahvisti alan osaamista
tieteellisen tekniikan ja laskennallisen tie-
Piilolinssitutkimus oli lopulta pikemminkin
teen laitoksen lisäksi mikro- ja nanotek-
yksi HighLight-projektin rönsyistä, ja
niikan, kemian, teknillisen fysiikan sekä
sikäli tarpeellinen sellainen.
elektroniikan laitoksilta. Projektissa kehitet-
”HighLightissa olemme tehneet perus­
tiin uusia lediprototyyppejä, ledien valmis-
tutkimusta ja yksi sen tehtävistä on tuottaa
tustekniikkaa sekä erilaisia mittaus- ja mal-
runsaasti erilaisia ideanpoikasia. Jos näh-
lintamismenetelmiä.
dään, että näistä ideoista voi syntyä jotain
”Aallossa oli led-tutkimusta jo ennen
mielenkiintoista, niin rönsyille pitää antaa
MIDEä, mutta HighLight-projekti mahdol-
myös tilaa kasvaa. Tähän MIDE-tutkimus­
listi osaamisalueen voimakkaamman kehit-
ohjelma on tarjonnut erittäin hyvän mahdol-
tämisen. Alan tutkimus jatkuu eri spin-off
lisuuden”, Tulkki sanoo.
-projektien parissa”, Oksanen sanoo.
MIDE HybLab
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Jussi Suomela (oik.)
ja Panu Sainio
haluavat osaltaan
vaikuttaa siihen,
että Suomessa on
jatkossakin työkoneiden
osaamista ja valmistusta.
42
HybLab MIDE
Teoriasta kaupalliseksi tuotteeksi
HybLab-projekti tutki miten työkoneiden polttoaineen
kulutusta voisi radikaalisti vähentää. Projektin
käynnistyessä perustettiin samalla tutkittavaa
teknologiaa tuotteistava yritys, Hybria. Kaikki Hybrian
perustajaosakkaat olivat mukana myös tutkimus­
hankkeessa.
Tutkimuksen ja yritystoiminnan tekeminen rinnan toi
molemmille runsaasti synergiaa. Samaa teknologiaa pystyttiin lähestymään niin teoreettisen kuin kaupallisen viitekehyksen kautta.
”Kokemukset Hybriasta auttoivat tarkentamaan relevantteja tutkimuskohteita ja ymmärtämään paremmin teollisten
rahoittajien tarpeita. Tutkimustulokset taas ovat antaneet
ideoita uusiksi tuotteiksi”, Aalto-yliopiston Insinööritieteiden korkeakoulun yli-insinööri Panu Sainio sanoo.
Työnjako on kuitenkin ollut selkeä: HybLab keskittyi
tutkimukseen, ja kaikki sen luoma tieto on myös julkaistu.
Hybria on puolestaan keskittynyt kaupallisten tuotteiden
kehittämiseen.
Työkoneiden hybridisointi - HybLab
Pituus: 2008-2012
Budjetti: 2 000 000 €
Projektin johto: Professori Jussi Suomela, automaatio- ja systeemitekniikan laitos;
yli-insinööri Panu Sainio, koneenrakennustekniikan laitos
Mukana olevat laitokset: automaatio- ja systeemitekniikka, koneenrakennustekniikka,
sähkötekniikka, johtaminen ja kansainvälinen liiketoiminta
Seurantaryhmä: Fortum Oyj, Konecranes Oyj, Rocla Oy, Sandvik Mining and Construction Oy
Julkaisujen määrä: 89
Väitöskirjat: 4
43
MIDE HybLab
HybLabissa selvitettiin, miten työkoneiden
eri työvaiheissa tuottamaa energiaa voidaan ottaa talteen ja hyödyntää uudestaan
koneiden sähköiseen voimansiirtoon. Projektin tärkeimmät löydökset liittyivät siihen,
että hybridisähköisen voimalinjan mitoituksella ja ohjauksella on keskeinen rooli
koneiden hyötysuhteen parantamisessa.
Hyötysuhteen parantamiselle on eniten
”Haastavuus tulee siitä, että teho voi liikkua
potentiaalia syklisissä työtehtävissä, kuten
molempiin suuntiin ja haarautua. Energia-
esimerkiksi nostamisessa ja laskemisessa tai
varastoissa pitää olla riittävästi energiaa
paljon kiihdytyksiä ja jarrutuksia sisältävissä
koneiden vaativaan käyttöön, mutta myös
työtehtävissä.
riittävästi tilaa, jotta kone voi varastoida esi-
Sähköistä voimansiirtoa hyödyntävien
merkiksi jarrutuksesta syntyvää energiaa.
hybridijärjestelmillä varustettujen työ-
Tämä on tehon hallinnan ja koneiden hyöty­
koneiden polttoaineen kulutus voidaan
suhteen parantamisen keskeisiä haasteita.”
vähentää jopa puoleen nykyisestä.
Kauppatieteilijöiden avulla kulmahuoneisiin
Tutkimus tuotteiden taustalla
Kun Aalto-yliopisto aloitti toimintansa,
Hybrian keskeiset tuotteet liittyvät työkonei-
HybLab sai joukkoihinsa myös kauppatietei-
den sähköiseen voimansiirron integrointiin.
lijöitä.
”Kokoamme työkoneiden voimansiirtoon
”Heidän avullaan löysimme kielen, jolla
ratkaisun, jossa eri valmistajien komponent-
puhua toimitusjohtajille. Se oli äärimmäisen
teja voi tarvittaessa vaihtaa. Keskeistä osaa-
arvokasta. Aiemmin menimme teknologia
mistamme on sähköisen voimansiirron koko-
edellä, nyt osaamme paremmin kiteyttää
naisuutta ohjaavan ohjelmiston suunnittelu”,
ratkaisujemme hyödyt asiakkaiden liiketoi-
Hybrian hallituksen puheenjohtaja Jussi
minnalle. Tämä kokonaisuus on opettanut
Suomela kertoo.
minulle projektimyynnistä ja yritysyhteis-
Ohjausohjelmiston taustat liittyvät
nimenomaan HybLabissa tehtyyn tutkimukseen ja siihen ymmärrykseen, jolla tehon virtauksia hybridijärjestelmissä hallitaan.
työstä enemmän kuin mikään mitä olen
tehnyt aiemmin”, Sainio kertoo.
Yrityksille luotettavuus ja kustannussäästöt ovat usein teknisiä finessejä tehokkaampia argumentteja. Kun työkoneen
44
HybLab MIDE
voimansiirto pyörii sähköllä, se laskee polt-
toisinpäin. Yritykset kertoivat esimerkiksi
toaineen kulutusta ja parantaa koneen hallit-
mitkä aiheeseen liittyvät teemat ovat heille
tavuutta, mikä näkyy parempana tehokkuu-
ajankohtaisia ja millaisia komponentteja
tena. Työkoneiden hyötysuhde kasvaa, ja ne
maailmalla on kehitteillä.
voivat siirtää samassa ajassa ja samalla polt-
”HybLab oli hyvin antoisa projekti. Viiden
toainemäärällä suurempia lasteja. Lisäksi
vuoden aikajänne oli ainutlaatuinen, var-
huoltokustannukset pienenevät.
sinkin kun jaksoon mahtui monta erilaista
”Työkoneissa pyritään koko ajan nosta-
sykliä: niin talouslamaa kuin sähköautojen
maan automaatioastetta. Osa koneista voi
ympärille syntynyttä hypeä”, Sainio sanoo.
tulevaisuudessa olla täysin automatisoituja
Suomelan mielestä HybLab oli osaltaan
robotteja – niille polttomoottorit ovat huono
lisäämässä sähköisen voimansiirron osaa-
ratkaisu. Automaatioasteen nosto vaatii siten
mista Suomessa. Se antoi myös alan yri-
myös sähköistysasteen nostoa”, Sainio sanoo.
tyksille uudenlaisia valmiuksia. Sainion
Kaivosteollisuuden koneet ovat kiinnos-
mielestä HybLabilla oli lisäksi merkittävä
tavia, koska polttoaineen kulutuksen lasku
vaikutus siihen, että alan tutkimus jatkuu
alentaa samalla kaivosten ilmanvaihdon
Tekesin sähköisten ajoneuvojen järjestelmiin
kustannuksia. Nämä pakokaasujen poistosta
liittyvässä EVE-ohjelmassa.
aiheutuvat kustannukset ovat noin kaksi
Tulevaisuudessa Hybria haluaa olla mer-
kertaa suurempia kuin polttoainekustan-
kittävä työkoneiden järjestelmäintegraattori
nukset ja kasvavat sitä mukaa, mitä syvem-
ja akustotoimittaja, jonka liikevaihto laske-
mälle kaivoksissa mennään. Kaivosteolli-
taan miljoonissa. Sillä on myös laajempi kan-
suudessa onkin paljon mielenkiintoa täysin
santaloudellinen missio.
sähköisille koneille.
”Haluamme osaltamme vaikuttaa siihen,
että Suomessa on jatkossakin työkoneiden
Pitkän aikavälin vaikutuksia
osaamista ja valmistusta”, Sainio toteaa.
Hybria työllistää täysipäiväisesti kolme
perustajaansa, vuodelle 2013 yritys tavoittelee 200 000 euron liikevaihtoa.
HybLab-projektin seurantaryhmään kuuluivat Fortum, Konecranes, Rocla ja Sandvik.
Suomela kiittelee seurantaryhmässä käytyä
keskustelua: tietoa ei siirtynyt pelkästään
tutkimusprojektista yrityksiin, vaan myös
45
MIDE Bit Bang
!
”Yhteistyön haasteita
ei voi oikeasti
ymmärtää, ennen kuin
on itse tehnyt paljon töitä
monimuotoisessa ryhmässä”,
Evgenia Litvinova
sanoo.
46
Bit Bang MIDE
Bit Bang opetti monialaista tiimityötä
MIDE-ohjelman jatko-opintokurssi Bit Bang on kerännyt
kansainväliseltä osallistujajoukoltaan varauksetonta
kiitosta. Lukuvuoden mittainen kurssi järjestetään jo
kuudetta kertaa.
Bit Bang -kurssin ideoi professori Yrjö Neuvo. Kurssin esikuvana oli Nokian ylimmän johdon koulutusohjelma ja sen
ytimessä on monialainen ja kansainvälinen tiimityö. Jatkoopiskelija Evgenia Litvinova on osallistunut Bit Bangiin
sekä opiskelijana että tutorina.
”Kollegani kävi Bit Bangin ja kehui sitä hyödyllisimmäksi
kurssiksi, mitä hänellä oli koskaan ollut. Voin allekirjoittaa
saman: kurssi oli todella loistava.”
Litvinovan Bit Bang -kurssin aiheena oli Future of
Internet.
”Kurssin otsikko vaikuttaa osaltaan siihen, millaisia opiskelijoita sinne hakee. Lopulta otsikolla ei ole suurta merkitystä. Opiskelussa ei ole kyse yksittäisistä aihealueista, vaan
tärkeintä on monialaisuutta painottava työskentelymalli.”
”Monialaisuudesta ja erilaisten näkemysten yhteensovittamisesta puhutaan paljon. Yhteistyön haasteita ei voi kuitenkaan oikeasti ymmärtää, ennen kuin on itse tehnyt paljon
töitä monimuotoisessa ryhmässä. Siinä oppii, miten erilaisia
ihmiset oikeasti ovat ja miten eri tavoin he ajattelevat ja toimivat. Tämä oli Bit Bangin arvokkaimpia opetuksia.”
47
MIDE Bit Bang
Monitieteinen ja kansainvälinen
Epämukavuusalueella oppii uutta
Litvinovan kurssilla oli 25 opiskelijaa yli
Bit Bang -kurssin ryhmätöissä kirjoitettiin
kymmenestä eri maasta. Myös osallistujien
artikkeleita aloilta, jotka eivät suoraan liitty-
tieteenalojen kirjo oli suuri. Litvinovan omat
neet kenenkään tohtoriopintojen aiheeseen.
tohtoriopinnot liittyvät älykkäiden tilojen
Tällä epämukavuusalueella joutui tekemään
käyttökokemuksiin ja käyttäjäystävälli-
tavallista enemmän töitä.
syyden parantamiseen.
”Oli hedelmällistä nähdä, kuinka eri
opintopisteiden takia. Ihmiset osallistuvat
taustan omaavat ihmiset lähestyvät samaa
ja tekevät siellä paljon työtä, koska ovat kiin-
aihetta. Kun puhuimme Internetin tulevai-
nostuneita asioista ja haluavat oppia. Tämä
suudesta, eri opiskelijat hahmottivat sitä
näkyi kurssin arjessa: kun kuulimme mielen-
niin IP-protokollien, viestinnän, tekijän­
kiintoisen esityksen, joku haki aina asiasta
oikeuksien tai käyttäjäkohtaisten sovellusten
lisätietoa ja jakoi sen muille kurssilaisille.
näkökulmasta. Kun ongelmaa tarkastellaan
Ihmiset halusivat aidosti kehittää itseään ja
useista eri lähtökohdista, keskustelu on
osaamistaan.”
monipuolista ja se antaa kaikille myös uusia
ajatuksia.”
Itsetuntemusta kehitti myös toimiminen
ryhmänjohtajana.
Litvinova uskoo, että suurimmat inno-
”Itse stressasin johtajana aikatauluista,
vaatiot tapahtuvat juuri eri tieteenalojen
seuraava ryhmänjohtajamme taas lähestyi
leikkaus­pisteissä.
asioita todella rauhallisesti. Tutorina olen
”Ongelmana on, että tutkijat keskittyvät
nähnyt jälleen kaksi hyvin erilaista johtamis-
usein vain omaan kapeaan erikoisaluee-
tapaa. On hyödyllistä oppia, että on monia
seensa. Bit Bangin ryhmätöissä oppi aina
tapoja olla johtaja tai ryhmäläinen. Meillä oli
jotain mielenkiintoista muiden ihmisten
myös ulkopuolinen valmentaja, joka opetti
aloilta, mikä johti lopulta myös oman alan
ryhmätyön eri ulottuvuuksia ja konkretisoi,
oivalluksiin.”
miten eri tavoin eri ihmiset voivat toimia.”
Opiskelijaryhmän monialaisuus heijastui
”Tutorina toimiminen syvensi opiskeli-
myös kurssilla luonnosteltuihin tulevai-
jana saatuja oppeja monimuotoisten tiimien
suuden skenaarioihin. Bit Bang hyödyntää
toiminnasta. Se opetti myös entistä tehok-
paljon skenaariotyöskentelyä, jonka avulla
kaampaa ajanhallintaa ja itsetuntemusta.”
opiskelijoita kannustetaan ajattelemaan
mahdollisimman rohkeasti ja radikaalisti.
48
”Bit Bang ei ole kurssi, jonne mennään
Bit Bang -kursseilla on vieraillut luennoitsijoina suuri joukko menestyneitä yritysjoh-
Bit Bang MIDE
tajia. Eri alojen tunnustettuja ammattilaisia
tavataan myös kurssin opintomatkoilla.
Opiskelijana Litvinova matkusti kurssinsa
kanssa Tokioon, tutorina vierailu suuntautui
Pekingiin.
”Kuulimme sofistikoituneita puheenvuoroja merkittävien yritysten johtajilta ja
saimme kysymyksiimme suoria ja rehellisiä
vastauksia. Uskon, että myös vierailijat nauttivat näistä keskusteluista”, Litvinova sanoo.
49
MIDE IPPES
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”Jos elektrolyysi saadaan
toimimaan etanolilla,
polttokennojen käyttö olisi
nykyistä vaivattomampaa”,
Aarne Halme sanoo.
50
IPPES MIDE
Helppokäyttöisiä polttokennoja
IPPES-projektissa tutkittiin kannettavan elektroniikan
lataamiseen käytettäviä mikropolttokennoja ja niiden
erilaisia tankkausmenetelmiä.
Mikropolttokennoilla voidaan tuottaa energiaa kaikissa tilanteissa, mikä tekee niistä esimerkiksi aurinkokennoja monikäyttöisempiä. Polttokennot tuottavat polttoaineesta sähköä
hyödyntämällä kennossa tapahtuvia hapetus-pelkistys -reaktioita. Polttoaineena voidaan käyttää esimerkiksi vetyä, metanolia tai etanolia.
Markkinoilla on jo muutamia polttokennoteknologiaa
hyödyntäviä kannettavia latauslaitteita. Pienempiin laitteisiin syötetään natriumborohydridijauhetta sisältävä kasetti,
joka veteen sekoitettuna tuottaa kennon polttoaineeksi vetyä.
Näin syntyvällä energialla voi ladata matkapuhelimen muutamaan otteeseen.
Isommat laitteet ovat noin salkun kokoisia ja niissä hyödynnetään suorametanolipolttokennotekniikkaa. Neljällä
litralla metanolia voi ladata kannettavaa tietokonetta kuukauden verran.
Innovatiivinen polttokennojärjestelmä
pienelektroniikan sovellutuksiin – IPPES
Pituus: 2008-2011
Budjetti: 1 338 702 €
Projektin johto: Professori Aarne Halme, automaatio- ja
systeemitekniikan laitos
Mukana olevat laitokset: automaatio- ja systeemitekniikka, kemia,
energiatekniikka, materiaalitekniikka, biotekniikka ja kemian tekniikka
Seurantaryhmä: Fortum Oyj, Nokia Research Center, Spinverse Oy
Julkaisujen määrä: 6
Väitöskirjat: 2
51
MIDE IPPES
Polttokennoteknologialle on kysyntää, sillä
hyvin pieniä konsentraatteja metanolia.
esimerkiksi runsaasti eri toimintoja sisäl-
Elektrolyysi on tälle myrkyttymiselle suh-
tävien matkapuhelimien tehontarve on kas-
teellisen immuuni. IPPES-konseptissa pri-
vanut nopeammin kuin niiden akkujen kyky
määripolttoaineena on metanoli, josta val-
varastoida sähköä. Alan tutkimus kiinnostaa
mistetaan ensin vetyä, joka sitten poltetaan
laajalti ja IPPES-projektin lisäksi uutta polt-
vetypolttokennossa. Näin metanolikonsent-
tokennoteknologiaa tutkittiin myös samoihin
raattien pitoisuuksia voi nostaa korkeam-
aikoihin käynnistyneessä EU-hankkeessa.
miksi ja samalla polttokennon hyötysuhdetta
Molempien projektien vastuuhenkilönä
voi huomattavasti parantaa”, Halme sanoo.
toimi automaatio- ja systeemitekniikan lai-
Tutkijoiden tavoitteena oli myös korvata
toksen professori emeritus Aarne Halme.
kallis platinakatalyytti biologisella entsyymikatalyytilla. Näin saatiinkin tuotettua vetyä,
Metanolin elektrolyysi tutkimuskohteena
mutta sen tuottamiseen kului liikaa energiaa,
IPPES-projektin yksi keskeinen tutkimus­
eikä ratkaisun hyötysuhdetta olisi siten saatu
kysymys oli, voisiko metanolista valmistaa
IPPES-projektin tavoitteiden mukaiselle
vetyä elektrolyysin avulla siten, että valmis-
tasolle.
tukseen tarvittava energia saataisiin
”Teimme paljon kokeellista työtä, mutta
polt­­tokennon kokonaisenergiasta. Meta­
lopulta meidän oli vain hylättävä tämän
nolielek­trolyysissa anodilla tapahtuu hajoa-
linjan tutkiminen. Tämä oli kuitenkin insi-
misreaktio, jossa metanolista tulee hiilidi-
nööritieteellinen projekti, jossa pitää saada
oksidia ja vetyprotoneja. Protonit kulkevat
toimivia ratkaisuja.”
kalvon läpi katodipuolelle jossa ne yhtyvät
vedyksi.
”Vetypolttokennot ovat hyötysuhteiltaan
Aalto-yliopistossa on tutkittu polttokenno-
hyviä ja niiden teknologia on kehittynyttä.
teknologiaa ja polttokennojen valmistusta
Vedyn käyttö primäärinä polttoaineena on
pitkään ja menestyksekkäästi. IPPES-pro-
kuitenkin ongelmallista, koska sen varas-
jektissa jatkettiin tätä työtä, ja projektista
tointi on hankalaa.”
saatujen kokemusten perusteella pyritään
”Metanolia voi käyttää polttoaineena
myös sellaisenaan. Suorametanolipoltto­
kennojen platinakatalyytit kuitenkin myr­
52
Yhteinen tavoite yhdisti eri osaajia
edelleen kehittämään entistä toimivampia
ratkaisuja.
”Tutkimme, miten voisimme korvata vai-
kyttyvät helposti, minkä vuoksi niiden
keasti käsiteltävän metanolin etanolilla. Jos
poltto­­aineseoksissa joudutaan käyttämään
elektrolyysi saadaan toimimaan etanolilla,
IPPES MIDE
polttokennojen käyttö olisi nykyistä vaivatto-
”Oli ainutlaatuista, että saimme näin huo-
mampaa.”
mattavan ulkopuolisen rahoituksen, ja Aalto
Visioissa matkapuhelimen voisi ladata
pystyi itse päättämään sen käytöstä. MIDE-
helposti lisäämällä pienen määrän etanolia
ohjelma on kehittänyt koko yliopiston tutki-
suoraan polttokennoon.
musympäristöä. Olemme nostaneet monella
IPPES-projektissa hyödynnettiin laajalti
Aallon eri laitosten huippuosaamista.
”Mikro- ja nanotekniikan ryhmä kehitti
mikropolttokennoa, ja platinakatalyytin
korvaamisessa oli mukana niin kemian kuin
hiilinanokuitujen tutkijoita. Monitieteisyys
toimii hyvin, kun kaikilla on yhteinen tavoite,
joka on koko ajan selkeästi mielessä”, Halme
kertoo.
MIDE-ohjelma oli pitkän akateemisen
uran tehneelle Halmeelle suurenmoinen
kokemus.
alueella merkittävästi tietämyksemme
tasoa.”
MIDE ISMO
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”Mitä enemmän
rakenteessa on antureita,
sitä luotettavampia tuloksia
saamme”, Jyrki Kullaa
sanoo.
54
ISMO MIDE
Värähtely kertoo sillan kunnon
ISMO-projektissa kehitettiin langattomiin anturi­
verkkoihin perustuva monitorointijärjestelmä,
jota käytetään rakenteiden kunnonvalvonnassa.
Järjestelmän ansiosta kriittisten rakenteiden vauriot
voidaan havaita ajoissa.
Vauriot esimerkiksi siltojen, pilvenpiirtäjien, nostureiden
tai vaikka huvipuistolaitteiden kriittisissä rakenteissa voivat
aiheuttaa vakavia vaaratilanteita. Vaurioiden havaitseminen
ajoissa auttaa estämään onnettomuuksia ja mahdollistaa
rakenteiden ennakoivan kunnossapidon.
Valvottavaan rakenteeseen kiinnitetään älykkäitä antureita, jotka mittaavat rakenteen värähtelyä ja siinä tapahtuvia
muutoksia. Se miten rakenteet värähtelevät, riippuu niiden
massasta ja jäykkyydestä. Kun rakenteessa on vaurio, sen
jäykkyys pienenee ja sen värähtely muuttuu.
”Ilmiö on käytännössä sama kuin kitarassa, joka kuulostaa
erilaiselta, kun kielen vire muuttuu”, ISMOn projektipäällikkönä toiminut Metropolian yliopettaja Jyrki Kullaa sanoo.
Älykäs rakenteiden kunnonvalvontajärjestelmä - ISMO
Pituus: 2008-2011
Budjetti: 1 600 000 €
Projektin johto: TkT Jyrki Kullaa, sovelletun mekaniikan laitos
Laitokset: energiatekniikka, matematiikka ja systeemianalyysi,
tietojenkäsittelytiede, tietotekniikka, automaatio- ja systeemitekniikka,
tietoliikenne- ja tietoverkkotekniikka
Seurantaryhmä: Espoon kaupunki, Konecranes Oyj, Rautaruukki Oyj
Julkaisujen määrä: 47
Väitöskirjat: 1
55
Mittausdata siirtyy langattoman radioyh-
Rakenteiden värähtelyt ovat nopeita ilmiöitä:
teyden kautta keskustietokoneelle, jossa
yksi anturi tekee noin sata mittausta sekun-
tulokset analysoidaan. Mittaustiedoista
nissa. Tämä asettaa langattomalle anturi­
jalostetaan tiedonlouhinnan ja tilastollisten
verkolle suuria haasteita.
menetelmien avulla malleja vaurioiden
”Kaikkien eri puolilla rakennetta sijait-
havaitsemiseksi, niiden sijainnin ja suu-
sevien antureiden täytyy tehdä mittaukset
ruuden arvioimiseksi sekä rakenteen jäljellä
samanaikaisesti. Pääsimme tässä alle viiden
olevan eliniän ennustamiseksi.
mikrosekunnin tarkkuuteen, mikä oli varsin
hyvä suoritus. Rakensimme ohjelman, joka
Sata mittausta sekunnissa
auttoi antureita synkronisoimaan itsensä”,
Rakenteiden kunnon mittaaminen langatto-
Kullaa kertoo.
masti tuo useita etuja perinteisiin anturimittauksiin verrattuna.
”Mitä enemmän rakenteessa on antureita,
Toinen haaste liittyy antureiden virtaläh-
sitä luotettavampia tuloksia saamme. Sil-
teisiin ja energiatehokkuuteen. Nyt anturit
lassa voi esimerkiksi olla satakunta anturia.
saavat virtansa paristoista, mutta tulevaisuu-
Näin suurta anturimäärää on vaikea rakentaa
dessa esimerkiksi kehittyneet aurinkokennot
langallisena, sillä johtojen asentaminen on
ovat varteenotettava vaihtoehto.
työlästä ja ne ovat alttiita vaurioille. Langattomat elementit ovat myös edullisempia.”
56
Energiatehokkuus haasteena
Värähtelyjä mittaavan kiihtyvyysanturin
lisäksi kunnonvalvonnassa käytetään läm-
ISMO MIDE
pötila- ja kosteusantureita. Antureista lähe-
ihmisiä laitetaan yhteen, syntyy väkisinkin
tetään keskustietokoneelle paljon tietoa.
jotain uutta. Laaja-alainen yhteistyö oli myös
Dataa voidaan osin analysoida jo itse antu-
itselle projektissa palkitsevinta. Samalla toi-
rissa, mutta se asettaa vielä haasteita anturin
mivan yhteistyökuvion rakentamisessa olivat
suorituskyvylle. Antureiden energiatehok-
myös projektin suurimmat haasteet.”
kuuden parantaminen onkin yksi alan jatkotutkimuksen kohteita.
Oma haasteensa liittyy järjestelmien kau-
Kuuden eri laitoksen tutkijoiden yhteistyö
löysi uomansa, kun projekti sai yhteiseksi
tavoitteekseen konkreettisen sovelluksen eli
pallistamiseen. Isot onnettomuudet, kuten
langattoman monitorointijärjestelmän, jonka
siltojen tai vesitornien sortumiset, nostavat
toteuttamiseen kaikkien työ tähtäsi.
rakenteiden kunnonvalvonnan laajempaan
keskusteluun, mutta eivät välttämättä vielä
lisää valvontajärjestelmien käyttöä.
”Olennaista on, että vauriot havaitaan riittävän aikaisin, jotta korjaustoimet voidaan
aloittaa ajoissa. Rakenteiden eliniän jatkaminen on huomattavasti kustannustehokkaampaa kuin uuden rakentaminen.”
Epämukavuusalue opetti
ISMO-hankkeen taustalla oli kaksi erillistä
hakemusta: toinen olisi tutkinut rakenteiden
kunnonvalvontaa, toinen langattomia anturiverkkoja. MIDEn johtoryhmä päätti kuitenkin yhdistää hankkeet. Kullaan mielestä
ratkaisu oli erittäin onnistunut.
”Näin opimme kaikki varmasti enemmän.
Meidän oli pakko poistua omista poteroistamme ja mennä epämukavuusalueelle. Se
oli hyvä asia sekä tutkimuksen että saatujen
tulosten kannalta.”
”Tällainen monitieteisyyttä painottava
toimintamalli on tehokas. Kun eri alojen
MIDE Seurantaryhmät
!
”Arvostan tutkimusryhmiä, joille
on kertynyt pitkäaikaista
osaamista”, Lasse Eriksson
sanoo.
58
Seurantaryhmät MIDE
Yhteistutkimuksesta ideoita tuotekehitykselle
Konecranes tekee paljon yhteistutkimusta ylio­pistojen
kanssa. Yhteistutkimus toimii tärkeänä siltana
yli­opistojen perustutkimuksen ja yrityksen tuoteke­hitysprojektien välillä.
”Teemme yhteistutkimusta eri yliopistojen ja tutkimuslaitosten kanssa niin Suomessa kuin ulkomailla. Yhteistutkimuksissa selvitämme, miten voimme hyödyntää uusia tutkimustuloksia ja teknologioita ja soveltaa niistä ideoita, jotka
sopivat tuotepalettiimme ja liiketoimintatavoitteisiimme”,
Konecranesin tutkimusinsinööri Lasse Eriksson sanoo.
Erikssonin mukaan yhteistutkimukset onnistuvat
paremmin, kun kaikilla osapuolilla on mahdollisuus toteuttaa
hankkeissa tärkeiksi kokemiaan asioita. Siksi osapuolten on
osattava myös joustaa. Avoin keskinäinen viestintä on tässä
merkittävässä roolissa.
Erikssonilla on tavallista vankempi näkemys yliopistojen
ja yritysten yhteistyöhön, sillä ennen Konecranesia hän toimi
pitkään Aalto-yliopistossa. Eriksson oli mukana myös MIDEtutkimusohjelman ISMO-projektissa, jossa hänen vastuullaan oli mittaustekniikkaan ja langattomaan tietoliikenteeseen liittyvien teknologioiden kehittäminen.
Tutkimusprojektista seurantaryhmään
Konecranesille siirryttyään Eriksson osallistui yhä ISMOn
seurantaryhmän kokouksiin: hän on siten katsonut seurantaryhmän toimintaa niin yliopiston kuin teollisuudenkin puolelta.
Projektin alussa yritykset olivat Erikssonin mukaan varovaisia ottamaan kantaa siihen mihin suuntaan hanketta
59
MIDE Seurantaryhmät
pitäisi viedä, koska koko MIDE-ohjelmassa
toiminnoista saadaan entistä turvallisempia
korostettiin perustutkimuksen roolia ja
ja tuottavampia.
myös itse konsepti oli uusi. Kun projekti
”Nostureissa kaikkien kuorman kannat-
alkoi tuottaa ensimmäisiä tuloksia niin myös
tamiseen liittyvien komponenttien kuntoa
yhteistyö yritysten kanssa tiivistyi.
tulee seurata, joko tarkastuksilla tai jatku-
”Kun olimme saaneet kehitettyä mittaus-
valla valvonnalla. Valvottavia komponentteja
tekniikkaa riittävästi, teimme nostureissa
ovat esimerkiksi köydet ja nostokoneiston
erilaisia testejä, joissa validoitiin kehitetyn
osat kuten moottorit ja vaihteet. Kuluvien
tekniikan suorituskykyä. Vertailimme esi-
osien valvonta mahdollistaa niiden oikea-
merkiksi nostureista mitattuja ominaistaa-
aikaisen ja ennakoidun vaihdon.”
juuksia mallinnettuihin arvoihin. Lisäksi
arvioimme millaista tietoa ylipäätään
Samantapaista työtä eri lähtökohdista
voimme mittauksilla nostureista saada.”
Väiteltyään tekniikan tohtoriksi Erikssonia
Projektin lähetessä loppuaan tulosten
kiinnosti työskennellä myös teollisuusyrityk-
hyödyntämistä on mietitty laajemminkin.
sessä. Hän oli tehnyt yhteistyötä Konecran-
ISMO-projektista syntynyttä uutta tekno-
esin kanssa jo useiden vuosien ajan eri tutki-
logiaa voidaan hyödyntää nosturin käyttöön
mushankkeissa.
ja kuntoon liittyvissä mittauksissa. Kone­
”ISMO-tutkimusprojektin rinnalla
cranesin tavoitteena on tietää reaaliajassa
teimme tiivistä yhteistyötä myös Tekes-
miten heidän asiakkaidensa nostolaitteet toi-
hankkeissa. Sitä kautta talo tuli entistä
mivat: tätä tietoa hyödyntämällä asiakkaiden
tutummaksi ja kun näin että tutkimuspuolella oli paikka avautumassa, päätin hakea
sitä. Yhteisten projektien myötä eri ihmiset
olivat täällä hyvin perillä siitä, mitä olin yliopistolla tehnyt.”
Eriksson aloitti Konecranesin tutkimustiimissä vuonna 2010 ja vastaa nyt eri tutkimushankkeiden suunnittelusta, koordinoinnista ja läpiviennistä yrityksen Tutkimus ja
innovaatiot -yksikössä. Eriksson tekee myös
tutkimusta erityisesti teknologiapainotteisissa hankkeissa ja osallistuu yksikön toiminnan kehittämiseen.
Seurantaryhmät MIDE
”Meille on lisäksi tärkeää, että yhteistyökumppanit ovat aidosti kiinnostuneita tekemään tutkimusta, josta voi tulevaisuudessa
syntyä konkreettisia sovelluksia”, Eriksson
sanoo.
”Omat juureni ovat vahvasti yliopistomaailmassa. Arvostan tutkimusryhmiä, joille on
kertynyt pitkäaikaista osaamista. Sellaisten
”Työ on samantapaista kuin Aallossa, mutta
kanssa yhteistyön tekeminen on yleensä erit-
sitä tehdään eri lähtökohdista. Tutkimus on
täin hedelmällistä.”
soveltavaa ja pyrimme osoittamaan esimer-
Lopulta tietyt perusasiat ovat samanlaisia
kiksi uusien teknologioiden toimivuuden
niin yliopistojen perustutkimuksessa kuin
tuotteissamme.”
yritysten soveltavassa tutkimuksessa.
”Vaikka tutkimuksella on selkeät tavoit-
Selkeä työnjako onnistumisen edellytys
teet, on mahdotonta sanoa että ratkaisu
Lähes kymmenen vuoden akateeminen ura
löytyy tiettyyn päivään mennessä. Tutki-
loi Erikssonin mielestä erittäin hyvän pohjan
muksiin sisältyy paljon riskejä, se on osa työn
hänen nykyiselle työlleen, niin sisällöllisesti
luonnetta.”
kuin tutkimusryhmien ja -hankkeiden johtamisenkin kannalta.
Yhteistutkimusten johtamisessa on olen-
”Tutkimuksiin liittyy vastaavasti myös
positiivisia yllätyksiä. On erittäin palkitsevaa, kun keksimme uusia asioita ja meille
naista, että tutkimuksen tavoitteet ja eri osa-
avautuu uusia mahdollisuuksia tulosten
puolten roolit ovat selkeitä.
soveltamiseen.”
61
MIDE OtaSizzle
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”Kiitollisuudenvelka on
osaltaan hidastamassa
jakamistalouden
palveluiden yleistymistä
ja alan yritysten kasvua”,
Airi Lampinen sanoo.
62
OtaSizzle MIDE
Yhteisöllisyyttä ymmärtämässä
Facebook aloitti maailmanvalloituksensa Harvardin
kampukselta. Kampusten kaltaiset tiiviit yhteisöt
soveltuvatkin hyvin yhteisöpalveluiden tutkimus- ja testiympäristöksi. OtaSizzle-projektissa tutkittiin aaltolaisten
sosiaalista kanssakäymistä ja luotiin toimiva alusta
erilaisten sisältöpalveluiden tuottajille.
OtaSizzle-projektissa Aallon kampuksille rakennettiin suuri
living lab -tyyppinen testiympäristö, jossa sosiaalisen median
palveluinnovaatioita ja niiden käyttöä päästiin tutkimaan
aidoissa olosuhteissa. Samalla opiskelijoiden sosiaalisesta
kanssakäymisestä saatiin paljon kvantitatiivista ja kvalitatiivista tietoa.
OtaSizzle tuotti Aallon opiskelijoille ja henkilökunnalle
useita sosiaalisen median palveluita, tunnetuimpina esimerkkeinä mobiilikäyttöön tarkoitettu yhteisöpalvelu Ossi
sekä tavaroiden ja palvelusten vaihtoon erikoistunut Kassi.
Kassi-palvelu sai Aalto-yhteisöstä tuhansia käyttäjiä ja on jo
kehittynyt Sharetribe-nimiseksi yritykseksi.
Ubiikin yhteisömedian testiympäristö - OtaSizzle
Pituus: 2008-2013
Budjetti: 2 000 219 €
Projektin johto: Professori Martti Mäntylä ja TkT Olli Pitkänen, Tietotekniikan tutkimuslaitos, HIIT
Mukana olevat laitokset: tietotekniikan tutkimuslaitos, tietoverkko- ja tietoliikennetekniikka,
tietotekniikka, tieto- ja palvelutalous, media, muotoilu
Seurantaryhmä: Elisa Oyj, Nokia Oyj, Otaniemi Marketing Oy, Taideteollinen korkeakoulu
(myöhemmin Aalto-yliopiston Taiteiden ja suunnittelun korkeakoulu), Teknologiateollisuuden
100-vuotissäätiö
Julkaisujen määrä: 32
Väitöskirjat: 2
63
MIDE OtaSizzle
”Kassi lanseerattiin juuri sopivaan aikaan, se
”Samalla huomasimme, että eri kulttuu-
onnistui kiinnittymään nousussa olleeseen
reissa palveluihin liittyy hyvinkin erilaisia
jakamistalouden teemaan. Ossissa kilpailu-
odotuksia ja ennakkoluuloja. Yhdysvalloissa
tilanne oli kovempi. Facebookin ja Twitterin
suuri kysymys liittyi fyysiseen turvalli-
väliin oli tuolloin enää vaikea päästä, vaikka
suuteen ja siihen, voiko vieraisiin ihmisiin
palvelun taustalla olikin paljon hyviä ideoita”,
luottaa. Osa mietti, onko heidän maineelleen
sanoo OtaSizzle-hanketta koordinoineen
kenties haittaa siitä, että he ovat mukana
Tietotekniikan tutkimuslaitos HIITin tutkija
vaihtotoiminnassa, jossa saadaan ja annetaan
Airi Lampinen.
apua arjen haasteisiin. Sosiaalisissa palve-
Kassi oli hyvin käyttäjälähtöinen inno-
luissa on siten paljon sävyeroja, jotka voivat
vaatio, opiskelijat osallistuivat tiiviisti sen
vaikuttaa siihen, lähteekö yksittäinen palvelu
suunnitteluun ja kehittämiseen. Tämä oli
tietyssä ympäristössä lentoon vai ei.”
myös yksi living lab -testiympäristön eduista:
Samoin tavaroiden tai palvelusten vaih-
käyttäjien palaute oli suoraa ja välitöntä.
toon liittyy aina myös kasvokkaista kanssa-
OtaSizzle-projektin nuoremmat työntekijät
käymistä, joka voi vaikuttaa palvelun käyttö-
viimeistelivät vielä itsekin opintojaan, joten
kokemukseen paljon enemmän kuin palvelun
tuntuma Otaniemen opiskelija-arkeen oli
käyttöliittymä tai muut tekniset ominaisuudet
vahva.
Kiitollisuudenvelka jakamistalouden jarruna
Kulttuuri vaikuttaa käyttökokemukseen
Yksi OtaSizzlen iso tutkimusaihe liittyi juuri
OtaSizzle-projektilla oli myös vahva kansain-
sosiaaliseen vaihtoon: mitkä tekijät lisäävät
välinen ulottuvuus. Yhteistyötä tehtiin niin
ja rajoittavat ihmisten välistä vaihtokauppaa.
Kaliforniassa, Kiinassa kuin Keniassakin.
Aihe linkittyy ajankohtaiseen keskusteluun
Myös palveluiden kansainvälistämistä poh-
jakamistaloudesta ja sen mahdollisuuksista.
dittiin.
Samoja teemoja Lampinen tutkii myös sosi-
”Suunnittelimme Kassin viemistä Kalifornian yliopistoon, Berkeleyyn, mutta Craigslistin asema oli siellä jo liian vahva. Pää-
aalisten rajojen neuvottelua käsittelevässä
väitöskirjassaan.
”Jakamistalouden idea tuntui haastat-
dyimme soveltamaan palvelua Oaklandin
telemistamme aaltolaisista hyvältä. Moni
alueen yksinhuoltajaperheiden verkoston
ajattelee tavaroiden jakamista tai vaihtoa
käyttöön – he olivat etsineet juuri Kassin kal-
kestävän kehityksen arvojen kautta. Lisäksi
taista alustaa.”
ihmiset nauttivat siitä, että saavat auttaa
muita.”
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OtaSizzle MIDE
”Auttaminen nähdään kuitenkin vastavuo-
sisältöön – tekijälle olisi kuitenkin arvo-
roiseksi, ja ihmiset välttelevät kiitollisuuden-
kasta tietää, että hänellä on lukijoita. Samoin
velkaan jäämistä. He eivät esimerkiksi halua
lukijan olisi koettava, että pelkkä lukeminen
ottaa tavaroita tai palveluksia vastaan ennen
ilman kommentointiakin on arvokas tapa
kuin ovat itse lahjoittaneet jotain.”
osallistua yhteisön toimintaan.”
Tämä kiitollisuudenvelka on osaltaan
Lampisen mukaan kiitollisuudenvelan
hidastamassa jakamistalouden palveluiden
kielteisistä vaikutuksista voi päästä eroon
yleistymistä ja alan yritysten kasvua.
myös tuomalla esiin, että vastavuoroisuuden
”Harva toivoo itselleen autetun asemaa.
Siksi tämä vastapuolipohdinta on syytä ottaa
huomioon alan palveluiden suunnittelussa.
ei tarvitse tapahtua samanaikaisesti tai edes
samojen ihmisten kesken.
”Olisi hyvä, jos ihmiset oppisivat roh-
Voi esimerkiksi miettiä, miten jo palvelun
keammin pyytämään ja vastaanottamaan
käyttöliittymässä saataisiin viestittyä, että
apua. Kyllä niitä vastavuoroisia mahdolli-
vastaanottaminen voi olla yhteisölle yhtä
suuksia olla toisille avuksi aina löytyy.”
arvokasta kuin lahjoittaminen.”
OtaSizzle tarjosi Lampisen mukaan
hienon näköalapaikan sosiaalisten verk-
Lisää vastavuoroisuutta työelämään
kopalveluiden kehittämiseen ja ymmärtä-
Kiitollisuudenvelkaan ja vastavuoroisuuteen
miseen. Otaniemen tiivis kampusalue on
liittyviä löydöksiä voi soveltaa laajemminkin.
ollut mainio living lab –ympäristö: paljon
Esimerkiksi yritysten sisäisistä viestintä-
aktiivisia ja toisiinsa verkottuneita ihmisiä,
ratkaisuista voi löytää useita samankaltaisia
joiden käyttäytymisestä on saatu runsaasti
tilanteita.
mielenkiintoista dataa. Tätä tietoa aiotaan
”Yrityksen intranetissä voi vaikka olla
hyödyllisiä kirjoituksia, mutta niiden tekijä
ei näe kuinka moni työkaveri on tutustunut
hyödyntää myös projektista syntyneissä jatkotutkimuksissa.
MIDE UI-ART
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”Toiminnallisesti
kosketuspöydät ovat kuin
isoja monen käyttäjän
tabletteja”, Tapio Takala
sanoo.
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UI-ART MIDE
Laajennettua todellisuutta
UI-ART -projektin tutkimusaiheiden yhteinen nimittäjä
oli laajennettu todellisuus. Projektissa tutkittiin
esi­merkiksi erilaisia hahmontunnistusmenetelmiä,
tilanne­sidonnaisen tiedon hakua, stereonäköä ja sen
tuottamista sekä kuunneltavia virtuaalimaailmoja.
Laajennetun todellisuuden teknologioita voidaan hyödyntää
muun muassa henkilöiden muistin ja tiedonhaun tueksi sekä
ihmisten välisen vuorovaikutuksen helpottamiseksi.
”Tietokone voi esimerkiksi tunnistaa toimistolla vastaantulevan henkilön ja kertoa hänestä taustatietoja. Näin meidän
on helpompi tutustua ja aloittaa keskustelu”, Aalto-yliopiston
mediatekniikan laitoksen professori Tapio Takala sanoo.
Takalan oma tutkimusalue liittyy ihmisten ja koneiden
vuorovaikutukseen. UI-ART -projektissa hän tutki erityisesti
kosketuspöytien soveltamista arkkitehtuurissa ja kaupunkisuunnittelussa. Urban Strategy Table -konseptissa ihmiset
voivat nähdä erilaisten vaihtoehtoisten ratkaisujen vaikutukset virtuaalisena.
Urbaaneja kontekstuaalisia käyttöliittymiä
multimodaalisen lisätyn todellisuuden avulla – UI-ART
Pituus: 2008-2013
Budjetti: 1 500 000 €
Projektin johto: Professori Samuel Kaski, tietojenkäsittelytieteen laitos
Mukana olevat laitokset: tietojenkäsittelytiede, signaalinkäsittely ja akustiikka,
mediatekniikka, O. V. Lounasmaa -laboratorio, arkkitehtuuri
Seurantaryhmä: Espoon kaupunki, Nokia Research Center, VTT, YIT Oyj
Julkaisujen määrä: 65
Väitöskirjat: 5
67
68
UI-ART MIDE
Kosketuspöytä kaupunkisuunnittelun
apuvälineenä
”Kosketuspöydällä on kartta, johon pöydän
ääressä olevat ihmiset voivat lisätä rakennuksia ja nähdä muutokset kolmiulotteisina
myös maan tasalta, kaupunkilaisten näkö-
Visiona ihmisten ja koneiden
luonteva yhteiselo
kulmasta.”
Laajennetun todellisuuden läpilyöntiä on
Näin arkkitehdit, kaupunkilaiset ja maankäytön suunnittelusta vastaavat tahot voisivat keskustella saman pöydän äärellä
ennustettu pitkään: virtuaalitodellisuus oli
kuuma aihe jo 1990-luvulla.
”Laajennetun todellisuuden hyödyntämi-
kuvilla, joita kaikki ymmärtävät. Asukkailla
seen liittyneet odotukset ovat olleet epäre-
olisi paremmat mahdollisuudet tutustua ja
alistisen korkealla suhteessa käytettävissä
vaikuttaa asuinalueidensa kehityssuunnitel-
olevaan tekniikkaan. Esimerkiksi silmikko­
miin.
näyttöjä on kehitetty jo vuosikymmeniä,
Projektissa käytetty kosketuspöytä tunnisti sille laitetut palikat ja näytti ne rakennuksina. Näkymää pystyi myös liikuttamaan
mutta arkikäytössä toimivia ratkaisuja ei ole
vielä saatu markkinoille”, Takala sanoo.
Toisilla osa-alueilla eteneminen on puo-
ja tarkastelemaan eri puolilta. Seuraavan
lestaan ollut hyvinkin nopeaa. Turvallisuus-
sukupolven kosketuspöydät tunnistavat ehkä
asiat ovat vauhdittaneet erityisesti seuranta­
myös pinnan yläpuolella olevaa tilaa, jolloin
teknologioiden ja hahmontunnistuksen
rakennusten korkeutta voisi säätää sormea
kehitystä. Kasvojen tunnistus on vakiovarus-
nostamalla. Äänen lisäämisellä voisi puoles-
teena jo halvimmissakin kameroissa.
taan mallintaa eri liikenneratkaisujen melu-
Takalan visioissa tietokonetta ei tulevai-
vaikutuksia. Näin käyttökokemus saataisiin
suudessa enää käytetä vaan sen kanssa ele-
entistä realistisemmaksi.
tään – siitä on tullut ihmisille luonteva seu-
”Kosketuspöydissä teknologia on jo hyvin
ralainen. Matkapuhelimet kulkevat jo koko
kehittynyttä – toiminnallisesti ne ovat kuin
ajan mukana, mutta niitäkin vielä käytetään:
isoja monen käyttäjän tabletteja. Suurimmat
ne otetaan varta vasten esille ja niillä teh-
haasteet liittyvät tällä hetkellä siihen, miten
dään jotain.
yhdestä lähteestä tuleva tieto, esimerkiksi
”Tutkimusryhmämme pyrkii siihen, että
rakennuksen suunnitelma, saadaan muu-
ihmisen ja koneen välinen vuorovaikutus
tettua sellaiseksi, että sitä voidaan käyttää
olisi mahdollisimman luonnollista. Saman-
toisilla ohjelmilla”, Takala kertoo.
laista kuin ihmistenkin kesken.”
69
MIDE Vierailijaprofessorit
!
”Tutkimme hajautettuja
työyhteisöjä, joten on luontevaa,
että käytämme hajautettuun työhön
kehitettyä teknologiaa myös
omissa kokouksissamme”,
Renate Fruchter sanoo.
70
Vierailijaprofessorit MIDE
Vierailu vankisti Aallon ja Stanfordin yhteistyötä
MIDE-tutkimusohjelmassa oli viisi vierailijaprofessoria
kansainvälisistä huippuyliopistoista. Yksi heistä oli
Renate Fruchter, joka toimii Stanfordin yliopiston
Project Based Learning Laboratoryn johtajana.
Fruchter on tutkinut, miten maantieteellisesti hajautettujen
tiimien työskentelyä voi kehittää, ja miten tiimit voivat parhaiten hyödyntää uutta viestintäteknologiaa. Hänen työnsä
nivoutuikin luontevasti samoja teemoja selvittäneen VinCoprojektin tutkimukseen.
”VinCossa yhteistyö oli luonnollisesti tiiveintä, siinä suorastaan inspiroimme toisiamme. OtaSizzlen tutkijoiden
kanssa meillä oli mielenkiintoisia tapaamisia ja myös ideoimme aika paljon yhdessä. Lisäksi olin mukana 4D-Space ja
UI-ART -projekteissa, joissa vaihdoimme tutkimukseen liittyviä kokemuksia”, Fruchter sanoo.
Fruchterin ryhmällä ja Aallon tutkijoilla oli ollut yhteisiä
tutkimushankkeita jo ennen MIDE-ohjelmaa.
”Teimme jo tiivistä yhteistyötä eräässä Tekes-hankkeessa,
kun MIDE aloitteli toimintaansa. MIDE tarjosi hienon mahdollisuuden entisestään lujittaa ja syventää kumppanuuttamme.”
Fruchter kiittelee myös MIDE-ohjelman joustavuutta.
Alkuperäinen ajatus oli, että vierailijaprofessorit tulisivat
Suomeen yhdeksi pidemmäksi ajanjaksoksi. Fruchter ehdotti,
että vierailu koostuisi useammasta lyhyemmästä jaksosta ja
niiden rinnalla pidettävistä virtuaalikokouksista.
”Tutkimme hajautettuja työyhteisöjä ja virtuaalisia työkaluja, joten on luontevaa, että käytämme hajautettuun työhön
kehitettyä teknologiaa myös omissa kokouksissamme.”
71
MIDE Vierailijaprofessorit
Virtuaalikokoukset
osoittivat toimivuutensa
Näiden toimien lisäksi hän nostaa vierailun
Fruchter vieraili Suomessa kolmeen ottee-
tärkeimmiksi tuloksiksi uusien tutkimus-
seen vuosien 2010-2011 aikana. Vierailut
hankkeiden luomisen. Parhaillaan on käyn-
olivat hyvin fokusoituneita ja intensiivisiä.
nissä esimerkiksi Tekesin ja Yhdysvaltain
Lisäksi Fruchterilla ja VinCo-projektin tutki-
National Science Foundationin rahoittama
musryhmällä oli säännöllinen viikkopalaveri,
Aallon, Stanfordin ja Työterveyslaitoksen
jossa hyödynnettiin myös Stanfordissa kehi-
yhteinen tutkimushanke Uncovering Hidden
teltyjä virtuaalisia ryhmätyökaluja.
Cognitive Demands on Global Learners.
”Pidimme kokoukset aina keskiviikkoaa-
”Tällaiset tutkimushankkeet mahdol-
muisin Suomen aikaa. Ne olivat vähintään
listavat yhteistyön syventämisen edelleen.
tunnin kokouksia, joissa oli selkeä agenda.
Yhteiset hankkeemme ovat olleet hyvin
Käsittelimme käynnissä olevia tutkimuksia,
hedelmällisiä.”
suunnittelimme tulevia workshopeja ja ide-
Aallossa Fruchterin kanssa työskennel-
oimme uutta. Välillä aikaa meni lähemmäs
leet arvostivat erityisesti alan huippututkijan
kaksi tuntia ja Kaliforniassa oli jo puoliyö.
näkemyksellisyyttä ja kehitysideoita. Hänen
Virtuaalikokouksissakin on mahdollista
antamansa palaute auttoi kehittämään pro-
päästä hyvään flow-tilaan.”
jektien tutkimusta ja toimintamalleja entistä
Fruchterin mielestä virtuaalikokoukset
laadukkaammiksi. Fruchterille MIDEn
olivat tehokkaita, koska ryhmän jäsenet
parasta antia oli uusien mielenkiintoisten
olivat jo tutustuneet toisiinsa kasvokkain.
ihmisten tapaaminen.
Reaalimaailman tapaamisilla on siten tärkeä
rooli virtuaalikokousten pohjustajina.
”Tiimin toiminnassa on aina kyse ihmi-
”Olemme vaihtaneet ajatuksia hyvin
vapaasti, mikä on johtanut uusiin hankkeisiin ja konsepteihin, joita ei olisi muuten syn-
sistä. Teknologia ei voi korjata huonosti toi-
tynyt. Yrityskumppaneiden tapaaminen on
mivaa tiimiä”, Fruchter toteaa.
ollut myös erittäin mielenkiintoista ja arvokasta: he ovat kertoneet konkreettisista haas-
Yhteistyö jatkuu uusissa projekteissa
teistaan, mikä on taas auttanut meitä tarken-
Vierailuprofessorina Fruchter osallistui esi-
tamaan tutkimuskohteitamme.”
merkiksi tutkimusmenetelmien kehittämiseen ja tutkimusprojektien keräämän tiedon
analysointiin. Hän järjesti myös useita workshopeja tutkijoille ja jatko-opiskelijoille.
72
Vierailijaprofessorit MIDE
73
MIDE VinCo
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”Virtuaaliympäristö tukee
ideoiden syntymistä ja jakamista”,
Anu Sivunen sanoo.
74
VinCo MIDE
Neuvottelut siirtyvät nettiin
Vuonna 2050 voidaan hyvinkin ihmetellä aikoja, jolloin
ihmiset kuluttivat energiaa matkustamalla päivittäin
kaupunkien laidoilta keskustojen suuriin toimisto­
kiinteistöihin tai lentämällä toiseen maahan yksittäiseen
kokoukseen.
”Hajautettu työ ja siihen liittyvä energiansäästö ovat koko
ajan suuremman mielenkiinnon kohteena”, sanoo VinCo-projektin tutkimuspäällikkö Anu Sivunen Perustieteiden korkeakoulun BIT-tutkimuskeskuksesta.
VinCo-projektissa tutkittiin ihmisten välistä yhteistyötä ja
viestintää hajautetuissa globaaleissa työyhteisöissä. Projekti
selvitti erityisesti erilaisten virtuaalimaailmojen vaikutuksia
liiketoiminnan ja innovoinnin edistämiseen.
Virtuaalimaailmassa tapahtuvalle yhteistyölle löytyi
projektissa muutamia erityisen hyödyllisiä käyttökohteita.
Virtuaalimaailmassa käyttäjällä on oma hahmo, avatar.
Avatarten kautta vuorovaikutus on epävirallisempaa, mikä
auttaa hälventämään kulttuurieroja. Tämä taas edistää
monikulttuuristen ja muutenkin heterogeenisten ryhmien
toimintaa.
Innovatiivinen liiketoiminta ja yhteistyö virtuaaliympäristöissä - VinCo
Pituus: 2008-2011
Budjetti: 600 000 €
Projektin johto: Professori Matti Vartiainen, FT Anu Sivunen, BIT-tutkimuskeskus
Mukana olevat laitokset: BIT-tutkimuskeskus
Seurantaryhmä: Kone Oyj, Nokia Oyj, Teknologiateollisuuden 100-vuotissäätiö,
UPM-Kymmene Oyj
Julkaisujen määrä: 10
Väitöskirjat: 1
75
Lisäksi virtuaalisilla kokouksilla voidaan
lisilla messuilla osallistujien joukosta on
pienentää osallistujien välisiä statuseroja.
entistä helpompi hakea itseä kiinnostavia
Näin ihmiset uskaltavat helpommin tuoda
kontakteja.
esiin omia näkemyksiään ja ideoitaan. Virtuaalimaailmojen soveltuvuutta innovointiin tutkittiin myös osana Aallon hajautettua
Virtuaalitila kokoaa
hajautetun organisaation
tuotekehityskurssia.
Hajautetuissa tiimeissä jäsenten sitoutta-
”Virtuaaliympäristö tukee ideoiden syntymistä ja jakamista. 3D-maailmassa ideoita
merkitys. Virtuaaliympäristöt soveltuvat
voidaan mallintaa nopeasti ja avoimessa
hyvin tällaiseen ryhmähengen lujittamiseen.
yhteisössä myös ideoiden testaus ja mark­
Esimerkiksi pelillistäminen tarjoaa mielen-
kinatutkimus on helppoa. Lisäksi virtuaali­
kiintoisia mahdollisuuksia ihmisten innos-
siin tiloihin voidaan rakentaa erilaisia luo-
tamiseen ja motivointiin positiivisen kil-
vuutta ja ideointia tukevia ympäristöjä”,
pailun kautta.
Sivunen sanoo.
Avatar voidaan linkata henkilön LinkedIn-
Virtuaalimaailmat tarjoavat hajautetuille
organisaatioille myös yhteisen tilan. Moni-
ja Facebook-profiileihin, jolloin ihmisillä
kansalliselle ja eri aikavyöhykkeillä toimi-
on mahdollisuus saada helposti lisää tietoa
valle tiimille se on paikka, jonne voi helposti
muista kokoukseen osallistuvista henki-
arkistoida käynnissä olevien työprojek-
löistä. Tämä on osaltaan edistämässä henki-
tien materiaaleja, esimerkiksi visuaalisesti
löiden keskinäistä vuorovaikutusta. Samoin
yhteisen huoneen seinille.
isoissa massatapahtumissa kuten virtuaa-
76
misella yhteisiin päämääriin on korostunut
VinCo MIDE
”Olemme hyödyntäneet yhteisiä virtuaa-
Sovelluksia mallinnukseen ja markkinointiin
lisia tiloja myös VinCossa. Aalto-yliopisto
Toiminnoiltaan virtuaaliyhteisöt mahdollis-
on itsessään hajautettu organisaatio, jolla ei
tavat jo hyvinkin rikkaan vuorovaikutuksen.
ole vielä yhteistä kampusta. Siksi Aallollakin
VinCossa Aalto on tehnyt yhteistyötä Stan-
oli toimintansa alussa oma saari virtuaali-
fordin yliopiston kanssa ja valtaosa yhtey-
maailma Second Lifessä. Virtuaalisuutta on
denpidosta on ollut virtuaalista. Tutkijoilla
käytetty onnistuneesti myös opetuksessa,
on siten hajautetuista työryhmistä omakoh-
esimerkiksi biotekniikan ja kemian tekniikan
taisia kokemuksia.
sekä kemian laitokset ovat simuloineet virtu-
”Avattarilla voi hyödyntää myös sanatonta
aalisessa laboratoriossa vaarallisten aineiden
viestintää, esimerkiksi osoittamista ja tilassa
käsittelyä.”
liikkumista. Kun kokemus palvelun käy-
Juuri simulointi on yksi virtuaalimaailmojen kasvavista liiketoimintasovelluksista.
töstä kasvoi, omaan viestintään sai koko ajan
enemmän vivahteita.”
Maailmalla esimerkiksi öljy-yhtiöt mallin-
Virtuaalimaailmat eivät tuo lisäarvoa
tavat porauslautoilla tapahtuvia onnetto-
muutaman ihmisen kokouksiin tai rutiini-
muuksia tai lääkärit harjoittelevat ensiavussa
luontoisiin asioihin. Parhaiten ne soveltuvat
toimimista.
luovuutta vaativiin tehtäviin tai kokouksiin,
joissa käsitellään erilaisia objekteja kuten
tuote- tai tilamallinnuksia. Hyvät mallinnukset helpottavat asiaan tutustumista ja
nopeuttavat siten päätöksentekoprosesseja.
Virtuaalimaailmojen laajamittaisempi
hyödyntäminen törmää usein teknisiin esteisiin – yritysten omiin palomuureihin ja eri
järjestelmien yhteensopimattomuuteen.
Suurille monikansallisille yrityksille virtuaaliyhteisöjen hyödyntäminen on kuitenkin jo
arkea. Sivunen uskoo virtuaalisen yhteistyön
yleistyvän tulevien sukupolvien myötä.
”Yksi haasteista liittyy järjestelmien käyttöönottoon ja uuden oppimiseen. Nuorille eri
virtuaaliympäristöissä navigointi on jo luontaista.”
77
MIDE Arviointi
Monitieteisyys ja pitkäjänteisyys
korostuivat MIDE-ohjelman arvioinnissa
MIDE-ohjelmasta suoritetun
Ohjelman nähtiin onnistuneen monitietei-
arvioinnin mukaan toimintamallin
syydessä ja monialaisuudessa. Yhteistyö
lisäarvo kiteytyi monitieteisyyteen
on vahvistunut erityisesti Aalto-yliopiston
sekä mahdollisuuteen tehdä rohkeaa,
sisällä, jonkin verran myös tutkijoiden ja
vapaata ja pitkäjänteistä tutkimusta
ulkopuolisten sidosryhmien kesken.
valituilla tutkimusalueilla aikana,
Joillakin projekteilla ja niiden tutkimus-
jolloin lyhytjänteiset soveltavan
ryhmillä oli myös merkittävää kansainvälistä
tutkimuksen hyötyodotukset
toimintaa. Esimerkiksi OtaSizzle, VinCo ja
valtaavat alaa.
Exergia-projektien kansainvälinen yhteistyö
ulottui Yhdysvalloista Saksaan ja Kiinasta
Keniaan.
MIDE-ohjelman jatko-opintokurssi
Bit Bang ja sen toimintamalli saivat osallistujiltaan erittäin myönteisiä arvioita. Monet
opiskelijat totesivat sen olleen paras kurssi,
johon he ovat opinnoissaan osallistuneet.
Bit Bang on edesauttanut myös kotikansainvälistymistä; kurssin opiskelijakunta on ollut
kansainvälisempää kuin Aalto-yliopistossa
keskimäärin.
MIDE-ohjelman arvioinnin toteutti Ramboll Management Consulting kesä-syyskuussa 2013. Arvioinnin tärkeimpiä tietolähteitä olivat ohjelmaseurannan asiakirjat ja
seurantatiedot, 26 henkilöhaastattelua sekä
kysely, johon vastasi yhteensä 108 henkilöä.
78
Arviointi MIDE
Haastatteluissa ja kyselyssä kartoitettiin
Ohjelmatason seurantaryhmää olisi arvi-
ohjelman koettua hyötyä, lisäarvoa, tuloksel-
oinnin näkökulmasta voitu hyödyntää vie-
lisuutta ja verkostoitumisen muotoja.
läkin tehokkaammin. Ohjelman kuluessa
yhteydenpito jossain määrin väheni, ja sidos-
Avoin ja kannustava toimintakulttuuri
ryhmät eivät kokeneet saaneensa riittävästi
Arvioijat liittivät MIDE-ohjelmaan monia
tietoa ohjelmasta ja sen aikaansaannoksista.
laadullisia määreitä, jotka kertoivat onnistu-
Tämä oli osaltaan seurausta tiiviimmän
misesta. Ohjelman ja sen alla toteutettujen
yhteistyön rajautumisesta projektien sisälle
projektien toimintakulttuuri ja ilmapiiri
ja suhteellisen vähäisestä ulkoisesta viestin-
koettiin avoimeksi ja kannustavaksi.
nästä.
Myös kyky kumuloida uutta tutkimustoi-
Muista MIDE-ohjelman toimintamallin
mintaa ja jatkohankkeita oli tärkeä tuloksel-
osatekijöistä nousi esille kevyt hallintobyro-
lisuuden mittari. MIDE-ohjelman 11 projek-
kratia, joka mahdollisti voimavarojen keskit-
tista syntyi 56 jatko- tai rinnakkaisprojektia,
tämisen itse tutkimukseen. Hallinnollisen
mitä voi pitää varsin hyvänä tuloksena ohjel-
keveyden kääntöpuolena seurantatiedot eivät
malliselle tutkimustoiminnalle.
olleet kovinkaan laajoja tai systemaattisia
MIDE-ohjelman yhteiskunnallista vai-
vaan lähinnä perinteisiä akateemisen tulok-
kuttavuutta tarkasteltiin muun muassa lah-
sellisuuden mittareita (tutkinnot, väitös-
joittajatahojen saaman lisäarvon kautta.
kirjat, akateemiset julkaisut).
Ohjelman tuloksia ja niiden hyödyntämistä
käsiteltiin ohjelmatason seurantaryhmässä
sekä projektikohtaisissa seurantaryhmissä.
Arvioinnin mukaan tämä koettiin toimi-
Tutkimusohjelman arviointiraportti on julkaistu
Aalto-yliopiston CROSSOVER -sarjassa, ja on
kokonaisuudessaan luettavissa osoitteessa
https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi
vaksi käytännöksi: se mahdollisti luontevat ja
avoimet yhteydet teollisiin rahoittajiin.
79
Mitä opit MIDEstä?
Yrjö Neuvo
MIDE-tutkimusohjelman johtaja
”Viiden vuoden alkupaukku on varsin
sopiva uusien perustutkimusprojektien
käynnistämiseen.”
Sami Ylönen
MIDE-tutkimusohjelman projektipäällikkö
”Toimivan yhteistyön eteen pitää tehdä paljon
työtä, mutta lopulta työ palkitsee tekijänsä.
Verkostoituminen on erittäin tärkeää, lisäksi
tietoa ja ideoita kannattaa jakaa avoimesti.”
Elina Karvonen
MIDE-tutkimusohjelman projektikoordinaattori
”Aidon yhteistyön luominen eri tutkimus­­­ryhmien välille vaatii aikaa ja paneutumista.
Oman mukavuusalueen ulkopuolelle
kurottaminen johtaa usein hedelmällisiin
lopputuloksiin.”
80
What did you learn from MIDE?
Yrjö Neuvo
Leader, MIDE research programme
‘A five-year period is well suited for
launching new basic research projects.’
Sami Ylönen
Project Manager, MIDE research programme
‘Functional cooperation requires
a lot of work, but in the end your
efforts will be rewarded. Networking
is very important, and it’s worth
openly sharing knowledge and ideas.’
Elina Karvonen
Project Coordinator, MIDE research programme
‘Creating genuine cooperation between
research groups requires time and effort.
Stretching beyond your comfort zone
can lead to fruitful results.’
81
ind.
MIDE Multidisciplinary Institute of Digitalisation and Energy 2008-2013
86
82
Multidisciplinary, long-term basic research
Smart 4D Space
122 Carbon nanobuds for Energy - CNB-E
148
Energy efficient wood processing
and machining - E-Wood
168 Minimization of exergy losses
in combustion processes - Exergy
182 High efficiency solid state lighting enabled
by new technologies - HighLight
204 Hybridization of work machines - HybLab
226 Innovative micro fuel cell system
for portable electronics applications - IPPES
246 Intelligent structural health monitoring system - ISMO
268 Ubiquitous social media for urban communities
- OtaSizzle
292 Urban contextual information interfaces
with multimodal augmented reality - UI-ART
312
Innovative business and collaboration
in virtual environments - VinCo
322 Multidisciplinary and long-term nature of MIDE
research programme emphasised in programme evaluation
82
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83
MIDE Programme
Multidisciplinary, long-term
basic research
The Aalto University MIDE (Multi­
The goal of the programme was to create top-
disciplinary Institute of Digitalisation
level expertise, strengthen education and inc-
and Energy) research programme
rease the competitiveness of Finnish trade
focused on long-term basic research
and industry. The MIDE programme ran
in the fields of digitalisation and energy
from 2008 to 2013.
technology.
The MIDE research programme included
11 separate projects. The research projects
were multidisciplinary and one project typically focused on several departments. The
projects focused on novel ICT and innovations improving energy efficiency.
The research projects were selected based
on an open application process. As a result,
over one hundred applications were submitted. The selected projects included
projects with a strong background in the
research area that promised good results.
There were also some wild cards in the mix
that only just passed the selection criteria,
but ultimately grew into real success stories.
According to Professor Yrjö Neuvo,
Leader of the MIDE research programme, the
projects formed a balanced whole.
‘We could afford to experiment and take
risks. We could include projects that would
have been difficult or even impossible to fund
otherwise. Without risks nothing genuinely
new would ever be created.’
84
Programme MIDE
In some of the projects, the early stages were
nisations from various fields participated in
used to better understand and specify the
the campaign.
research problem.
‘This wouldn’t have been possible without
The sum raised totalled €20 million, of
which €10 million came from the Technology
the long-term nature of the programme. The
Industries of Finland Centennial Foundation.
five-year time span has made it possible for
The foundation genuinely wanted to support
researchers to look around, learn and change
research in the fields MIDE focused on.
their course when necessary. They’ve had
‘Projects like MIDE are extremely impor-
enough time to navigate to the best possible
tant since Finnish success is based on kno-
result.’
wledge and know-how. Good research and
‘The basic research performed at univer-
product development are of great impor-
sities plays a very important role. We must
tance to us. We will need top-level experts
have the opportunity to freely develop new
whose professional skills bear international
ideas. This is what differentiates our research
comparison also in the future’, says Mervi
from the work performed by the R&D units of
Sibakov, Secretary General of the Techno-
businesses. MIDE has provided researchers
logy Industries of Finland Centennial Foun-
with an opportunity to carry out long-term
dation.
basic research—research that is used to dis-
According to Sibakov, the MIDE rese-
cover new knowledge that will eventually
arch programme has helped business life and
also lead to commercial innovations.’
the university world understand each other
better and improved communications bet-
Funding from companies
and organisations
ween these two worlds. Mobility between
Funding for the research programme was
reased in both directions.
collected with the help of the Technology for
Aalto University and businesses has incThe follow-up groups of the research
life campaign organized in 2008 to honour
projects formed one of the communication
the 100-year history of Helsinki University of
forums. Each project had its own follow-up
Technology. A total of 51 companies and orga-
group that included representatives from the
85
MIDE Programme
companies that participated in funding the
The Bit Bang courses have emphasised team
MIDE programme.
work and the understanding of large concepts. Understanding multidisciplinarity has
Student projects and
postgraduate courses
been one of the main elements of the course.
In addition to research projects, the MIDE
major business leaders. Many Bit Bang stu-
programme also included three student
dents have also worked for one of the MIDE
projects and a postgraduate course called
research projects.
Bit Bang.
One of the student projects has focused
Visitors have included top lecturers and
The MIDE programme also had five visiting professors from international top uni-
on building the first Finnish satellite. The
versities. In many cases, cooperation has
Aalto-1 satellite weighs a couple of kilograms
continued and resulted in new international
and uses the CubeSat standard. It has been
research projects.
designed and built mainly by students as
part of thesis projects and course work. The
New culture of cooperation
satellite should be launched into orbit in the
The MIDE research programme resulted in
autumn of 2014.
34 doctoral dissertations, 78 other theses
The Aalto-1 project is a good example of the
opportunities project-based education can
and start-up businesses have been launched
provide. It has helped students handle multi-
based on the results achieved in research
dimensional projects and taught them skills
projects.
needed in working life, such as project mana-
The change in culture initiated by MIDE
gement and creating precise documentation.
is, however, more important than the number
The Bit Bang postgraduate course has
of results achieved. According to Yrjö Neuvo,
already been organised five times. Each
MIDE succeeded in creating a new culture of
course has had its own theme from the com-
cooperation. Its impacts will affect both Aalto
petition and innovation strategies of nations
University and business life.
to the future of the Internet.
86
and 438 publications. Several further studies
Programme MIDE
‘I hope that we have achieved permanent
Karvonen who was in charge of coordinating
changes in how research is performed.
programme administration, communications
Cooperation between the Schools and
and the Bit Bang postgraduate course.
Departments of Aalto University and between Aalto University and external stakeholder groups has, for instance, already increased’, Neuvo says.
Cooperation is also emphasised in the eva-
Mervi Sibakov also finds the MIDE operating model successful.
‘MIDE has increased multidisciplinarity,
internationality and cooperation. It has also
resulted in interesting spin-off companies. In
luations of the other members of the MIDE
addition to all this, it has produced engineers
organisation. Project Manager Sami Ylönen
and doctors of science who have received
participated in organising both the project
quality education. These are all extremely
application processes and the cooperation
positive outcomes’, Sibakov says.
between projects. He also participated in the
follow-up groups of all 11 projects.
‘In addition to creating a new culture
of cooperation, we have also managed to
‘Cross-disciplinary cooperation provided
create a tried and tested model for similar
many new research results. The more a rese-
programmes. A similar operating model is
arch problem requires know-how from dif-
already being used in the new Aalto Energy
ferent fields, the better the opportunity for
Efficiency Research Programme’, Neuvo says.
fruitful cooperation. It’s great that the research cooperation will continue after MIDE
as well.’
According to Project Coordinator Elina
Karvonen, the best part was noticing that
the programme was creating something new.
‘MIDE gave researchers the opportunity
to see their own research field from the point
of view of other academic fields. This will, for
its part, facilitate future cooperation’, says
87
MIDE 4D-Space
Smart 4D Space
Length: 2009-2013
Budget: 1 450 000 €
Project management:
Prof. Petri Vuorimaa and
MA Petri Saarikko,
Department of Media Technology,
D. Sc. (Tech,) Arhi Kivilahti,
Department of Real Estate,
Planning and Geoinformatics
{petri.vuorimaa, arhi.kivilahti}
@aalto.fi
Steering group representatives
from the City of Espoo, Elisa Plc,
EM Group Ltd, the Evangelical
Lutheran Parishes of Espoo,
Finnish Association of Civil
Engineers - RIL, Kone Plc,
NCC Plc, Nokia Plc and
Technology Industries of
Finland Centennial Foundation
88
Abstract
The main objective of research was to create new knowledge,
demonstrate new concepts and openings (initiate new research
directions), foster research and breakthroughs, and solve challenging research problems related to different spaces and
integration of virtual and physical worlds in retailing. Focus
research areas, where the majority of the research emphasis
was laid were: shopping centre service and retail innovations,
novel breakthrough techniques for 3d indoor measuring and
modeling, people flow monitoring, energy-efficiency, and wellbeing indoors.
The major achievement for the research was to form collaborative ties with departments that previously had not had any
kind of collaboration. Publications of the 4D Space consortium
include 2 doctoral theses, 2 licentiate theses, 6 Master theses,
more than 30 refereed papers and 20 other papers.
During the project, Urban Mill was launched as a pilot service. Urban Mill is as well a co-working space, an innovation
community as a change orchestration tool. Urban Mill redefines the way how people do joint innovation work, and aims
to make societal impact in global urban context.
Some significant spin-offs originated during the project were
1) the Board of the Academy of Finland has selected Center
of Excellence in Laser Scanning Research for the 2014‒2019
CoE programme. 2) based on the research work on modelling built environments, a new concept of Regional Information Modeling was created and it was one of the main research
parts of the funding of RYM oy’s Energizing Urban Ecosystem
project. In terms of the original objectives of the research, the
project was able to focus on many of the topics. It didn’t get
as deep in the topics as hoped in the preparation phase. The
main reasons for this were the challenges with the industry collaboration. It has to be noted that the objectives of the project
were somewhat ahead of time, as the integration of virtual and
physical worlds in retailing have become a hot topic during the
last couple of years.
4D-Space MIDE
1 Goals and achievements
Original goal of the project (in Finnish). Projektin tavoitteena on tutkia läpimurtokonsepteja liittyen tilan fyysiseen ja
virtuaaliseen hallintaan ja integrointiin, kehittää osaamista sisätilapaikannus-teknologian pohjalta syntyviin palveluliiketoiminta-mahdollisuuksiin ja palveluihin sekä tutkia ihmisvirtojen
käyttäytymistä kauppakeskuksessa. Projektilla luodaan erityisesti kaupan alalle perusosaaminen ja –tietämys palvella asiakkaitaan entistä selvästi paremmin ja monipuolisemmin – ja
aivan uudella tavalla. Palveluvalikoiman laajentumisen kautta
palveluntarjoajat saavat huomattavan määrän merkittävää tietoa
asiakkaistaan ja heidän käyttäytymisestään. Projektin tavoitteena on myös, että tulevaisuudessa rakennusten energiankulutus on selvästi pienempää niin talotekniikan optimoinnin kuin
myös käyttäjien paremman kulutustietoisuuden kautta. Yhdessä
nämä kaikki luovat hyvin merkittävän palveluliiketoimintapotentiaalin kotimaisille yrityksille laajalla sektorilla. Tietämyksen,
sovellusten ja palveluiden luomisessa ja kehittämisessä otetaan
käyttäjät aktiivisesti (ja merkittävässä roolissa) mukaan kehitystyöhön.
Achievements. The above described section from the original
project proposal had ambitious plans. They were tackled head
on in the start of the project. However, eventually it became
obvious for the researchers that the industry collaboration was
not as straight-forward as was hoped for. This made the development of new kinds of services more difficult. It has to be
noted that the objectives of the project were somewhat ahead of
time, as the integration of virtual and physical worlds in retailing
have become a hot topic during the last couple of years.
The major achievement for the research was to form collaborative ties with departments that previously had not had any
kind of collaboration. This required significant work from the
project management to enable the fluent coworking between
the researchers. This led to several advances in broadening
the knowledge of individual researchers. Thus paving the
way for real collaboration. Most significantly the collaboration
happened in the work on customer focus groups and pedestrian traffic counting. There researchers from different departments joined and really worked together for the topic. Some
significant spin-offs that originated during the project were 1)
the launching of the Urban Mill concept, 2) The Board of the
Academy of Finland has selected the Center of Excellence
in Laser Scanning Research for the 2014‒2019 CoE programme. 3) based on the research work on modelling built
environments, a new concept of Regional Information Modeling
was created and it was one of the main research parts of the
funding of RYM oy’s Energizing Urban Ecosystem project.
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MIDE 4D-Space
In terms of the original objectives of the research, the project
was able to focus on many of the topics. It didn’t get as deep in
the topics as hoped in the preparation phase. The main reason
for this were the challenges with the industry collaboration.
However, the research has enabled important international collaboration and provided good base for future research in the
various areas of the research. Next chapter will be an introduction to the different aspects of the research project.
2 Introduction
During the past 50-60 years, shopping malls have become
important retail venues. Although, shopping malls are facing
increasing competition from e-commerce and discount venues
and suffering from ”over-malling”, they still are the main ”display
windows” of the retail industry throughout the world (Gilboa,
2009). Competition between shopping malls have transformed
them into destination in their own right—regardless of the
offered marketing mix.
Bloch et al. (Bloch, 1994) studied shopping mall as a consumer habitat. Based on their survey, they identified four shopping mall habitat groups: 1) Mall Enthusiast, 2) Traditionalists,
3) Grazers, and 4) Minimalist. Since this seminal paper, several
researchers have studied shopping mall customer segmentation. Gilboa (2009) contains a survey of mall customer segmentation studies. Unfortunately, the comparison of different
shopping mall customer segmentations is difficult because the
approaches and methodologies are different (Reynolds et al.,
2002). According to Ruiz et al. (2004), the following studies
are comparable with each other: Reynolds et al. (2002), Bloch
et al. (1994) and Lesser and Hughes (1986), and Ruiz et al.
(2004). Based on the comparison of the above mentioned
studies, Ruiz et al. list four clusters: 1) Recreational shoppers
(Gazers), 2) Full experience shoppers (Mall enthusiasts), 3)
Browsers, 4) Mission shoppers (Traditionalist).
Although the above studies have different clusters, we can
draw some conclusions on what kind of services shopping
centres should offer to their customers. Minimalists appreciate
easy access and navigation. They are less likely to perceive
benefits from the shopping mall (Bloch, 1994). Marketing campaigns emphasizing short and focused visits can appeal to
minimalists (Gilboa, 2009).
Marketing campaigns for utilitarian shoppers should focus
on providing information about retailers’ offers before shopping
centre visits. On the other hand marketing efforts directed at
committed shoppers should be focused both inside and outside retail premises (Millan & Howard, 2007).
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4D-Space MIDE
Mall Enthusiasts are the best customer group. They perceive
the shopping mall habitat as source many benefits: boredom
relief, flow experience, and social benefits (Bloch et al. 1994).
Thus, mall operators need to lengthen their stay to increase
their spending. This can be done by offering them specific
zones concentrating on brand and entertainment (Gilboa, 2009).
Disloyal customer (Gilboa, 2009) are the most challenging
group: “Previous studies show that spending longer periods of
time in the mall raises the chances that additional purchases
will be made (e.g., Donovan et al., 1994). Thus, providing exhibitions about cars or hardware appealing to men, or exhibition
with Jewish content appealing to the traditional and religious,
can attract this group and lengthen their stay.” Mall activities attract also Family Bonders (Gilboa, 2009). Thus, offering
diverse activities for families can increase the loyalty of Family
Bonders.
Services and other means for providing ease of use for their
customers in the future are in the heart of the following chapters. They go more into detail about the different aspects of the
research project and what kind of services and solutions have
been developed.
2.1 Shopping centre service innovations
Traditionally, verbal techniques such as customer surveys and
focus groups have been used to gain customer information.
However, these techniques focus on the current use and rely
on what people say (Matthing et al., 2004; Hanington, 2003).
Therefore, they often fail to uncover “sticky” context related
information and latent customer needs (von Hippel, 2005;
Kujala, 2003). In addition, it has been stated that they tend to
result minor improvements rather than innovative thinking and
breakthrough products (Harari, 1994). By allowing customers
to innovate and actually taking part in activities with them, deep
insights and new ideas have an opportunity to emerge (Matthing
et al., 2004; Kujala, 2003). Even though ideas may not always
be realistic, they might present an expression of a perceived
problem, need or a wish (Sandén 2007; Kristensson et al., 2007).
We organized a series of workshops to co-innovate new
shopping center services with the customers. The purpose of
the workshops was two-fold: we wanted to gather ideas for digital services and secondly, the aim was to experiment participatory design methods in retail domain. Participatory methods
enabled us to study human behavior in context to gain understanding about customer needs. Participatory design takes
people’s needs and practices as a starting point when generating new products and services. (Buur & Matthews, 2008;
Kujala, 2003.)
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MIDE 4D-Space
The workshops were held in a shopping center in the metropolitan area of Finland, with 8,2 million annual visitors in 2009
(Finnish Council of Shopping Centers, 2010). The workshop
participants were recruited purposively from social network
services. Altogether 20 people participated the workshops. The
participants formed a heterogeneous group including people
with various backgrounds (Kristensson et al., 2007). The participant group, aged from 25 to 65, included as much women and
men. Most of them mentioned shopping as their hobby and told
they visited shopping centers several times per week. Some
lived nearby the shopping center. Some mentioned retail technologies as their profession. The participants were rewarded
with gift cards after each workshop.
The workshops were held in the shopping center premises which enabled the actual experiencing of user situations,
and thus facilitated the ideation (Kristensson et al., 2007). It
was pointed out that the focus area was in digital services.
However, we did not require participants to restrict their ideation only in digital services but asked them to view the experience as a whole. Several design methods were used during
the workshops aiming to encourage creativity (Hanington,
2003). In the first workshop the participants were divided into
small groups that walked within the shopping center observing
it with researchers (walkshops, see Korn & Zander, 2010).
Semi-structured interviews were used to find out participants’
experiences about the shopping center. The central discussion themes were identified and used to form ten theme cards
for the second workshop. In the second workshop, the participants were asked to pick up one or two themes and observe
the shopping center from that perspective. Participants were
given a printed blueprint of the shopping center on which they
marked their ideas and comments while they were touring in
the shopping center. This provided more contextual information about the shopping center experience. In the third workshop, the participants used video cameras as future “shopping
tools”. They worked in small groups that were asked to create
videos with storytelling or a short play to describe their ideas
and future visions about the shopping center in 2014. The participants could use earlier discussion themes as inspiration
or to create something new. In addition to the workshops, a
closed Facebook group was created in order to continue discussion between the workshops.
Workshops were audio recorded and transcribed. Approximately 450 ideas were found in the transcripts and Facebook
discussions. The ideas were organized with affinity diagram
method in collaboration with researchers (Cohen, 1995; Otto
& Wood, 2001). Preliminary analysis and implications of ideas
and opinions discussed in the workshop.
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4D-Space MIDE
Fig. 1. Service idea clusters created
in Iso Omena shopping centre workshops.
User-interface for the shopping mall. Workshop participants
wanted to have one user interface for all digital services in the
shopping mall context. They envisioned that the shopping mall,
or some other entity, would provide the service and individual
shops would pay for using it. The service would guide the user
to personally relevant and interesting things. The service should
be aware what they want or need and suggest actions or products based on that information. They envisioned personalized
experiences in the shops. They also wished to have more power
as customers, which could mean that customers would appreciate services based on crowdsourcing as a source of content.
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MIDE 4D-Space
Context-aware advertisements. Workshop participants were
annoyed of some advertisements which they receive based
on the current bonus card system in Finland. They envisioned
that there should be some regulations and rules how you can
push context-aware advertisements to customers. On the other
hand, they especially hoped to receive relevant advertisements
to their mobile devices about interesting products and events.
They hoped that the advertisements would be somehow surprising and simultaneously customized.
Service community. Participants wished to obtain a bi-directional service community to the shopping mall ecosystem,
including participation of all shops and services. The service
could be provided via interactive online channel, facilitating
direct communications with the customers. They envisioned
a virtual feedback box inside the shopping mall premises and
more personal experiences. Viral marketing was considered as
a viable method for advertising. Rewards were mentioned as
a way to encourage people to contribute to the common good
and to the community services.
Product information. Participants wished to have the access
to all product information through the mobile device. Ethical
consumption could be promoted by a mobile application. An
interface could emphasize locality and ethical choices, without
making it too pushy or difficult. Currently, it seems to be difficult to find out information about carbon footprint or other ethical product information. People are used to search engines,
so they expect that all product information should be indexed.
They wished that available products could be available on the
web and it would be possible to check the availability of products before the actual visit. Recommendation systems, already
familiar from the web, were also discussed.
Public information displays in shopping malls. Participants
considered interactive public displays as a commodity in shopping malls. Up to date information, quick access to personally
relevant content and location information were considered as
most important. They wished that public displays would provide
an interface to relevant information, such as, news and public
transport schedules. Participants wished for in-shop screens.
Video content and ambience. Participants felt that the mall
could be the cultural center of the area, with emphasis on
locality. They wished possibility for locals to promote their own
artistic projects. One central topic was a local media display, to
which users could send content they have created. Customers
could curate the content collaboratively. Interactive applications, such as quizzes, auctions and games could be used with
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4D-Space MIDE
mobile devices. Small prizes, such as coffee or lunch, were
mentioned as good motivators for contribution. People expect
something surprising from the user experience, even though it
cannot be too distracting or obtrusive.
2.2 Retail innovations
Besides the shopping centre services, the research has
explored how retailers have developed and adopted technological innovations. The focus in this research has been on the
emergence of multichannel retailing. This includes the integration of the online and mobile channels to the physical stores.
The purpose of the work was to provide further understanding
on how retailers and other retailing related stakeholders
respond to technological innovations and thus possibly helping
the researchers developing the new services. The main focus
in the research was to study the emergence of online grocery
retailing in UK with smaller work packages exploring the growth
of mobile services as well as the emergence of online book
retailing in UK.
The emergence of online grocery retailing in UK. The internet
has long been regarded a disruptive innovation for retailing. For
some parts, such as books and music, the introduction of online
services has certainly caused significant changes to traditional
business models. Yet despite this example, in many retail markets the influence of online retailing has remained somewhat
marginal.
Online grocery retailing in the UK is regarded as one
of the most advanced online grocery markets in the world.
Over the last 15 years, the market has grown into an industry
worth approximately £6 bn. This represents approximately
3 per cent of the overall grocery retail market. However, the
double digit growth figure of the online channel represents a
major proportion of the 3-4 per cent annual growth of the grocery retail market. Therefore, the development of online and
mobile services has become a critically important issue for
grocery retailers in the UK. As these services remain niche
components of the overall market, the significant question
has become: why has the online channel not disrupted grocery retailing in the same way it has changed other areas of
retailing, such as book or music retailing?
The reason why many online businesses have not been
able to disrupt traditional grocery store businesses comes
down to three interrelated characteristics of grocery retailing.
Firstly, significant volume needs to be established in order to
operate a profitable grocery business. This was summarized
by an interviewee (a retail consultant): ‘Food retailing is about
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MIDE 4D-Space
volume. You can’t conjure the volume out of thin air. You’ve got
to be able to do it on a huge scale, otherwise your margin structure’s going to be completely uncompetitive’. This has been one
of the main reasons why small retailers and new entrants have
not been able to challenge major multiples such as Tesco or
Sainsbury’s, companies that have volume already from their
existing businesses. Ocado was able to enter and remain in
the market due to the co-operation of Waitrose, which provided
the company with sufficient volume from its established business.
The special characteristics of grocery retailing also include
the nature of the products offered. Besides the large volumes needed, products are often fresh and can be used for
a limited amount of time only. The freshness of the products
makes selecting them a sensitive part of the service. If the
products being selected are not fresh, the customer’s trust in
the retailer can be damaged significantly. The trust between
retailer and customer is of paramount importance in online
grocery retailing, as the products offered are much more heterogeneous in quality compared with many other areas of
retail. This can be seen as an inhibiting force in the diffusion
of online retailing in the fashion industry as well. However, in
that industry the problem of heterogeneous quality lies not in
the freshness of the products, but in how the products fit. The
importance of trust in the service has been emphasized by
many in the industry. John Browett, previous CEO of Tesco.
com, compared the launch of online grocery services to the
introduction of self-service retailing: retailers needed to teach
their customers how to use the new innovation. Today in the
online businesses, retailers again need to teach customers to
use and trust the new service offered, which includes people
picking products for them.
The third special characteristic affecting the growth of
online grocery retailing is related to the delivery of the products. The issue of delivery is two-fold, involving both the punctuality of delivery and the economics of providing the service.
The punctuality of delivery includes the accuracy of delivery
and the length of the delivery window. Over the years, retailers
have trialed different kinds of time window and technology to
remove customers’ need to wait for deliveries, or at least minimize the required waiting time. Besides punctuality, delivery
charges have become an important competitive tool for winning online customers. Several campaigns focusing on the
pricing of delivery charges have been trialed. The most significant effort to lure customers with price has been Waitrose’s
decision to scrap delivery charges for orders over £50. However, some interviewees have pointed out that the delivery of
orders is very unsustainable economically. One retail consultant has argued that the real cost of collecting orders and
delivering them to customers is around £10, which is signifi-
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4D-Space MIDE
cantly more than what retailers currently charge.
Another aspect of delivery economics is the infrastructure
necessary to achieve it. In order to launch an online business,
one first needs to invest heavily in acquiring and setting up the
delivery fleet. This differs from other areas of retailing where
companies can outsource the delivery of orders to third-parties, thus saving resources. An interviewee summarized the situation as follows: ‘They don’t have the network, they don’t have
delivery vans. Even Amazon, one of the largest companies in the
world, even they would be daunted by the scale of investment
required.’ Grocery retailers however emphasize the importance
of the delivery man and therefore want to keep control of the
delivery system. The delivery man represents the only human
interaction the customer will have with the retailer and thus it is
vital that the interaction is a good one.
The above-mentioned challenges posed by the special characteristics of grocery retailing have contributed to the slow
adoption of online business. An interviewee pointed out the
conflict between the online service as a service and its financial sustainability: ‘As a service proposition it’s great, customers love it, but from an operational point of view, how do
you make money?’ The operational constraint arising from
expensive collection and delivery costs requires large volumes
of orders to make an online business economically viable. With
the slow adoption of services by consumers, the incremental
approach adopted by retailers such as Tesco has succeeded
over the more radical approaches trialed during the dotcom
hype.
Future challenges in online grocery retailing. As a large proportion of customers have trialled an online service, the main
emphasis is shifting from acquiring new customers to retaining
existing ones. Some interviewees highlighted the switching that
goes on between different grocery retailers. Customers who
may be very loyal in the physical world may easily switch from
one online service to another. ‘The big challenge for all online
grocery retailers is customer retention. A lot of people will try
the service and will either not use it again, or not use that particular service and go to a competitor… It’s not so much about
acquiring customers, it’s more about retaining them’ (a retail
consultant). The switching between different service providers
is made even easier with services such as mySupermarket.
co.uk. This has motivated retailers to think of more ways to
make customers commit to their service. Retailers such as
Ocado and Tesco have introduced membership schemes that
include money-saving pre-pay delivery passes to achieve this.
Another opportunity for switching has arisen with the development of the mobile channel. As the new breed of smartphones emerged after the introduction of the iPhone, retail
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MIDE 4D-Space
apps enabled customers to compare prices and order products more easily. This has given customers more power, challenging the retailers to rethink their strategies both in the
online environment and in physical stores. The use of channels ought to be made as easy as possible so that customers
can connect to the retailer via each channel, and there is no
need to go to a competitor. ‘I think the future is that people will
switch very, very easily between channels. And our job is to
make that as easy as possible. I see that being the case in groceries as well’ (a retailer).
This has all greatly influenced the way companies perceive
the Internet as a retail channel. Thus far the online environment
has not challenged traditional grocery business as forecast at
the turn of the millennium. However, the integration of the physical and online channels has become a key issue for retailers.
Eventually the online channel, with its larger, less frequent
purchases, could affect the sales of traditional grocery superstores, changing the function of the latter to a place of top-up.
2.3 Techniques for 3d indoor measuring
and modelling
The goals for this part of the project included:
1) The development of indoor navigation and verification of
its accuracy
2) The development of a rapid method for generating three dimensional models of shopping center environments and methods for updating them
3) Developing equipment for mobile 4D measuring and
modeling of indoor environments
4) Laser- and image based methods for pedestrian tracking
The digitalisation of built environment. The digitalisation of
a building (e.g. shopping centre) and indoor navigation are
essential tasks in reality-based virtualisation of spaces and
environment, when the integration of physical and virtual worlds
is required. The digitalisation of a building (or the creation of
an as-built model of it needs to be fast and efficient from data
acquisition to modeling, because a building should be considered as continually changing entity indicating that its virtual representation need continuous updating as well. Similarly to outdoors maps, outdated data may lead to confusing occurrences
and hazardous incidents.
Rapid digitalisation requires efficient and accurate indoor
navigation techniques and thus the study of the two are intertwined. On its own reliable indoor navigation is a prerequisite
for all location based services, which in the case of a shopping centre means added value for service providers and in
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the end to their customers. The virtualisation of these services
may eventually lead for example to increased energy efficiency,
increased quality and ubiquitous and accessible services.
Laser technology is based mainly on pulsed time-of-flight.
We have applied development of new mobile laser scanning
systems, where we have records in hardware (system integration) such as the boat-based MLS (Alho et al. 2009), world first
mini-UAV-based laser scanner (Jaakkola et al. 2010), 1MHz
backpack mobile laser scanner (Kukko et al. 2012), active
hyperspectral laser scanner (Kaasalainen et al. 2007, Chen et
al. 2010) and indoor mobile laser scanner iROAMER (Kukko et
al., forthcoming).
We have developed new extraction methods (3D model
reconstruction/edge detection) for built environment as follows:
1) extraction of 3D building inside and outside models based
on roof planes, walls, windows, doors with ALS/MLS data. We
have also applied international benchmarking of algorithms for
Information Model creation.
Tapiola - virtual reality in a smart phone. Laser scanning
has contributed significantly to the automatic 3D reconstruction in the past few years. MLS will be the main technology to
provide large 3D city models for navigation in a smart phone
in which low data amount and visually good looking textures
of 3D models are required. As regards to building geometric
reconstruction, although the use of both laser scanning and
images improves the level of automation, difficulties still rise
when complex models need to be reconstructed, and many
developed methods are scene-based. When photorealistic textures are concerned, object occlusion is still the main problem.
Due to the limited hardware resources and graphical computation power of mobile devices, 3D visualisation techniques for
the specified mobile platform need to be developed. The challenge related to real-time fast 3D rendering and display of large
datasets and of complex urban environments still remains. Our
example in the Android Market shows the current state of the
art in creating visually good appearance textures, high-quality
geometry, and 3D visualization in a single demo for near-future
personal geospatial infrastructures.
Previous research has shown that modelling of buildings
and spaces from laser scanner data is possible with a relatively good accuracy (Kaartinen et al. 2012, Kukko et al 2011).
Detected buildings can be used in 3D building reconstruction
or change detection, and they thus provide valuable information for mapping, map updating and 3D city modelling. Different
types of information have been used to separate buildings,
facades, and vegetation, including, for example, height texture or surface roughness reflectance information from images
or laser scanning, height differences between first pulse and
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last pulse laser scanner data (Hyyppä et al 2005) and shape
and size of objects . The detection methods often use raster
format, but they can also be based on the classification of the
original laser points or use the point data in addition to raster
data. Some of the methods begin by segmenting the data into
spatially continuous, homogeneous regions that are then classified. Others first apply classification to individual pixels or
points and aim to form meaningful regions on the basis of the
classification results.
The Tapiola 3D-model was created to demonstrate the
potential of new location based services in combining physical and virtual worlds. For pedestrian and vehicular users a
3D model presented in perspective from ground level is more
natural and intuitive than traditional “birds eye view” models
based on aerial images. The geometric information of the environment was obtained with the ROAMER system. Textures were
obtained with digital photography.
The Tapiola models were reconstructed mainly in two
steps: (i) Fully automated geometry reconstruction from raw
laser data to produce buildings and to enable corner detection. This step included also interactive model checking and
refining using software for building geometry; (ii) Photo realistic texture preparation and mapping. To produce the final
model, the image data were taken separately for the textures of
building facades because of high buildings and narrow streets.
The images taken by the ROAMER system did not cover all of
the building facades in the case of high buildings and these
images did not meet the photographic requirements for highquality textures. The delineation of the automatic processes
used in the model point data manipulation is described in
detail by.
The model was published as a smartphone application, and
can be viewed with Android based smartphones and tablet
pc’s. Usability of the model has been improved by removing
unnecessary visual clutter from the view, such as parked cars
and pedestrians that were in the area during the measurement
campaign. Even though the geometric model is downloaded
during the installation process, it is possible to include continuously updated data in the model to create e.g. augmented
reality applications.
Iso-Omena – virtual model of a shopping center interior.
One of the central corridors of the Iso Omena -shopping center
was measured and modeled with image based methods. Main
purpose was to test the suitability of photogrammetric (image
based) methods in modelling retail environments taking into
account the frequent changes of e.g. store fronts. Measuring
was carried out with a field calibrated camera, a Nikon D700
using a wide angle lens with a focal length of 14-24mm (F2.8).
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The model was generated with iWitness -software, where the
chosen, manually indicated points were measured. Based on
measured points a textured polygonal surface model of the interior was made.
After the modeling, the textured model was further refined in a
3D modeling software suite, and exported to a format suitable
for Ogre 3D-engine. It was then tested in realXtend virtual world.
Fig 2. The chosen corridor space.
Partially the original photo textures, and partially synthetic material were used in the model.
The exporting -process was somewhat complex and
included several steps due to software limitations. Since the
original test (2010) the situation has improved. However, a
photogrammetric measuring process was found to be useful
in creating very visual, textured models with a limited point
count. The changing environment of the shopping center interior (store changes, campaingns, etc.) was found to be possible to represent in a virtual model with replaceable textures.
E.g when a store is relocated the textures of the storefronts
are updated. This enables keeping to model visually up to date
without extensive re-measuring campaign.
Aalto Design Factory - 3D-modeling interiors with Terrestrial
Laser Scanning. The ground floor (from the Betonimiehenkuja
side) of the Aalto Design Factory was modeled with a Leica
Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS). The measuring only took one
working day. A total of 20 individual scans were acquired from
the interior, resulting in over 20 billion points of measured data.
A very rapid approach was used in modeling the space. Triangular mesh models were created from the point clouds. After
this they were combined using the features found from meas-
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Fig 3. The interior viewed in a virtual environment
ured data. By combining models, a virtual model of the most
important spaces of the whole floor was created. After this
a simplified surface model was built based on the triangulated models. When compared to construction drawings of the
building, the simplified model was found to contain measurement errors of max 40 cm between the most distant points of
the interior. It was found to be suitable for visualisation, simulation and navigation uses, also on mobile platforms.
3D indoor models created with terrestrial laser scanning
could also be used in virtual reality applications and 3D game
engines in a similar manner as models generated with photogrammetric methods or mobile laser scanning, both described
in preceding chapters of this report.
Measuring indoor environments. Mobile laser scanning has
developed from being a research topic to commercial applications during the past years. However, mobile laser scanning
has not been utilized indoors until now. The biggest challenge
in indoor mapping is positioning of the measurement platform,
since it cannot be realized by using global satellite navigation.
The objective of this work was to investigate how well the
mobile mapping system ROAMER, which was developed by the
Finnish Geodetic Institute, is suited for mapping indoor environments. The point cloud that was utilized in these experiments was measured inside the Finnish Geodetic Institute in
Masala. The measured point cloud was compared against control points measured by total station. The accuracy of the point
cloud was improved by using TerraSolid Oy’s software. The
point cloud was manipulated in three different ways using targets. The targets were fastened to the floor.
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The original non-corrected point cloud deviated on average
155.4 cm from its true position. By manipulating the point
cloud its accuracy was significantly increased. The best result
was achieved by manipulating the point cloud using all targets.
In this case the point cloud deviated on average 4.3 cm from
its true position. The standard deviation in this case was 3.9
cm.
The measured point cloud as such is not well suited for applications that require measurements of high accuracy. By
manipulating the point cloud its accuracy can be significantly
increased. The manipulated point cloud can be used for a
variety of applications including interior modelling for design
purposes, creation of virtual models for game- and movie use,
mapping of underground structures and making models for
indoor navigation applications.
Panoramic imaging. Linked panoramic images are a computionally light weight alternative to 3D-models in creating fotorealistic, explorable virtual environments. They are widely used in
Fig 4. The ROAMER equipment installed on a cart.
the industry for both indoor and outdoor applications, on mobile
and desktop platforms. The most known contemporary outdoor
application probably being Google Streetview. The biggest limitation to actual 3D models in panoramic images is the limited
choice of viewing locations: for every viewing location, a panoramic image is required.
Panoramic imaging in creating virtual environments from
indoor locations was also used in the project. A simple online
version of the Aalto Design Factory entrance floor during the
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Product Development Project -course’s final gala was created.
Synthetic and augmented panoramic images were also
tested. In these demos the panoramic images were either produced completely from the digital 3D models, such as the Iso
Omena interior model created in the project or augmented with
some rendered components from virtual models. Especially the
later technique was found to be interesting. It was possible to
include in a panoramic image, some details from a digital model.
2.4 People flow monitoring
A people flow sensor is a device that can be used to measure
the number, and often also the direction, of people passing
through a certain passage. People flow measurement is a valuable tool in various applications e.g. in mapping market strategies (Adriano et al. 2005) and it can also be used for security
purposes and utilized in so-called smart space applications
(Hashimoto et al. 1998). The sensor data can be used to determine the number of people occupying a certain space and the
information can be further exploited in adjusting the environmental conditions – such as ventilation – automatically (demand
controlled ventilation, DCV). This way increase of user comfort
and energy savings can be gained.
People flow sensors or counters can be categorized by
the detection method used. Commercially available sensors
include i.a. infrared (IR) light beam cells, passive infrared (PIR)
detectors, video cameras, thermal infrared cameras, laser
scanners, ultrasonic detectors, microwave radars, piezoelectric mats and switching mats. Most of these are capable of
sensing the movement direction of the monitored object. Video
and thermal infrared camera sensors mounted perpendicular
above the monitored doorway or corridor, are also capable
of detecting multiple passers-by simultaneously (cf. Fig. 5.).
Hence they are commonly considered as the most efficient
sensor types available and are suitable for busy locations with
high people flow rates. Video and thermal IR camera sensors
usually include softwares for configuration, counting area adjustment and possible detection visualization (cf. Fig. 6.). People
flow sensor technologies has been previously evaluated and
tested for pedestrian and bicycle traffic counting and safety
related presence detection (i.a. Dharmaraju et al. 2001; SRF
Consulting Group, Inc. 2003; Chan & Bu 2005; Bauer et al.
2011).
Selection of a people flow sensor is based on the needed
accuracy, reliability and practicality. Knowledge of the sensor’s
performance is of essential importance. The more reliable data
the sensor provides the better are the results of the application
utilizing it. Also the usability limitations of certain sensor types
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– like privacy issues with video cameras with recording or realtime monitoring possibility – have to be taken into account in
the sensor selection. For proper operation sensors might have
some requirements for the mounting location like minimum
and maximum installation heights. Ambient conditions may
also limit the sensor usability – e.g. enough lighting is usually
needed for video camera sensors and infrared cameras should
not be installed to locations where they are exposed to strong
temperature gradients or air flows.
Fig. 5. Various video and thermal IR camera sensors
installed above a mall entrance.
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Fig. 6. Examples of configuration interfaces of
commercial video and thermal IR camera sensors
with detection visualizations.
People flow monitoring as a part of the 4D-Space project.
The project’s research on people flow monitoring included a
collection of evaluation studies of the performance of selected
commercial pedestrian counting sensors along with testing of
some sensor applications. The first test was carried out in Aalto
Design Factory and it included eight different sensor brands (IR
light beam sensors, mat sensors and video and IR camera sensors). In the test free pedestrian flow was collected for over a
month along with five hours of manual control counting. The test
data of a selected direction-sensitive sensor was further used
to model the energy consumption of a visitor sensor based
demand-controlled ventilation (DCV).
A follow-up test with four camera sensors was realized at
an office room corridor at Aalto University Department of Electronics. In this study predetermined patterns of two and three
persons was used and the effect of mutual compensation of
possible over- and undercounting was examined. The second
follow-up study took place at Iso Omena shopping mall where
the accuracy of an IR camera sensor and a video camera
sensor was tested with free and high volume people flow. This
study also included detection of the problematics related to the
object detection of the sensors, like unfavorable ambient conditions.
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In an application test visitor counting was combined with power
measurement and used to test the energy efficiency of two
escalators of different era and with different energy-saving
functions. The tests were carried out at the Hakaniemi station
of Helsinki subway where people flow and power consumption
data was collected for both escalators for one week. The setup
provided a practical tool for comparison of different escalator
technologies. The application can further be used to adjust the
energy saving functions of escalators based on the periodical
rider volumes and also exploited in the condition monitoring of
escalators.
The last application study contained a network of 15
direction-sensitive visitor sensors with wireless data loggers
installed at strategic locations the Aalto Design Factory. The
systems can be used to provide information about the occupation levels of the different parts of the building (to be used
e.g. in DCV) and also enables a real-time activity monitoring
with visualization on the building’s floor plan (e.g. for security
purposes). The sensor network is still in use and provides a
starting point for the continuous projects (including the MIDE
Hybrid Sense).
Co-operation in the sensor and application testing has been
done with Teknovisio Oy, Kone Oyj, Citycon Oyj and Helsinki
Region Transport Authority (HSL). The main parties from the
Aalto University involved in this work package were the Department of Electronics, Department of Media Technology and
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
People flow monitoring with imaging- and laser instruments.
For the project, a study was made for detecting pedestrian
movement using different imaging sensors. Tracking pedestrian movement in shopping center environments helps understand and analyze customer behaviour. This work is connected
to the digitalization of the built environment as accurate interior
models are required to utilize the tracking information efficiently.
Three different range cameras and one RGB-camera were
used as test equipment. SwissRanger SR-3000 records both
the RGB- and range values, PMD Camcube range- and intensity values, Kinect only the range values and a GoPro Hero 2
HD RGB-values. The test system was running at approximately
5 fps.
Some false identifications were found from the data, caused
e.g by a moving roll-up, a closing door and a person holding
both hands up. In addition one running person was left undetected, but this should be solved by increasing the sampling rate.
A laser-based system was also tested. Equipment used
was developed based on a so called continuous laser profile,
which provides accurate data for example from the locations of
people moving on the floor plan.
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2.5 Energy-efficiency and wellbeing indoors
Shopping centres especially those hosting restaurants and
grocery stores are buildings with high intensity of energy use.
In the Scandinavian region with their high heating demand and
according to Stensson et al. (2009), the average energy use
of a typical Scandinavian shopping centre is around 300 kWh/
m²a. This was estimated based on gathered data from 41 shopping centres in Norway and Sweden. The building services
including heating, cooling and ventilation energies represented
more than 30% of the total energy consumption. The main
energy use in these malls is consumed by the tenants especially for shops’ lighting. While the tenant’s energy demand is
usually according to standard setup by international chains and
brands, there is a significant potential for improvements in the
energy use of the building services. The design of HVAC systems for shopping malls needs to closely consider the different
activities and clothing levels of the occupants; and hence, minimizing the used energy by these systems. In the heating-mode
season, the occupants usually keep their heavy clothing while
moving in corridors and between shops. Therefore, a lowered
set-point of the ambient temperature may be acceptable with
the general ventilation system of the mall. In accompaniment,
localized heating systems need to be employed as required in
certain locations such as resting spots including cafés and restaurants. This scheme should promote the thermal comfort of
individuals and contribute in saving energy.
We constructed an experimental setup to simulate a task
area in a large hall space that may be feasible for the shopping
mall’s application. Variants of a localized floor-heating system
(cf. Fig. 7.) were used at the task area under lowered ambient
conditions. The energy consumption of these variants was
measured along with online evaluation of the local and overall
thermal comfort using the thermal manikin ‘Therminator’ to
evaluate their performance.The results indicated a clear impact
of the geometry of the heated floor on the effectiveness pertaining to thermal comfort. The monthly energy saving due to
this system compared to conventional system was estimated
to be in a range from 10-65% while the total annual saving was
estimated to be around 17%. Future work will include further
testing of localized HVAC systems under different indoor conditions.
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Fig. 7. Experimented floor heater variants
(Foda and Sirén 2012).
Thermal comfort has been intrinsically evaluated for every building’s case using the same old methods (e.g., PMV by Fanger
1970) even out of their specified limitations. The widely used
methods for the evaluation of human thermal comfort are based
on whole-body (overall) comfort which may not be adequate for
evaluating non-uniform thermal conditions. These conditions
are typical in our buildings under which the body’s segments
may experience a wide range of the room physical parameters
and the evaluation of the local (segmental) thermal comfort
becomes necessary. This is optimally carried out using thermal
manikins. Thermal manikins are traditionally used with three different control modes: constant skin surface temperature (CST)
mode; constant heat flux (CHF) mode; and the comfort equation
(CE) mode. The CST mode is the most commonly used with a
constant skin surface temperature for the whole body (normally
around 34˚C). This mode uses feedback control to regulate
the skin surface temperatures with a short response time. The
CST mode is also used on segmental basis by applying different
temperatures for each body segment. The CHF mode uses the
same value of heat flux for the whole body or on segmental
basis. The value of the skin surface temperature depends on
the environmental conditions and clothing insulation. In this
mode, there is no need for the feedback control. The CE mode
uses the comfort equation derived from Fanger (1970) that is
setting the skin surface temperature according to the neutral
condition using a linear correlation with the sensible heat loss.
This control mode adjusts the skin temperature as a function of
the environmental condition and the clothing insulation for each
body segment. It uses an iterative procedure in processing
which results in a larger response time.
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Although a thermal manikin—that has the shape of a human
body—provides the realism of the human physical presence, the
three known control modes do not precisely suffice the simulation of the human’s thermal presence. Therefore, we developed
a new control mode for thermal manikins based on a multi-segmental model of human thermoregulation (Foda & Sirén 2011a).
The multi-segmental model of human thermoregulation was validated against several measured data under steady-state, uniform and non-uniform as well as dynamic conditions (Foda et al.
2011). The new control mode (MSP) was implemented onto the
control system of the thermal manikin ‘Therminator’ (cf. Fig. 8.)
and was validated using human subjects tests for the estimation
of the local thermal comfort using the equivalent temperature
approach (Foda & Sirén 2011b).
Fig. 8. The thermal manikin
‘Therminator’.
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2.6 Retail services and applications
Decision making process carried out in supermarkets is very
different from the way shoppers decide to purchase high value
one-off items and that the two types of shopping have very different information requirements (Kalnikaite, 2012). Rather than
overwhelming shoppers, future shopping technology design
needs to focus on information frugality and simplicity (Kalnikaite, 2012).
The Internet of Things is a vision of an information architecture which extracts data from sensors, electronic devices
and smart objects connected to the network (van Kranenburg,
2007). The data is modeled into a digital format, computed
and then converted into a visual interface, understandable
to humans. People can access these services through personal mobile devices, public displays or projections. Physical
objects and information can be connected with several modalities. Scanning objects wirelessly with a mobile device is more
effective than manually entering product data (von Reischach,
2010). Two almost equally efficient solutions have been presented: barcode detection and Radio Frequency Identification
(RFID) (O’Neill, 2007). In barcode recognition, the user scans
the barcode with a camera phone, which applies an image
recognition algorithm to identify the code. The advantage of
barcode recognition is the high availability of barcodes and
devices.
Automatic access to product information enables a wide
variety of web-based services to augment traditional shopping
experience, many of which are already familiar from the context
of online shopping. Online shopping utilizes recommendation
systems, social sharing, personalized advertising, price comparison and search (Shardanand, 1995). On the other hand,
many value the physical dimension in a traditional shopping
mall or in-store experience. However, they would like to leverage product information and peer reviews in their purchase
decisions, especially with consumer electronics (Resatsch,
2008). According to recent research people are not willing to
pay for product reviews or recommendations (Kowatsch, 2009;
Resatsch, 2008).
UbiQloud. UbiQloud is an end user solution for integrating
cloud based social services with mobile applications. It combines multiple embedded short-range wireless technologies,
such as NFC and RFID. The development opens a gateway for
developing Web of Things (WoT) services. UbiQloud is based
on XMPP publish/subscribe architecture and emerging HTML5
technologies, such as WebSocket. In addition, it has a RESTful
interface for accessing event history and subscription management.
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Fig. 9. UbiQloud server architecture.
The server architecture of the UbiQloud is simple. UbiQloud
requires only standard server environment and includes free
and easily configured components. Thus, custom instances
are easy to install. Fig. 9. depicts the server architecture, which
consist of four main components:
1. Play![1] Framework,
2. Openfire[2] XMPP server,
3. Play! application (i.e., UbiQloud), and
4. MySQL[3] Relational DataBase Management System (RDBMS).
The UbiQloud core is built on top of the Play! framework. Play!
is a modern Java Web framework targeted to RESTful architectures. It speeds the development cycle by compiling and
reloading modified code into the Java Virtual Machine without
restarting the built-in server. It also provides many useful functionalities out of the box, such as WebSocket support, OAuth
and OpenID consumer libraries, and a Web Service client.
OpenFire is a Java-based XMPP server for real-time communication. In UbiQloud, Openfire is a separate component;
although, it uses the same user database as the UbiQloud
core. Openfire is also used as the WebSocket server through
a plugin.
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The last component of the implementation architecture is
MySQL RDBMS, which is used for data storage. MySQL was
chosen mainly because both the Play Framework and Openfire
had drivers for MySQL bundled within the distribution. Nevertheless, both UbiQloud and Openfire can be configured to use
another relational database, such as PostgreSQL or Oracle.
FeedThroat. FeedThroat is a shopping assistant application
developed for Web and iOS. The core idea of the application is
to provide retailer independent product information with social
sharing and collaboration.
Fig. 10. FeedThroat application allows users to (a) scan,
(b) view, and (c) share products.
The application has two main functions. First, users can get
instant product information by scanning a barcode with a
mobile phone camera. A social layer—on top of the traditional
information—includes photos, comments, and friends’ interests.
Second, users can generate shared shopping lists—including
real-time updates—and in-list product information, such a private
comments and product photos. Users can add a product to a
list by scanning its barcode, entering it manually, or choosing
it from a dynamic new product list. Fig. 10. depicts a scenario
where a user (a) scans a product, (b) views its details, and (c)
adds it to a list.
For testing the FeedThroat application with real users, a
small user test (Ojanen, 2011) was organized with 15 par-
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ticipants (divided to two groups) in the Iso Omena shopping
center. The participants were given a task to buy a set of products to organize a party. For the task, the participants were
divided to pairs and each pair gained a smartphone with a preinstalled FeedThroat application. In addition, the list of needed
products was populated to FeedThroat before the test. The list
contained products from various shops in order to prevent one
group for purchasing everything from a single shop.
The idea was that the pairs did not decide beforehand
which pair is going to buy what. Instead, the pairs used
FeedThroat to scan and check products as they purchased
them. As soon as a product was checked by one pair, all the
other pairs gained a notification that the particular product was
purchased.
The test showed that communication (both pull and push)
with UbiQloud worked well even in a crowded shopping center
over a 3G cellular network. The latency of the communication was not measured, but at least the users did not complain
about slowness in data fetching (e.g., scanned barcode was
sent to UbiQloud and product information was received fast).
Also, all push notifications were sent correctly without any
dropped messages.
InView + RealSense + Sensors. InView is a multi-platform
mobile application for indoor people monitoring. It uses both
users’ location and anonymous people flow data to visualize
people flow in a smart space. The location feeds are generated
by UHF readers that recognize tags mapped to UbiQloud users.
The people flow data is generated by a ZigBee based WSN
measuring the count and direction of people passing by each
sensor
The application consists of three views. First view is a location feed sidebar that is updated in real-time based on the
movement of the recognized users. Second view, called live
view, visualizes the people flow by drawing a hit map on top
of a floor map. The final view, called history view, shows the
amount and direction of people passed each sensor filtered by
date and time.
3 Departments, staff, cooperation
Department of Media Technology (90 person-months, PM)
Petri Vuorimaa
Petri Saarikko
Kalle Säilä
Pia Tukkinen
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Jussi Teirikangas
Teemu Ropponen
Heikki Tuoma
Tomi Hokkanen
Department of Real Estate, Planning and Geoinformatics
(120 PM)
Arhi Kivilahti
James Culley
Lauri Paavola
Anita Lankinen
Hannu Hyyppä
Juha Hyyppä
Nina Heiska
Juho-Pekka Virtanen
Matti Kurkela
Lingli Zhu
Antero Kukko
Anttoni Jaakkola
Jakob Ventin
Lars Miikki
Hongxiu Li
Department of Marketing (35 PM)
Sanna Uotinen
Sonja Lätti
Department of Design (25 PM)
Riikka Hänninen
Department of Energy Technology (40 PM)
Ehab Foda
Department of Applied Electronics (50 PM)
Jussi Kuutti
Aleksi Sormanen
Department of Civil Engineering (30 PM)
Jukka Jokelainen
Jaeyoung Kwak
3.1 Co-operation
The research project included many participants from all parts
of Aalto university. This put the researchers in a new position in terms of collaboration and co-operation. None of the
researchers had previous experience of collaborating with each
other. Thus it required notable amount of learning and effort
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from all participants to get acquainted with each other and their
approach to the problems of the project. It took quite a long time
until the researchers were able to talk “the same language”.
Most notable reason for getting the researchers to know each
other was the common work place for the researchers. The project was able to get a room from the Design Factory. This acted
as a common hub for all the researchers.
The collaboration however also had some important advantages for the research. By being able to understand how
people from very different backgrounds approach the research
questions, the researchers broadened significantly their own
perspective to the phenomena. This enabled a more multidisciplinary approach for the project.
Besides the collaboration within Aalto, the research has
conducted significant co-operation internationally. Besides the
traditional academic collaborations, the research included a
researcher exchange to the University of Oxford as the project
leader Arhi Kivilahti spent a year in the Saïd Business School.
This in-depth collaboration with a world-class university enabled the research to get a thorough perspective on the retail
and shopping centre innovation development in the UK.
The project also received funding for Aalto collaboration.
The participants from the other Aalto schools were the Department of Marketing from the School of Business and the Department of Design from the School of Arts. The funding was used
to multitude of research perspectives the most important of
which was the customer focus groups in the Iso Omena shopping center. In this work package researchers from both the
School of Business as well as from the School of Arts were
working alongside the researchers from other schools. Especially researchers from Real Estate Research and Mediatechnology were collaborating closely in this part.
Additionally, the finding was used to study the emergence
of mobile services in UK alongside the research related to the
use of the mobile and online services in Finland. This work
was conducted by the researchers from Marketing, Real Estate
and Mediatechnology and was also connected closely to the
studies on the emergence of online grocery as well as book
retailing in UK.
Integrating physical spaces. During the project, a system for
linking two remote physical spaces was also developed. The
work was carried out in co-operation with personnel from the
Aalto University School of Art, Design and Architecture. Partially
the motivation for this work came from the difficulties of cooperating with other researches located physically in different parts
of the Aalto campus. The system built enables more fluent interaction and sketching over distance than most existing videomediated collaboration tools currently used, e.g. Skype.
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4D-Space MIDE
3.2 Spin-offs originated during the project
Urban Mill. During the project, the development work of the
Urban Mill was started. It has since been further developed in
other research projects, and launched as a pilot service.
Urban Mill is an emerging, global thematic focal point for
Urban Innovations. Urban Mill has 1300 m2 co-working and
co-creation space linked right to the Aalto University Design
Factory and the Startup Sauna in Otaniemi. Together these
three spaces will act as a physical and social Knowledge Triangle test-bed for the Otaniemi campus and for the whole T3
area. Urban Mill brings together the research and innovation
actors of i) Built environment development, ii) Ubiquitous &
Responsive City ICT, ii) Urban services and iv) Urban life transformation.
Urban Mill is as well a co-working space, an innovation
community as a change orchestration tool. Urban Mill redefines the way, how people do joint innovation work, and aims
to make societal impact in global urban context. Urban Mill
facilitates to re-think how sustainable urban innovations are
done, and how urban transformations are orchestrated. Thus,
it channels access for its partners and stakeholders to a balanced mixture of appropriate urban innovation actors, thematic
contents, collaboration methodologies and a joint development
platform. Main properties of the Urban Mill are: Open Innovation Platform, Focal point, which energizes its users, Coworking with a wide network of Co-locations and Clustering
Local Knowledge Triangle actors.
Urban Mill’s own growth roadmap is based on the vision
that in the future substantial amount of the co-creative knowledge work is done in thematic RDI communities using smart
co-working and co-creation spaces which are digitally supported, connected and globally distributed. Space concepts
are seen as creative hybrids of physical, virtual and social.
Each hybrid space has its own core working community, thematic properties, specific characteristics and functional role
within their own network of other connected thematic spaces
and within their respective ecosystems. Design drivers for the
Urban Mill business model are derived from this vision.
The Regional Information Modeling -concept. Based on the
research work on modelling built environments, a new concept of Regional Information Modeling was created. Currently
it is development stage, based on an open source virtual world
application platform. Traditional Building Information Modelling (BIM) is used in controlling a single construction process
in order to record physical and activity based features in a
digital form. The resulting building information models become
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shared knowledge resources to support decision-making about
a facility from earliest conceptual stages, through design and
construction through its operational life and eventual demolition. Regional Information Model can be considered as a
similar presentation of a larger area of built environment, that
can be further used e.g. for virtual city planning. The Regional
Information Model could be a reliable and trustworthy basis
for lifetime engineering supporting new value adding activities
and decision making. It could also create a novel platform for
urban planning, where designers, civil engineers, city officials
and inhabitants will be able to interact, exchange thoughts and
study the evolving urban environment in a visual way with the
help of accurate spatial data.
The starting point for The Regional Information Modelling is
the integration of existing building information models, different
spatial information systems, and state-of-the-art measuring
techniques such as Mobile Laser Scanning, with virtual environments. This in effect creates a combination of the physical
and virtual worlds. Online virtual reality hosting systems, like
Adminotech’s Meshmoon, are still fairly new technologies, but
the potential is great. Updateability and availability are some of
the major benefits of networked virtual environments, such as
Meshmoon: the latest version of the model of the built environment could be in use within a few hours from completion. As
the virtual environments can be viewed by several users simultaneously, e.g. the customer, contractor, users and decision
makers can instantly discuss various aspects of the project
online, enabling efficient cooperation. Demonstrations, where
the physical and virtual worlds meet, provide an excellent foundation on which to present research results. Applications can
be examined from a user’s point of view before beginning the
final development work. A demonstration can be used to reify
and clarify the possibilities offered by a technology (e.g. Espoo
T3).
Centre of Excellence in Laser Scanning Research selected
for the Academy of Finland´s 2014-2019 COE-programme.
The Board of the Academy of Finland has selected our Center
of Excellence in Laser Scanning Research for the 2014‒2019
CoE programme. Team: Aalto University Institute of Measuring
and Modelling of Built Environment, University of Helsinki, University of Oulu and Finnish Geodetic Institute. Head of Aalto’s
share is prof. Hannu Hyyppä.
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4 Publications
Doctoral theses
Kivilahti, Arhi, Industry transformation initiated by a
technological innovation – case of UK grocery retailing, 2013.
Rönnholm, Petri, Orientation and integration of images and
image blocks with laser scanning data, 2010.
Licentiate theses
Kuutti, Jussi, A Test Setup for Comparison of People Flow
Sensors, 2012.
Master’s theses
Siikonen, Samuel, 3D etäisyyskameran tarkkuuden määrittely käyttäen tasopintoja (Determination of accuracy of a range
camera using planes as the method), 2013.
Kalle Säilä, UbiQloud: A Platform-as-a-Service for the Web of
Things, 2012.
Virtanen, Juho-Pekka, 3D-digitointi muotoilun työtapana,
2012.
Ventin, Jakob, Sisätilojen mittaaminen liikkuvalla laserkeilaimella, 2012.
Sormanen, Aleksi, Individual Conditions in a Smart
Environment, 2010.
Heikki Tuoma, Physical Browsing-based Mobile Services in
Shopping Center Environment. Design and implementation of
2D-code based services for Nokia N900, 2009.
Bachelor’s theses
Niiranen, V., Yksilön sisätilaseuranta matkapuhelimen Bluetooth-signaalin avulla (Indoor tracking of individuals using
mobile phone’s Bluetooth signal), 2012.
Korkiakoski, J. Passiivinen infrapunasensori ja mikroaaltotutkasensori ihmisvirran laskennassa (Passive infrared sensor
and microwave radar sensor in people flow counting), 2011.
Journals and conference papers
1. Kuutti, J.; Blomqvist, K.H.; Sepponen, R.E. Different
Commercial Visitor Counting Sensors Used in Observing Free Indoor People Flow at a Single Location (in review).
2. Kuutti, J.; Sepponen, R.E. Some Flaws Observed to Affect the Counting Accuracy of Thermal and Video Camera Visitor Sensors at a Shopping Mall Entrance (in review).
3. Kuutti, J.; Saarikko, P.; Sepponen, R.E. A Visitor Sensor Network for Real Time Building Occupancy Level Detection and Activity Visualization (under work).
4. Hu, Feng; Liu, Yong; Li, Hongxiu & Xiao, Bei (2012)
Modeling Consumers’ Acceptance of Tuangou in China. 119
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International Journal of Digital Content Technology & its Application. Vol. 6, No. 4, 9-15.
5. Kivilahti, Arhi (2012). Perinteiset kaupat johtavat
verkkokaupan kehitystä. Taloussanomat
6. Foda E, Sirén K (2010) A new approach using Pierce
two-node model for different body parts, International Journal of Biometeorology, 55(4):519-532.
7. Foda E et al. (2011) Models of human thermoregulation and the prediction of local and overall thermal sensations, Building and Environment Journal 46: 2023-2032
8. Foda E, Sirén K (2011) Dynamics of human skin
temperatures in interaction with different indoor conditions, Proceedings of Roomvent 2011- 12th international
conference on air distribution in rooms, Trondheim, Norway
9. Foda E, Sirén K (2011) A thermal manikin with human
thermoregulatory control: Implementation and validation, International Journal of Biometeorology, DOI: 10.1007/
s00484-011-0506-6.
10. Foda E, Sirén K (2012) Design strategy for maximizing the energy-efficiency of a localized floor-heating system using
a thermal manikin with human thermoregulatory control,
Energy and Buildings Journal, DOI: 10.1016/j.
enbuild.2012.04.019.
11. Almesri I, Awbi H, Foda E, Sirén K (2012) An air distribution index for assessing the thermal comfort and air quality in uniform and non-uniform thermal environments, Indoor and
Built Environment Journal, DOI: 10.1177/1420326X12451186.
12. Ehab Foda (2012) Evaluating the local and overall thermal comfort in buildings using thermal manikins, DSc thesis, ISBN 978-952-60-4814-7, Aalto University, Finland, 198p.
13. Alho P., Vaaja M., Kukko A., Kasvi E., Kurkela, M., Hyyppä J., Hyyppä H., Kaartinen H, 2010. Boat based mobile
mapping with laser scanning in fluvial geomorphology. Annals of Geomorphology.
14. Heidi Kuusniemi, Helena Leppäkoski, Jarmo Takala,
Jianyu Wang, Jingbin Liu, Jixian Zhang, Juha Hyyppä,
Ling Pei, Lingli Zhu, Risto Kuittinen, Ruizhi Chen, Yan Qin, Yuwei Chen, Zhengjun Liu. Going 3D. GPS WORLD.
February 1, 2010. Lehtomäki, M.; Jaakkola, A.; Hyyppä, J.; Kukko, A.; Kaartinen, H: Detection of Vertical Pole-Like Objects in a Road Environment Using Vehicle-Based Laser Scanning Data. Remote Sensing, 2010. Vol. 2, nro 3,
641-664.
15. Kaasalainen, S.; Niittymäki, H.; Krooks, A.; Koch, K.; Kaartinen, H.; Vain, A.; Hyyppä, H.: Effect of target
moisture on laser scanner radiometric calibration. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sensing, 2010. Vol. 48, nro 4,
2128–2136.
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16. Ropponen, T., Uotinen, S., Hänninen, R., & Kivilahti, A. (2011) Unveiling the Shopping Center Innovation Obstacles. Proceedings in Participatory Innovation Conference (PINC) 13th-15th January 2011, Sønderborg, Denmark.
17. Ahlavuo, M.; Hyyppä, H.: Tulevaisuuden elinehto: Tiedon, taidon ja osaamisen välittäminen. Maankäyttö, 2010. Nro 4, s. 37-40.
18. Hyyppä, Hannu; Ahlavuo Marika; Kurkela, Matti; Hyyppä, Juha; Haggrén, Henrik Tietovirrat akateemisessa opetus- ja tutkimusympäristössä - huippututkimuksesta ajan tasalla olevaan opetukseen. Reflektori 2010, Tekniikan opetuksen symposium, 9.-10.12.2010, Espoo, Otaniemi. 2010, Aalto-
yliopisto, Koulutuskeskus Dipoli, 126.
19. Jussi Teirikangas, Sanna Uotinen, Jukka Jokelainen, Heikki Tuoma sekä Arhi Kivilahti, Anturiverkko mittaa väenkulkua. Prosessori, toukokuu, 2010
20. Hyyppä, J., Jaakkola, A., Hyyppä, H., Kaartinen, H., Kukko, A., Holopainen, M., Zhu, L., Vastaranta, M., Kaasalainen, S., Krooks, A., Litkey, P., Lyytikäinen-Saarenmaa, P.,
Matikainen, L., Rönnholm, P., Chen, R., Chen, Y., Kivilahti, A., and I. Kosonen, 2009. Map Updating and Change
Detection Using Vehicle-Based Laser Scanning. 2009 Urban Remote Sensing Joint Event, 20.-22. May, Shanghai.
21. Lehtomäki, M., Jaakkola, A., Hyyppä, J., Kukko, A., Kaartinen, H., and X. Liang, 2009. Detection of Vertical
Pole-like Objects in Road Environment Using Vehicle-Based Laser Scanning Data. Remote Sensing.
22. Alho P., Vaaja M., Kukko A., Kasvi E., Kurkela, M., Hyyppä J., Hyyppä H., Kaartinen H, 2010. Boat based mobile
mapping with laser scanning in fluvial geomorphology. Annals of Geomorphology.
23. Manner, Joona; Virtanen, Juho-Pekka. Developing
natural and intuitive video-mediated collaboration. 2012. International Journal on Artificial Intelligence Tools. ISSN: 0218-2130, eISSN: 1793-6349.
24. Hyyppä, H and Rönnholm P. The Photogrammetric Journal of Finland, Vol. 22, No. 3, 2011. Special issue. 80th
anniversary of the Finnish Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. 16 reviewed papers.
Conference Presentations
1. Kwak, J., Jo, H-H., Kosonen, I., and Luttinen, T. “The Impact of Attractions on Pedestrian Flow” to be presented at DPG (Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft) Regensburg 2013 spring conference, Regensburg, Germany, 10th - 15th March 2013. http://www.dpg-verhandlungen.de/2013/
regensburg/soe25.pdf (retrieved as of 08 February, 2013)
2. Kukko, Antero; Kaartinen, Harri; Hyyppä, Juha; Chen,Yuwei Multiplatform Mobile Laser Scanning: Usability and
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Performance. Sensors, 2012. Vol. 12, nro 9, 11712-11733.
3. Kaartinen, Harri; Hyyppä, Juha; Kukko, Antero; Jaakkola, Anttoni; Hyyppä, Hannu Benchmarking the Performance of Mobile Laser Scanning Systems Using a Permanent Test Field. Sensors, 2012. Vol. 12, nro 9, 12814-12835.
4. Hyyppä, Hannu; Ahlavuo, Marika Smart City – kilpailu-
kykyinen ja energisoiva kaupunki. Maankäyttö, 2012. Nro 1, 10-14 .
5. Kurkela, Matti; Hyyppä, Hannu; Virtanen, Juho-Pekka; Zhu, Lingli; Ahlavuo, Marika; Alho, Petteri; Haggrén, Henrik; Rönnholm, Petri Social and Interactive 3D Imaging and Computational Photography Techniques. Helsinki
Photomedia, 28.-30.3.2012.
6. Virtanen, Juho-Pekka; Hyyppä, Hannu; Kurkela, Matti; Manner, Joona; Alho, Petteri; Jaakkola, Anttoni; Vaaja, Matti T. Emerging technologies for capturing spaces – review of selected research-oriented demo cases. Helsinki Photo-
media, Helsinki, 28.-30.3.2012.
7. Kukko, Antero; Jaakkola, Anttoni; Hyyppä, Juha GL
suunnannäyttäjänä kaupunkien 3D-mallinnuksessa. Positio, 2012. Nro 1, 13-15.
8. Hyyppä, Hannu; Ahlavuo Marika Rakennetaan älykäs
kaupunki. Positio, 2012. Nro 2, 13-15.
9. Hyyppä, Juha; Yu, Xiaowei; Kaartinen, Harri; Jaakkola,
Anttoni; Kukko, Antero; Chen, Yuwei; Hyyppä, Hannu; Chen, Ruitzhi Advances in Laser Scanning of Forests, Consepts, Methods and Best Practices. SPAR Europe Conference on End-to-End 3D, Haaga, Alankomaat.
10. Liu, Yong; Yang, Yongqing & Li, Hongxiu (2012) A Unified Risk-Benefit Analysis Framework for Investigating Mobile Payment Adoption. Proceedings of 2012 International
Conference on Mobile Business. June 20-22. Delft,
Netherland. Paper 20.
11. Li, Hongxiu; Liu, Yong & Suomi, Reima (2012). Exploring the Different Roles of Service Quality, Satisfaction and
Perceived Usefulness in Generating WOM in E-service
Context. Proceedings of the 11th Wuhan International
Conference on e-Business. May 23-25, 2012, Wuhan, China. Paper 35.
12. Li, Hongxiu & Liu, Yong (2012). Predicting and Explaining Use intention and Purchasing Intention in Online Group Shopping. Proceedings of the 25th Bled eConference
(eDependability: Reliable and Trustworthy eStructures, eProcesses, eOperations and eServices for the Future). June 17, 2012 – June 20, 2012; Bled, Slovenia. Paper 17.
13. Li, Hongxiu (2012) Studies on Inequalities in Information Society. Proceedings of the conference Well-Being in the Information Soceity. WIS 2012. TUCS Lecture Notes.
14. Lätti, Sonja (2012). Development Process of Mobile
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Commerce in Multi-Channel Retailing – Insights from the UK. In: Book of Abstracts: 19th Recent Advances in Retailing & Services Science Conference. . ed. /Harry
Timmermans. : EIRASS 2012, 1 p.
15. Kuutti, J.; Sepponen, R.E.; Saarikko, P. Escalator Power Consumption Compared to Pedestrian Counting Data. In: The 18th International Conference on Applied Electronics, Pilsen, Czech Republic, 10–11 September 2013.
16. Kuutti, J.; Blomqvist, K.H.; Kwak, J.; Kosonen, I.; Sepponen, R.E. Performance of Commercial Over-Head Camera
Sensors in Recognizing Patterns of Two and Three Persons: A Case Study (in review).
17. Manner, Joona; Virtanen, Juho-Pekka. 2011. Natural and Intuitive Video Mediated Collaboration. 4th International Conference on Intelligent Interactive Multimedia Systems and ServicesKES IIMSS 2011, University of Piraeus, Greece. University of Piraeus. ISBN: 978-3-642-22157-6.
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Carbon nanobuds for energy - CNB-E
Length: 2008-2012
Budget: 1 864 320 €
Project management:
Prof. Esko Kauppinen
and D.Sc. (Tech.) Toma Susi,
Department of Applied Physics
Prof. Outi Krause,
Department of Biotechnology and
Chemical Technology
Prof. Peter Lund, Department of
Applied Physics
{esko.kauppinen, toma.susi,
outi.krause, peter.lund}@aalto.fi
Steering group representatives
from Canatu Ltd, Fortum Plc
and Nokia Plc
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Abstract
Sustainable energy production and storage is of great importance when developing many future technologies, including
mobile communication devices. High efficiency conversion of
bio-based fuels such as ethanol, or hydrogen derived from
water or hydrocarbons, into energy with low temperature fuel
cells has been actively studied. In addition, the use of solar
cells as alternative energy sources is increasing, and much
effort has been devoted to increase their efficiency, as well as
to reduce their manufacturing costs. New carbon nanomaterials, i.e. fullerenes and nanotubes, are increasingly used to
develop novel energy production and storage technologies,
as well as to improve existing ones. Additionally, nanotubes
show great promise for applications in thin film technology, for
example to replace indium tin oxide (ITO) in transparent conducting films, or as the transistor channel material for emerging
flexible electronics.
The goal of the MIDE program CNB-E project was to
develop novel energy production and storage technologies for
mobile devices by utilizing carbon nanobuds (CNB), the new
hybrid material recently invented at the Helsinki University of
Technology (Aalto). CNBs are single-walled carbon nanotubes
(SWNT) with fullerene molecules covalently attached to their
surface. The project was divided into three main Work Packages, including i) CNB materials synthesis, structure and catalytic activity studies – alone and with added metal catalyst
clusters, ii) improving existing dye solar cells (DSCs) and fuel
cells, and the development of novel DSCs and polymer electrolyte membrane solutions, and iii) efforts towards combined
energy production and storage devices. During the course of
the project, thin film applications of the materials emerged as
additional highly promising directions of research.
The main achievements of the project are: a successful
replacement of the most expensive component of third-generation solar cells with carbon nanotube composites, further
simplifying the solar cell structure; the achievement of almost
monochiral CNB synthesis and a better understanding of their
growth mechanism by in-situ electron microscopy experiments;
record performance transparent conducting films for ITO
replacement; world’s highest performing entirely flexible thin
film transistors and the first demonstration of flexible integrated
CNB-E MIDE
circuits; and the development of several novel concepts for dye
solar cells and fuel cells, as well as their theoretical modeling.
The scientific impact of the CNB-E project has been
extremely high. A total of 57 peer-reviewed research articles
demonstrate the great effectiveness of the funding instrument
in promoting highly successful scientific work. Furthermore,
the number of very high impact publication in leading international journals stand as clear evidence of the very high scientific level of the CNB-E project, and of the MIDE program more
generally.
The CNB-E project played a major role in the training of
researchers on all levels from Bachelor studies to finished
doctorates. A total of 5 Doctoral, 4 Master’s, and 5 Bachelor’s
theses were completed in research funded and directly related
to the project. The project also generated a large number of
continuation and spin-off projects, and was closely connected
with the success of the spin-off company Canatu Oy, which is
commercializing the production of CNB thin films based on the
reactor technology developed by Aalto. The results of the program are thus of immediate importance to the industry in the
mobile device business.
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1 Goals and achievements
The goal of the CNB-E project was to develop novel energy
production and storage technologies for mobile devices,
by utilizing carbon nanobuds (CNB), the new hybrid material recently invented at the Helsinki University of Technology
(Aalto). CNB is a single walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) with
fullerene molecules covalently attached to its surface.
The concepts to be explored were:
i. dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) with CNB supported catalyst clusters inside the dye-sensitized TiO2 nano
particle – electrolyte layer,
ii. new proton conductor for polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell, and
iii. combined DSC-SC (super capacitor) concepts for
combined production and storage of energy from light.
We also aimed to explore the fundamental mechanisms of CNB
nucleation and growth during floating catalyst synthesis. In
addition, in-depth reactivity studies were to be carried out for
metal cluster-CNB catalysts for reactions relevant to DSCs and
FCs.
The main achievements of the CNB-E project are outlined
below. Many more details can be found in the periodic reports
for the years 2008-2012.
1.1 CNB materials synthesis, structure and catalytic activity studies (WP1)
SWNT and CNB growth studies. Single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNTs) and CNB growth was studied from the following
aspects:
126
a.
Chirality controlled growth. With the aim to synthesize SWNTs with high chirality selectivity, we have
developed a variety of catalysts, including monometallic and bimetallic catalysts. These catalysts were prepared by conventional techniques, such as impregnation and atomic layer deposition. By finely tuning the growth parameters, SWNTs with high chirality selectivity, especially (6,5) tubes, has been achieved.
b.
Growth mechanism was studied by in situ techniques (Environmental transmission electron microscopy and Infrared spectroscopy). Cooperating with Technical
University of Denmark, insights into the growth mechanisms, the growth mode and the growth CNB-E MIDE
rate of SWNTs have been gained. Specifically,
epitaxially formation of catalyst particles for
SWNT growth has been observed, as demonstrated in Figure 1.
Fig. 1. In situ HRTEM lattice images showing carbon cap formation
on epitaxial nanoparticles formed from the parent support at 600 ºC in
presence of 6.3 mbar CO in the TEM chamber.
Carbon materials in catalytic applications:
• MWCNTs were used as support when comparing
catalyst preparation methods. Traditionally more used impregnation methods were compared to atomic layer deposition. Carbon-supported metal catalysts were tested and cinnamaldehyde hydrogenation was used as a model reaction to characterize the catalysts.
• Surface functionalization of activated carbon and MWCNTs was investigated by oxidative acid treatment to induce catalytically active sites and binding sites for metal species. The catalytic performance of the materials was tested with 1-butanol dehydration model reaction.
• Functionalized activated carbons were studied as
catalysts in hemicellulose based sugar dehydration. The activity of carbon catalyst was studied in
dehydration of C5 and C6 sugars. Carbon catalysts were compared to zeolites and oxide catalysts in sugar dehydration.
• Carbon black supported bi-metallic PtCo-catalysts were prepared by atomic layer deposition. Activity of the catalysts was tested in alcohol electrochemical oxidation.
• Electrochemical purification for the removal of iron nanoparticles from different batches of CNB to be
applied as flexible counter electrode in DSC utilizing an advanced Co mediator.
• Electrochemical characterization of nitrogen-doped 127
MIDE CNB-E
SWCNT-films in order to evaluate their activity for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), cathode fuel cell
reaction.
CNB and SWNT films
Transparent conductive films. We proposed a method to
directly integrate the CNTs into applications without time-consuming sample purification, dispersion them in liquid and subsequent deposition. Since the CNTs are clean, they can be
directly utilized in the form they come from the reactor. Since
the aerosol CNTs are collected at room temperature, they can
be deposited onto any substrate including temperature sensitive polymers. CNTs can be simply filtered and subsequently
transferred onto the secondary support or they can be directly
deposited onto the desired substrate applying either electrophoretic or thermophoretic forces. Figure 2 shows the dependence of sheet resistance on optical transparency (at 550 nm)
for ethanol-densified and NO2-doped SWCNT films. For comparison, data for commercially available ITO films on flexible
substrates and for other carbon nanotube (including doublewalled carbon nanotube, DWCNT) films are shown in the figure
as well. Our NO2-doped SWCNT films exhibited sheet resistances as low as 84 Ω/□ at a transmission of T = 90%. This is
similar or superior to the performance of various ITO on flexible polymer substrates and, to our knowledge, is the lowest
reported sheet resistance for SWCNT-based transparent electrodes.
Multifunctional freestanding films. In addition, we have demonstrated a simple and rapid method to prepare multifunctional
freestanding single-walled carbon nanotube films with variable
thicknesses ranging from a sub-monolayer to a few micrometres having outstanding properties for a broad range of exceptionally performing devices. We fabricated state-of-the-art key
components from the same single component multifunctional
SWCNT material for several high-impact application areas: high
efficiency nanoparticle filters, transparent and conductive electrodes, electrochemical sensors with extremely low detection
limits, and polymer-free saturable absorbers for ultrafast femtosecond lasers. Furthermore, the films were demonstrated as
the main components in gas flowmeters, gas heaters and transparent thermoacoustic loudspeakers.
High-performance thin film transistors. We developed a fabrication method of high-performance thin film field effect transistors (FETs) on the basis of deposited SWCNTs from the aerosol
reactor. First devices exhibited on/off ratios of up to 105 and
charge mobilities of up to 4 cm2V-1s-1. Later, in Nature Nanotechnology we reported significant increase of the transistor
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CNB-E MIDE
mobility up to 634 cm2V-1s-1 at the on/off ratio of 6×106 (Sun
et al, Nature Nanotech. 2011). Also, we demonstrated the possibility to build flexible integrated circuits, including a 21-stage
ring oscillator and master–slave delay flip-flops that are capable
of sequential logic (Figure 3).
Nitrogen-doped single-walled carbon nanotube films. Nitrogendoped single-walled carbon nanotube films were synthesized
and measured in terms of their optical transmittance and sheet
resistance. Using a simple resistor network model to study the
geometric scaling of the optical transmittance to sheet resistance ratio, and data from similar undoped films, we show that
the nitrogen-doped films have a significantly increased sheet
resistance. The analysis shows that this effect is likely due to
an increase in the intrabundle resistances. A possible cause is
the increased backscattering of charge carriers by defect sites
in the nanotubes. We also made a direct comparison of doped
and undoped carbon nanotube mats to elucidate the changes
in the mat due to the doping. Thus it seems nitrogen doping
does not offer the anticipated enhancement of optoelectronic
performance for transparent, conducting nanotube mats. Fortunately many other applications for N-SWCNTs are possible e.g.
as sensors or as electrocatalysts, and further work will concentrate on those.
Fig. 2. Comparison of different transparent electrode materials: sheet
resistance versus optical transmittance at 550 nm. Our current data are
shown by open and solid pentagons; the red lines show theoretical fits to
our data. (Nasibulin et al, ACS Nano 2011)
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MIDE CNB-E
Fig. 3. Mobility and on/off ratio. Comparison between our 36 CNT TFTs
with other representative TFTs based on CNT network, amorphous-Si,
polycrystalline Si, ZnO-based semiconductors, and organic materials.
(Sun et al, Nature Nanotech. 2011)
1.2 Improvement of dye solar cells
and fuel cells (WP2)
Carbon nanotubes and other nanocarbon
at the counter electrode
Plastic SWCNT counter electrode. Pristine semi-transparent SWCNT network films on PET plastic substrate counter
electrode (CE) were tested as flexible DSC counter electrodes.
Their sheet resistance of the films was low enough, but their
catalytic activity turned out to be insufficient for full sunlight
illumination conditions. This problem was overcome by depositing conductive polymer (poly(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene,
PEDOT) electrochemically on 10 % transparent SWCNT films.
The resulting PEDOT-SWCNT films were found to have even
better catalytic performance than sputtered platinum (on ITOPET substrate). The DSCs with such PEDOT-SWCNT counter
electrode had an efficiency of 4.0 %, compared to 3.9 % of the
DSC with sputtered Pt on ITO-PET CE (Figure 4).
SWCNT plastic counter electrode with Co-redox mediator.
A pristine 30 % transparent SWCNT film on PET substrate was
studied also as a CE for the alternative cobalt complex-based
redox mediator, which is less demanding for the catalyst than
the standard iodide/triiodide redox couple. The other advantage of the cobalt complex redox mediator is its more favorable
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redox energy level as compared to the iodide/triiodide redox
couple, thus yielding a high DSC (open-circuit) voltage. It was
found out that the catalytic performance of the pristine SWCNT
film was better toward the cobalt complex reduction reaction
than that of the sputtered Pt, which means that even a semitransparent SWCNT film works well as the CE for the alternative
redox mediator.
Low-temperature deposited plastic Pt and carbon counter electrodes. A detailed comparison of different low-temperature
platinization methods for the preparation of flexible ITO-PET
plastic counter electrodes for DSCs was made. So called chemical platinization turned out to be the best method. The work
on low-T Pt deposition methods was followed by a similar comparison of low-T carbon catalyst deposition methods for flexible
DSCs. From the electrocatalytic point-of-view the best carbon
layers were as good as the Pt film in the above mentioned study,
but further work is needed to make them more durable mechanically, for example by optimizing the binder concentration and
properties of the catalyst inks.
Fig.4. Dye solar cell with an efficiency rating of = 4 %
with combined PEDOT-SWCNT on PET plastic counter
electrode (CE), outperforming sputtered Pt on
ITO-PET CE (DSC = 3.9%).
SWCNT cathodes for solid state DSCs. This work, planned
already much earlier between the NEW and NMG groups turned
into an active phase when Dr. Aitola continued on it during her
post-doctoral position in KHT, Sweden / Dalian University of
Technology, China. The goal of this research line is to realize
the first fully flexible solid-state DSC without using ITO or evaporated silver or gold – expensive and rare materials that require
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vacuum processing – as the cathode (counter electrode), but
instead replacing them with the flexible SWCNT film. Additionally, silver nanowires were tested as an alternative.
Carbon nanotubes at the photoelectrode
CNT-TIO2 composite photoelectrodes. The effect of mixing fewwalled CNTs at several different low mass percent (to avoid
optical losses) into TiO2 film to facilitate electron transport in
room temperature compressed DSCs was studied. The aim was
to observe improvement in the electron collection efficiency,
which was the main hypothesis for performance improvements
found in the literature. In our case, no improvement was found,
but instead the recombination of electrons increased leading to
lower cell efficiency. This originally planned research line was
not considered promising for further investigations.
Carbon nanotubes and other nanocarbons in the electrolyte
Non-volatile electrolyte based on ionic liquids and nanocarbons. The physical origin of the surprisingly good performance
of polyaniline coated carbon black ionic liquid composite electrolytes without any added iodide was scrutinized experimentally and theoretically. It was found that the operation of these
composite electrolytes is based on several different factors:
1) impurity iodide in the MPII ionic liquid, 2) light induced generation of tri-iodide in the illuminated solar cell, 3) the carbon
matrix acting as an extended electron transfer surface (EETS)
similar to a porous high surface area carbon counter electrode.
These factors were resolved experimentally for the first time,
explaining the function of this class of high viscosity electrolytes
interesting for stable DSCs.
Long-term stability and degradation mechanisms of DSCs.
Research on the effect of iodine concentration on the stability
of DSCs based on hydrophobic dye (Z907) and hydrophilic dye
(N719) at different stress conditions i.e. thermal stress at 85°C,
and UV+visible light soaking was carried out. Work on building
a Raman and FTIR spectroscopic fingerprint library of the key
chemical components of DSCs was carried out. Work was initiated to get a better understanding of the role of electrolyte
and dye purification on the performance and stability of DSCs.
Effect of spatial variation of electrolyte components during the
electrolyte filling process was investigated using segmented cell
method.
Device modeling. Several aspects of dye solar cell modelling
were pursued:
• A full analytical complete device IV curve and impedance model was built.
• Linking of optical modulation techniques with the
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•
•
analytical complete device model, which bridged for the first time the main dynamic measurement techniques used.
2D numerical finite element differential equation model for complete devices implemented with Comsol Multiphysics.
Optical modeling of DSCs. A fully functional simulation code implemented in Matlab with a graphical user
inter face for demanding simulations cases involving
absorbing CNT films.
1.3 Efforts towards combined energy production and storage devices (WP3)
Combined dye-sensitized solar cell and an electrochemical
supercapasitor: the photocapacitor. In the original research
plan we proposed a combination of dye solar cells and an electrochemical double layer capacitor as an interesting research
topic, since high surface area carbon films are used as cathode
electrodes in both devices. A technical evaluation of this idea,
proposed in the literature, was done in the Bachelor’s Thesis
work of Ms. Mariko Landström in 2012. Although initially quite
intriguing as a device concept, the idea turned out to have only
limited technical relevance: At normal outdoor sunlight conditions, much more electric charge per geometrical surface area
of the solar cell would be generated over one day that could
possibly be stored in a single supercapacitor electrode of the
same area made even with best super capacitor nanocarbon
materials. The storage capacity is limited by total electrode
volume, making a separate storage component (supercapacitor
or battery) more relevant for most applications. The literature
reported also fundamental materials compatibility problems
between the integrated solar cell and super capacitor layers.
The technical review was complemented with some experiments
on electrochemical supercapacitors using carbon electrode
materials developed in the other parts of the project, but further
work in this WP was not performed.
2 Output
2.1 Theses
A total of five Doctoral, five Master’s, and seven Bachelor’s
theses related to the project research were completed, partially
or in full funded from the CNB-E project.
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Doctoral theses
Aitola, Kerttu, Carbon nanomaterials as counterelectrodes for
dye solar cells, 2012
Asghar, Imran, Stability issues of dye solar cells, 2012
Tian, Ying, Optical properties of single-walled carbon
nanotubes and nanobuds, 2012
Susi, Toma, Nitrogen-doped single-walled carbon nanotube
thin films, 2011.
Anisimov, Anton, Aerosol Synthesis of Carbon Nanotubes and
Nanobuds, 2010.
Toivola, Minna, Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells on Alternative Substrates, 2010.
Master’s theses
Kemppainen, Erno, Coupled optical modeling of dye solar cells,
2012
Parjanne, Joonas, Aerosol synthesis of single-walled carbon
nanotube thin films using acetylene as carbon precursor, 2012.
Vahlman, Henri, Ionic Liquid Electrolytes and Their Quasi-solidification with Carbon Nanoparticles for Dye Solar Cells, 2011
Vahermaa, Paula, Characterisation and Design of Advanced
Nanocrystalline Dye Solar Cells, 2009
Peltola, Timo, Considerations in Designing Dye-Sensitised
Solar Cell Modules, 2009.
Bachelor’s theses
Ollikainen, Tuomas, Computational optimization of the color of
dye-sensitized solar cells by mixing different dyes, 2012
Parjanne, Joonas, Synthesis and characterization of borondoped single-walled carbon nanotubes, 2012
Landström, Mariko, Combining a dye-sensitized solar cell and
an electric double layer capacitor: the photocapacitor, 2012
Jouttijärvi, Sami, Alternative electrolytes in dye-sensitized solar
cells with metallic substrates, 2012
Ruuskanen, Antti, Dye solar cell - 10x10 cm2 module sealing, 2012
Tiihonen, Armi, Preparation of Dye Solar Cell Aging Test Unit,
2011.
Kemppainen, Erno, Quantum Efficiency of Dye Solar Cells –
Measurement and Applications, 2010.
2.2 Publications
1. Kaskela, A., Koskinen J., Jiang, H., Tian, Y., Liu X., Susi, T., Kaukonen, M., Nasibulin, A.G., and Kauppinen E.I.,
Improvement of the mechanical properties of single-walled carbon nanotube networks by carbon plasma coatings, Carbon 53, 50-61 (2012).
2. Laiho, P., Susi, T., Kaskela, A., Nasibulin, A. G.,
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Kauppinen, E. I., Optoelectronic performance of
nitrogen-doped SWCNT films, J. Nanoeelctron.
Optoelectron. 7, 68 (2012).
3. Miettunen, K., Asghar, M.I., Mastroianni, S., Halme, J., Barnes,P.R. F., Rikkinen, E., Regan, B. C., and Lund, P., Effect of molecular filtering and electrolyte composition on the spatial variation in performance of dye solar cells, J. Electroanal. Soc. 664, pp. 63-72 (2012).
4. Mustonen, K., Susi, T., Kaskela, A., Laiho, P., Tian, Y., Nasi
bulin, A.G., Kauppinen, E.I., Influence of single-walled carbon nanotube bundle diameters on dry-deposited thin film optoelectronic performance, Beilstein Journal of Nano
technology No. 3, 692-702 (2012).
5. Oikonomou, A., Susi, T., Kauppinen, E.I., Vijayaraghavan, A., Growth, dispersion, and electronic devices of nitrogen-
doped single-wall carbon nanotubes, physica status solidi b 249, 2416-2419 (2012).
6. Sairanen, E., Karinen, R., Borghei, M., Kauppinen., E. I., Lehtonen, J., Preparation methods for multi-walled carbon nanotube supported palladium catalysts, Chem. Cat. Chem, 2012, 2055-2061.
7. Sairanen, E., Vilonen, K., Karinen, R., Lehtonen, J.,
Functionalized activated carbon catalysts in xylose
dehydration, Topics in Catalysis, 2012, accepted for
publication
8. Santasalo-Aarnio, A., Borghei, M., Anoshkin, I. V., Nasibulin, A. G., Kauppinen, E. I., Ruiz, V., Kallio T., Durability of
different carbon nanomaterial supports with PtRu catalyst in a direct methanol fuel cell, Int. J. Hydrogen Energy 37, 3415-3424 (2012).
9. Susi, T., Kotakoski, J., Arenal, R., Kurasch, S., Jiang, H., Skakalova, V., Stephan, O., Krasheninnikov, A.V.,
Kauppinen, E.I., Kaiser, U., and Meyer, J.C., Atomistic
Description of Electron Beam Damage in Nitrogen-Doped Graphene and Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes, ACS
Nano 6, 8837-8846 (2012).
10.Susi, T., Zhu, Z., Tian, Y., Nasibulin, A. G., Jiang, H., Kaup
pinen, E. I., TEM verification of optical diameter
distribution analysis for nitrogen-doped SWCNT films,
J. Nanoelectron. Optoelectron. 7, 17-21 (2012).
11.Aitola, K., Borghei, M., Kaskela, A., Kemppainen, E.,
Nasibulin, A.G., Kauppinen, E.I., Lund, P.D., Ruiz, V., and Halme, J, Flexible metal-free counter electrode for dye solar cells based on conductive polymer and carbon nanotubes, J. Electroanal. Chem. 683, 70-74 (2012).
12.Asghar, M.I., Miettunen, K., Mastroianni, S., Halme, J., Vahlman, H., and Lund, P., In situ image processing method to investigate performance and stability of dye solar cells, Solar Energy 86, 331-338 (2012).
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13.Hashmi, S.G., Miettunen, K., Ruuskanen, A., Asghar, M.I., Halme, J., and Lund P., Process steps towards a flexible dye solar cell module, Proceedings of the 27th European Photo­­
voltaic Solar Energy Conference, pp. 2922-2924 (2012).
14.Hashmi, G., Miettunen, K., Halme, J., Asghar, M.I., Vahlman, H., Saukkonen, T., Huaijin, Z., and Lund, P., Comparison of plastic based counter electrodes for dye sensitized solar cells, J. Electrochem. Soc. 159, pp. H656 (2012).
15.He, M., Jiang, H., Kauppinen, E.I., and Lehtonen, J.,
Diameter and Chiral Angle Distribution Dependencies on the Carbon Precursors in Surface-Grown Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes, Nanoscale, 4, 7394-7398, 2012.
16.He, M., Liu, B., Chernov, A. I., Obraztsova, E. D., Kauppi, I., Jiang, H., Anoshkin, I. V., Cavalca, F., Hansen, T., Wagner, J. B., Nasibulin, A. G., Kauppinen, E. I., Linnekoski, J.,
Niemelä, M., Lehtonen, J., Growth Mechanism of
Single-walled Carbon Nanotubes on Iron-copper Catalyst and Chirality Studies by Electron Diffraction, Chem. Mater. 24, 1796-1801 (2012)
17.He, M., Vasala, S., Jiang, H., Karppinen, M., Kauppinen, E.I., Niemelä, M., and Lehtonen, J., Growth and surface
engineering of vertically-aligned low-wall-number carbon nanotubes, Carbon 50, 4750-4754 (2012).
18.He, M., Fedotov, P., Obraztsova, E., Viitanen, V., Sainio, J., Jiang, H., Kauppinen, E., Niemelä, M., and Lehtonen, J., Chiral-selective growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes on stainless steel wires, Carbon 50, pp. 4294?4297 (2012).
19.Kanninen, P., Borghei, M., Ruiz, V., Kauppinen, E.I., and Kallio, T., The effect of Nafion content in a graphitized carbon nanofiber-based anode for the direct methanol fuel cell, Int. J. Hydrogen Energy 37, 19082-19091 (2012).
20.Zhu, Z.; Jiang, H.; Susi, T. et al.: The Use of NH3 to Promote the Growth of Large-Diameter SWCNTs with a Narrow (n,m) Distribution. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 133 (2011) 1224.
21.Andersen, A.R.; Halme, J.; Lund T.; Asghar I.M.; Nguyen, P.T.; Miettunen, K.; Kemppainen, E.; Albrektsen, O.; Charge Transport and Photocurrent Generation Characteristics in Dye Solar Cells Containing Thermally Degraded N719 Dye Molecules; J. Phys. Chem. C, 2011, 115, 15598-15606.
22.Aitola, K.; Halme, J.; Halonen, N.; Kaskela, A.; Toivola,
M.; Nasibulin, A. G.; Kordás, K.; Tóth, G.; Kauppinen,
E. I.; Lund, P. D.; Comparison of dye solar cell counter electrodes based on different carbon nanostructures, Thin Solid Films, 2011, 519, 8125-8134.
23.Battie, Y., Ducloux, O., Thobois, O., Susi, T., Kauppinen, E.I., and Loiseau, A., Selective differential ammonia gas sensor based on N doped SWCNT films, physica status solidi (b) 248, 2462-2466 (2011).
24.Havu, P.; Hashemi, M.J.; Kaukonen, M.; Seppala, E.T. and 136
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Nieminen, R.M.: Effect of gating and pressure on electronic transport properties of crossed nanotube junctions:
formation of Schottky barrier. J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 2011, 23, 112203 (5pp).
25.He, M.; Chernov, A.I.; Fedotov, P.V.; Obraztsova, E.D.;
Rikkinen, E.; Zhu, Z.; Sainio, J.; Jiang, H.; Nasibulin, A.G.; Kauppinen, E.I.; Niemelä, M. and Krause, O.: Selective Growth of SWNTs on Partially Reduced Cobalt Catalyst. Chem. Comm. 2011, 47: 1219-1221.
26.He, M.; Chernov, A.I.; Obraztsova, E.D.; Sainio, J.; Rikkinen, E.; Jiang, H.; Zhu, Z.; Nasibulin, A.G.; Kauppinen, E.I.;
Niemelä, M. and Krause, O.: Low temperature Growth of SWNTs on Nickle Catalyst by Thermal Chemical Vapor Deposition. Nano Research 4 (2011) 334-32.
27.Miettunen, K.; Halme, J.; Visuri, A.-M.; Lund, P.;
Two-Dimensional Time-Dependent Numerical Modeling of Edge Effects in Dye Solar Cells, J. Phys. Chem. C, 2011, 115, 7019.
28.Nasibulin, A.G.; Kaskela, A.O.; Mustonen, K.; Anisimov, A.S.; Ruiz, V.; Kivistö, S.; Rackauskas, S.; Timmermans, M.Y.; Pudas, M.; Aitchison, B.; Kauppinen, M.; Brown, D.P.; Okhotnikov, O.G.; Kauppinen, E.I. (2011) Multifunctional freestanding single-walled carbon nanotube films. ACS Nano 5(4), 3214–3221.
29.Rikkinen, E., Santasalo-Aarnio, A., Airaksinen, S., Borghei, M., Viitanen, V., Sainio, J., Kauppinen, E., Kallio, T., Krause, A. O. I., Atomic Layer Deposition of Pd Nanoparticles on
a Porous Carbon Support for Alcohol Oxidation, J. Phys. Chem. C, 115 (2011) 23067.
30.Sun, D.; Timmermans, M.Y.; Tian, Y.; Nasibulin, A.G.;
Kauppinen, E.I.; Kishimoto, S.; Mizutani, T. and Ohno, Y.: Flexible high-performance carbon nanotube integrated
circuits. Nature Nanotech. 6 (2011) 156-161.
31.Susi, T., Lanzani, G., Nasibulin, A.G., Ayala, P., Jiang, T.,
Bligaard, T., Laasonen, K., and Kauppinen, E.I., Mechanism of the initial stages of nitrogen-doped single-walled carbon nanotube growth, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 13, 11303-
11307 (2011).
32.Susi, T., Kaskela, A., Zhu, Z., Ayala, P., Arenal, R., Tian, Y., Laiho, P., Mali, J., Nasibulin, A. G., Jiang, H., Lanzani, G., Stephan, O., Laasonen, K., Pichler, T., Loiseau, A., and Kauppinen, E. I., Nitrogen-Doped Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Thin Films Exhibiting Anomalous Sheet
Resistances, Chem. Mater. 23, 2201-2208 (2011).
33.Talyzin, A.V.; Anoshkin, I.V.; Krasheninnikov, A.; Nieminen, R.M.; Nasibulin, A.G.; Jiang, H.; Kauppinen, E.I. (2011) Synthesis of graphene nanoribbons encapsulated in
single-walled carbon nanotubes. Nano Letters 11(10), 4352–4356.
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34.Aitola, K.; Kaskela, A.; Halme, J.; Ruiz, V.; Nasibulin, A.G.; Kauppinen, E.I. and Lund, P.D.: Single-Walled Carbon
Nanotube Thin-Film Counter Electrodes for Indium Tin Oxide-Free Plastic Dye Solar Cells. J. Electrochem. Soc. 2010, 157, pp. B1831-B1837.
35.Anisimov, A.S.,. Nasibulin, A.G., Jiang, H., Launois, P.,
Cambedouzou, J., Shandakov, S.D. and Kauppinen, E.I. (2010) Mechanistic investigations of single-walled
carbon nanotube synthesis by ferrocene vapor
decomposition in carbon monoxide. Carbon 48, 380-388.
36.Asghar, M.I.; Miettunen, K.; Halme, J.; Vahermaa, P.; Toivola, M.; Aitola, K. and Lund, P.: Review of stability for advanced dye solar cells. Ener. Environ. Sci. 2010, 3, pp. 418-426.
37.Halme, J.; Vahermaa, P.; Miettunen, K. and Lund, P.: Device physics of dye solar cells. Adv. Mater. 2010, 22, pp.
210-234.
38.He M.; Rikkinen, E.; Zhu, Z.; Tian, Y.; Anisimov, A.S.; Jiang, H.; Nasibulin, A.G.; Kauppinen, E.I.; Veringa-Niemelä, M. and Krause, O.: Temperature Dependent Raman Spectra
of Carbon Nanobuds. J. Phys. Chem. C 2010,
114:13540-13545.
39.He M.; Chernov, A.I.; Fedotov, P.V.; Obraztsova, E.D.; Sainio, J.; Rikkinen, E.; Jiang, H.; Zhu, Z.; Tian, Y.; Kauppinen, E.I.; Niemelä, M. and Krause, O.: Predominant Growth
of (6,5) Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes on a Copper Promoted Iron Catalyst. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2010, 132: 13994-13996.
40.Kaskela, A.; Nasibulin, A.G.; Timmermans, M.Y.; Aitchison, B.; Papadimitratos, A.; Tian, Y.; Zhu, Z.; Jiang, H.; Brown, D.P.; Zakhidov, A. and Kauppinen, E.I.: Aerosol-synthesized single-walled carbon nanotube networks with tunable
conductivity and transparency by dry transfer technique. Nano Lett. 2010, 10, 4349-4355.
41.Miettunen, K.; Toivola, M.; Hashmi, G.; Salpakari, J.; Asghar, I. and Lund, P.: A carbon gel catalyst layer for the roll-to-roll production of dye solar cells. Carbon 2010, 49, 528-532.
42.Miettunen, K.; Ruan, X.; Saukkonen, T.; Halme, J.; Toivola, M.; Guangsheng, H. and Lund, P.: Stability of Dye
Solar Cells with Photoelectrode on Metal Substrates. J. Electrochem. Soc. 2010, 157(6) 814-819.
43.Tian, Y., H. Jiang, J. v. Pfaler, Z. Zhu, A. G. Nasibulin, T. Nikitin, B. Aitchison, L. Khriachtchev, D. P. Brown, and E.
I. Kauppinen (2010) Analysis of the Size Distribution of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Using Optical Absorption Spectroscopy. J. Phys. Chem. Letters 1, 1143-1148
(supporting information).
44.Toivola. M.; Halme, J.; Peltokorpi, L. and Lund, P.:
Investigation of temperature and aging effects in
nanostructured dye solar cells studied by
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electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Int. J.
Photoenergy 2010, 786429/1-15.
45.Toivola, M.; Peltola, T.; Miettunen, K.; Halme, J. and Lund, P.: Thin film nano solar cells - from device optimization
to upscaling. J. Nanosci. Nanotechnol. 2010, 10, 1078-
1084.
46.Tian, Y., Timmermans, M.Y., Kivistö, S., Nasibulin, A.G., Zhu, Z., Jiang, H., Okhotnikov, O.G. and Kauppinen, E.I.: Tailoring the diameter of single-walled carbon nanotubes for optical applications. Nano Research 4(8) (2010)
807-815.
47.Bruschi, M.; Greco, C.; Kaukonen, M.; Fantucci, P.; Ryde, U. and De Gioia, L.: Influence of the [2Fe](H) Subcluster Environment on the Properties of Key Intermediates in the Catalytic Cycle of [FeFe] Hydrogenases: Hints for the Rational Design of Synthetic Catalysts. Angewandte Chemie 2009, 48, pp. 3503-3506.
48.Heras, A.; Colina, A.; López­Palacios, J.; Kaskela, A.;
Nasibulin, A. G.; Ruiz, V. and Kauppinen, E. I.: Flexible
optically transparent single­walled carbon nanotube electrodes for UV­Vis Absorption Spectroelectrochemistry. Electrochem. Comm. 2009, 11, 442.
49.Miettunen, K.; Halme, J. and Lund, P.: Segmented Cell Design for Improved Factoring of Aging Effects in Dye Solar Cells. J. Phys. Chem. C, 2009, 113, 10297-10302.
50.Miettunen, K.; Halme, J.; Vahermaa, P.; Saukkonen, T.;
Toivola, M. and Lund, P.: Dye Solar Cells on
ITO-PET Substrate with TiO2 Recombination Blocking Layers. J. Electrochem. Soc. 2009, 156, 876-883.
51.Miettunen, K.; Halme, J.; Lund, P.: Spatial Distribution and Decrease of Dye Solar Cell Performance Induced
by Electrolyte Filling. Electrochem. Comm. 2009, 11, 25-27.
52.Toivola, M.; Halme, J.; Miettunen, K.; Aitola, K. and Lund,
P.: Nanostructured dye solar cells on flexible substrates. Review, Int. J. Energy Res. 2009, 33, 1145-1160.
53.Tian, Y.; Chassaing, D.; Nasibulin, A.G.; Ayala, P.; Jiang, H.; Anisimov, A.S. and Kauppinen, E.I.: Combined Raman Spectroscopy and Transmission Electron Microscopy
Studies of a NanoBud Structure. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2008, 130, 7188–7189.
54.Nasibulin, A.G.; Ollikainen, A.; Anisimov, A.S.; Brown, D.P.; Pikhitsa, P.V.; Holopainen, S.; Penttilä, J.S.; Helistö, P.; Ruokolainen, J.; Choi, M. and Kauppinen, E.I.: Integration
of singlewalled carbon nanotubes into polymer films by thermocompression. Chem. Eng. J 2008, 136(23), 409413.
55.Nasibulin, A. G., S. D. Shandakov, A. S. Anisimov, D.
Gonzalez, H. Jiang, M. Pudas, P. Queipo, E. I. Kauppinen: Charging of Aerosol Products during Ferrocene Vapor Decomposition in N2 and CO Atmospheres. Journal
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of Physical Chemistry 2008, 112, 5762-5769.
56.Tian, Y., Chassaing, D., Nasibulin, A.G., Ayala, P., Jiang, H., Anisimov, A.S., Hassanien, A. and Kauppinen, E.I.: The local study of a nanoBud structure. Phys. Stat. Sol. B 2008, 1-4.
2.3 Side and follow-up projects
The extremely fruitful collaboration created during CNB-E
continues on two major fronts:
• Molecular and thin film engineering for building
integrated photonics and process industry (MOPPI) –
project accepted to Aalto energy efficiency program.
• Engineering of transparent nanowire conductors and devices for energy applications (ENGINE) – proof-of concept preparation project. 70 000 € funding for 2013, involving the NEW and NMG groups as well as a group from BECS institute in Aalto University.
Existing spin-off projects:
• Development of high-performance carbon nanotube
thin film transistors (Nagoya U., Aalto; NEDO Japan; 5/2008-4/2012)
• Novel nanocarbon networks for electrocatalyses and
analyses (PEMFC; Dr. V. Ruiz; Academy Fellow Project 2010-2014)
• Tubular nanocarbons for litium ion battery (LiB) electrodes (Energy storage; Toyota, Fortum, Tokyo A&T U., Aalto; TEKES & JST; 2010-2013)
• Transparent Electrodes for Large Area, Large Scale
Production of Organic Optoelectronic Devices TREASORES (EU FP7 LP; Aalto, Canatu + 12 European partners; 2012-2015)
• Electronic paper message board for outdoor use with carbon NanoBud display module and GPRS I/O layer - E-SIGNAGE (EU FP7 SME; Canatu, VTT, Aalto + 6
European partners; 2011-2013)
• Low voltage operation of integrated circuits based on
printing process (Nagoya U., Aalto U.; NICT, Japan; 2011-
2015)
• High Strength Carbon Nano Hybrid Materials (Academy of Finland; Aalto U. + Helsinki U.; 2012-2016)
• Indium replacement by single-walled carbon nanotube
thin films – IRENA (EU FP7 NMP EU-Japan joint call; Aalto U., TDU, CNRS, Tokyo U., Nagoya U., 2013-2017)
Upcoming spin-off projects:
• New National Strategic Research Opening on NanoCarbon Thin Film Engineering for Flexible Electronics Applications 140
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•
(TEKES) 2013-2020
Important Nanocarbon Future Meeting @ Dipoli, Otaniemi hosted by Aalto: NT13, June 24-28, 2013 (Chairs:
E. Kauppinen, R. Nieminen, P. Hakonen)
2.4 Spin-off companies
TKK spin-off company Canatu Oy is commercializing the production of CNB thin films based on the reactor technology
developed by TKK (now Aalto). This not only provided large
enough quantities of CNB material for this project, but is a very
promising example of successful technology transfer.
Canatu also holds more than 111 granted and pending
patent applications in 34 patent jurisdictions around the globe,
many related to the technology originally developed in Aalto in
connection with the CNB-E project.
3 Relevance
3.1 Scientific
The scientific impact of the CNB-E project has been extremely
high. A total of 57 peer-reviewed research articles acknowledging the full or partial funding of the MIDE program demonstrate the great effectiveness of the funding instrument in
promoting highly successful scientific work. Furthermore, the
number of very high impact publication in leading journals (with
the 2011 impact factor denoted in parentheses after the journal
name) such as Nature Nanotechnology (27.27), Nano Letters
(13.198), ACS Nano (11.421), Journal of the American Chemical Society (9.907), and Energy and Environmental Science
(9.61), stand as clear evidence of the very high scientific level
of the CNB-E project, and of the MIDE program more generally.
3.2 Industrial
The results of the program are of immediate importance to the
industry in the mobile device business (mainly via Canatu Oy).
Furthermore, novel solutions for energy production and storage
are of increasing importance due to increased functionality, and
accordingly the power consumption of mobile devices. The new
concepts developed as well as students trained can and have
been utilized by companies and research organizations in these
fields.
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3.3 Societal
The CNB-E project has contributed to the wider adaptation
of new, more sustainable carbon-based materials and energy
technologies in our society. The doctoral theses and high
impact journal papers from the project created positive media
attention, e.g. Kerttu Aitola in Helsingin Sanomat1 newspaper,
Tiede magazine2 , as also promoted by Aalto University website3.
4 Impact on education
4.1 Courses
Courses given by Industrial Chemistry Research group
(AALTO CHEM):
• Project work in Industrial Chemistry KE-40.4060 (6 cr)
Courses given by NanoMaterials group (AALTO SCI):
• Special Course in Physics “Carbon Nanomaterials”
tfy-3.4510 (10 cr)
• Special Graduate Course “Carbon Nanotube Transistors”
(6 cr)
Lectures given related to the topic studied in the project:
• “Raman Spectroscopy” for Undergraduate course
“Environmental Catalysis”, 2012
4.2 Researcher training
The CNB-E project played a major role in the training of
researchers on all levels from Bachelor studies to finished
doctorates. A total of 5 Doctoral, 4 Master’s, and 5 Bachelor’s
theses were completed in research funded and directly related
to the project.
http://www.hs.fi/paivanlehti/ihmiset/Ekoher%C3%A4tys+johti+
jatkuvaan+lent%C3%A4miseen/a1362545937514
1
2
http://www.tiede.fi/uutiset/4712/hiilinanoputkilla_edullisempia_
aurinkokennoja
3
142
http://www.aalto.fi/fi/current/news/view/2012-05-30/
CNB-E MIDE
5 Departments, staff, cooperation
Departments involved in the project:
• Department of Biotechnology and Chemical Technology (AALTO CHEM)
• Department Applied Physics (AALTO SCI)
o
NanoMaterials group (Prof. Esko Kauppinen)
o
New Energy Technologies group (Prof. Peter Lund)
STAFF: Department of Biotechnology and
Chemical Technology (2008-2012)
Name
Role
Full-time equivalent (months)
Outi Krause
Maoshuai He
Sanna Airaksinen
Emma Sairanen
Taru Savolainen
Christina Ingo
Minna Patronen
Professor, Group leader
Post-doctoral researcher
Post-doctoral researcher
Researcher
Researcher
Research assistant
Research assistant
0.5
45
2
42
3.6
3
3
Biotechnology and Chemical Technology TOTAL 97.3
STAFF: Department Applied Physics (2008-2012)
Name
Role
Full-time equivalent (months)
Esko Kauppinen
Peter Lund
Toma Susi
Markus Kaukonen
Anna Lähde
Janne Halme
Jose Miguel Luque Raigon
Virginia Ruiz
Albert Nasibulin
Janne Raula
Hua Jiang
Kati Miettunen
Ying Tian
Marina Timmermans
Kerttu Aitola
Professor, Coordinator 1
Professor, Group Leader 0.5
Manager, doctoral student
(postdoc 2012)
19.7
Manager,
post-doctoral researcher 9
Manager,
doctoral student
1.5
Post-doctoral researcher 7
Post-doctoral researcher 7
Post-doctoral researcher 4
Post-doctoral researcher 2
Post-doctoral researcher 3
Post-doctoral researcher 5
Post-doctoral researcher 11.4
Doctoral student
(postdoc 2012)
9
Doctoral student
27
Doctoral student
17
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MIDE CNB-E
Ashgar Imran
Paula Vahermaa
Antti Kaskela
Anton Anisimov
Patrik Laiho
Timo Peltola
Minna Toivola
Kimmo Mustonen
Simas Rackauskas
Prasantha Mudimela
Hashmi Ghufran
Zhen Zhu
Henri Vahlman
Jouttijärvi Sami
Kaukonen Sampo
Ruuskanen Antti
Erno Kemppainen
Armi Tiihonen
Anne-Maria Visuri
Sannamari Pilpola
Parjanne Joonas
Ollikainen Tuomas
Ketola Katri
Kauppinen Lauri
Lundahl Meri
Seeve Teemu
Vartiainen Ville
Erno Damskägg
Heikki Pulkkinen
Antti Aro
Lauri Perkkiö
Rainer Kujala
Juho Hautala
Philip Holm
Tuomo Joentakanen
Christina Ingo
Doctoral student
Doctoral student
Doctoral student
Doctoral student
Doctoral student
Doctoral student
Doctoral student
Doctoral student
Doctoral student
Doctoral student
Doctoral student
Doctoral student
Research assistant
(doctoral student 2012)
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Research assistant
Department Applied Physics 14.2
13
13
11
10.3
10
6.5
5
2
1
1
0.75
15.35
4,12
4,12
3,56
9.9
7.57
6.6
6.56
6
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
TOTAL 308.83
CNB-E project TOTAL 406.13 PMs
5.1 Distribution of work
The Nanomaterials group (NMG) focused on CNB synthesis and
characterization and on the development of CNB substrate deposition methods for dye solar cells and fuel cells. The Advanced
Energy Systems group (AES) worked with the DSC design,
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CNB-E MIDE
manufacturing and characterization. The Industrial Chemistry
group (TEKE) contributed to the CNB growth and characterization studies in close collaboration with the NMG, and to studying the potential of the nanocarbon materials for catalysis.
5.2 Cooperation
Mode of cooperation between departments. A very active
collaboration between the three groups was crucial to tackle
the multidisciplinary challenges encountered in the project.
The collaboration strategy was already designed in the kick­off
meeting in February 2008, where the leaders of the three
groups and most of the researchers involved agreed on having
periodic meetings.
For the duration of the project, a tradition of weekly coffee
meetings between the members of professor Kauppinen and
professor Lund’s groups was maintained. Meetings between
members of the NEW and NMG, and NMG and TEKE groups
at Aalto continued on personal basis as needed. As a result of
these meetings, PhD students and PhDs from the groups have
got in contact and interact very efficiently.
Additionally, Dr. Maoshuai He from TEKE was a de facto
member of the NMG group for several years, participating in
all group activities and helping maintaining very close ties
between the groups.
Cooperation at the Aalto level. Department of Biotechnology
and Chemical Technology with the Department of Chemistry:
• Dr. Tanja Kallio, Physical chemistry, Electrochemical
characterization of carbon-supported fuel cell catalysts
prepared by Atomic Layer Deposition.
• Sami Vasala, Research Group of Inorganic Chemistry,
preparation of catalyst for carbon nanotube growth.
Department of Applied Physics with the Department
of Engineering Design and Production:
• Dr. Tapio Saukkonen, Engineering Materials Group,
Department of Engineering Design and Production.
SEM characterization of DSC materials and cells.
Within the Department of Applied Physics:
• Prof. Risto Nieminen, Javed Hashemi, Paula Havu (COMP). DFT modelling of CNB structures and the ORR reaction mechanism.
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MIDE CNB-E
5.3 International collaboration
Projects:
• Japan-Finland joint project ”Low voltage operation of
integrated circuits based on printing process” as funded by NICT, Japan (2011-2013)
• Japan-Finland joint project ”Development of high performance carbon nanotube thin film transistors”
as funded by NEDO Japan (2008-2012)
* Prof. Yutaka Ohno, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
• Japan-Finland joint project ”High Performance Lithium Ion Battery Anodes based on Novel Nanocarbons” funded by JST Japan and TEKES (2010-2013)
* Prof. Hidehiro Kamiya, Tokyo A&T University, Tokyo, Japan
* Dr. Yoshio Ukyo, Toyota Central R&D Labs, Nagakute, Japan
• Academy of Finland SUSEN program project “Synthesis and durability of CNT based MEAs for PEMFC”
(NANODURAMEA, 2008-2010)
* VTT (Finland), Sintef and Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway), University of Southern Denmark (Denmark) Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden)
• Academy of Finland Russia-Finland optics program
project “Optical Investigations of Novel Carbon Nanohybrid Material – Fullerene Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes” (2007-2009)
* Dr. Elena Obrazrsova, GPI-RAS, Moscow, Russia
(Raman, PL)
Long-term visits:
• MIDE visiting professor Yutaka Ohno, from Nagoya
University, Japan to the NMG (2012-2013). Development
of high-performance CNB thin film transistors.
• Dr. Kerttu Aitola, was recruited from NEW to KTH, Sweden as a post-doctoral researcher, working in collaboration with both KTH and Dalian (6/2012-) under Prof. Licheng Sun (KTH & Distinguished Professor in Dalian University of Technology, China). Kerttu spent six months at Dalian while continuing her collaboration with the CNB-E project.
• Prof. Hernán Ruy Míquez García, Multifunctional Optical Materials Group of the Institute of Materials Science of Seville (ICMSE-CSIC). Dr. José Miguel Luque Raigón
was recruited from ICMSE-CSIC as a post-doc to the NEW group to work in the CNB-E project on computational optical modeling of solar cells. This recruitment enhanced our fruitful collaboration with ICMSE-CSIC, including joint-
publications.
• Maoshuai He and Hua Jiang visited Dr. Jakob B. Wagner, 146
CNB-E MIDE
Center for Electron Nanoscopy at DTU, Denmark, for in situ environmental TEM studies of SWNT growth mechanisms.
Industry collaboration:
• Within the Tubular nanocarbons for lithium ion battery (LiB) electrodes project; industrial partners: Toyota and Fortum.
• Within the Transparent Electrodes for Large Area, Large Scale Production of Organic Optoelectronic
Devices - TREASORES project; industrial partners:
Amanuensis GmbH, Sefar AG, Osram AG, Canaty Oy, Amcor Flexibles Kreuzlingen AG, Rowo Coating,
Gesellschaft für Beschichtung MBH, Eight19 Ltd.
• Within the Electronic paper message board for outdoor use with carbon NanoBud display module and GPRS I/O layer - E-SIGNAGE project; industrial partners Canatu Oy, Visitret Displays LLC, ACIS S.r.l., FSL Electronics,
POLTECH, Karuteened OÜ.
Bilateral:
• Prof. Morinobu Endo, Shinshu Univ., Nagano, Japan
(Synthesis and TEM of CNTs)
• Prof. Michael Verkhovsky, Helsinki University (bio fuelcells)
• Prof. Ulf Ryde, Lund University, Sweden
(method development)
• Dr. Krisztián Kordás, U. Oulu (MWNT “forest” on steel/
quartz substrates as DSC electrode)
• Dr. Guangsheng Huang, Chongqing University, China
(metal based DSCs)
• Prof. Anvar Zakhidov, UT Dallas, USA (SWCNT in OLEDs; MWNT DSC counter electrode)
• Prof. Anders Hagfeldt and Prof. Gerrit Boschloo,
Uppsala university (compatibility of new Co-based redox mediators with CNT and other carbon counter electrodes)
• Prof. Juan Segura, U Complutense de Madrid (EDOT dimers for solid state DSCs)
• Dr. Virginia Ruiz, CIDETEC, Spain, (PEDOT based
electrolytes and counter electrodes)
• Dr. Brian O’Regan, Imperial College London, (Alternative electrolytes, Time-correlated single photon counting)
• Prof. Torben Lund, Roskilde Univ. (Degradation of dyes)
• Dr. Anders Andersen, Syddask Univ./DTI (Degradation
of dyes)
• Prof. Jouko Korppi-Tommola, Univ. Jyväskylä, (IR transient spectroscopy of dyes)
• Dr. Annick Loiseau, Dr. Raul Arenal, CNRS / ONERA, France (characterization of N-SWCNTs)
• Dr. Paola Ayala, Prof. Thomas Pichler, Uni. Vienna, Austria (characterization of N-SWCNTs)
• Prof. T. Brown / Mr. S. Mastroianni, Univ. Rome (Long term 147
MIDE CNB-E
•
stability testing of dye solar cells)
Prof. Jannik Meyer and Dr. Jani Kotakoski, University of Vienna, Austria (electron beam damage of nitrogen-doped single-walled carbon nanotubes and graphene)
6 Experiences from the project
6.1 Successes and setbacks,
changes in the research plan
The project was very successful indeed, surpassing all the
expectations planned in the beginning. The number as well as
the quality of the scientific papers was remarkable, as well as
the very broad international collaboration and large number of
spin-off projects initiated during the program. Due to the technical evaluation of the planned WP3 discussed above, we successfully reoriented the original research plan also towards the
application of nanocarbon thin films in the emerging future technologies area, i.e. flexible electronics, which is also important
for future energy technologies.
6.2 Valuable operating models,
suggestions for change
The flexible mode of the MIDE program operation was found
to be very well suited for the long-term, high level international
collaborative research in a multidisciplinary fashion. We suggest that more similar programs should be initiated in the future
within Aalto. A large number of persons – from young undergraduates to MSc to PhD students as well post doc scientists
and faculty members – joined seamlessly into the project along
the years.
A better defined and concentrated media strategy with support from Aalto communications might have been useful for
enhancing the societal impact of the program.
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CNB-E MIDE
149
MIDE E-Wood
Energy efficient wood processing
and machining – E-Wood
Length: 2009-2013
Budget: 1 892 388 €
Project management:
Prof. Tapani Vuorinen,
Department of Forest Products
Technology
Prof. Mark Hughes,
Department of Forest Products
Technology
Prof. Jukka Tuhkuri,
Department of Applied Mechanics
Prof. Janne Ruokolainen,
Department of Applied Physics
{tapani.vuorinen, mark.hughes,
jukka.tuhkuri, janne.ruokolainen}
@aalto.fi
Steering group representatives
from Finnish Bioeconomy Cluster,
Metso Plc, UPM Plc and VTT
150
Abstract
The ultimate target of the project was to facilitate changes in
the mechanical pulping and wood machining industries so as
to radically decrease their use of energy. It was envisioned that
through deeper knowledge on the mechanisms of mechanical energy absorption by wood it would be possible to rationalize ways for less energy intensive processing of wood. The
approach for creating this knowledge included both experimental research and simulation of the mechanical behavior of
wood on different scales using virtual, electronic wood that was
to build within the project.
A statistical, electronic model of wood tissue was built which
was then used for predicting the rigidity and strength of wood
in statistical sense. Computer simulations were used in combination with physical experiments in analyzing deformation and
fracture propagation in wood in meso-scale. New information
on the structure of the wood cell wall was obtained through
electron microscopy and chemical imaging by Raman spectroscopy. Mechanical pulping of wood at high temperature produced hydrophobic fibers that were compatible with matrices
used in fiber composites.
E-Wood MIDE
1 Goals and achievements
The future of the forest industry in Finland depends primarily
on the price and availability of wood and energy and the material and energy efficiency of wood processing. The ultimate
target of this project was to facilitate changes in the mechanical
wood defibration and wood machining industries by radically
decreasing their use of energy. The main approach in reaching
this target was to create understanding on how mechanical
energy is absorbed by the wood material on the molecular,
supra-molecular and cellular levels. This understanding was
to be obtained through detailed modeling of the mechanical
behavior of wood from micro- to macro-scale under various
modes of loading and under varying conditions.
The wood material model was to be built upon realistic
characteristics of the wood tissue, cells and cell walls at the
nano- and higher scales. The information that was lacking
on the detailed structure and properties of the cell wall and
middle lamella especially was planned to be gathered through
experimental techniques from nanomicroscopy to nanointendation and micromechanical testing of wood. A sub target of
the project was to find out ways to separate intact wood fibers
through softening of the middle lamella. This was expected to
be the key to low-energy mechanical pulping and the formation
of hydrophobic elements for new types of fiber webs and wood
composites.
1.1 Multiscale modeling of wood
by direct simulation
Background and goals. Wood is a non-homogeneous, anisotropic, multi-scale material whose internal forces and failure
mechanisms depend upon strain, the rate of change of strain,
temperature, moisture content, and the concentrations of chemical substances. If the critical conditions of the failure mechanisms are known at the different scales, it is possible to predict
failure under given conditions, or, to determine the conditions
that would make some of the mechanisms likely to occur. From
the viewpoint of applied mechanics, modeling of material disintegration means identification of failure mechanisms and criteria describing the critical combinations of quantities such as
stress, strain, and temperature. In a simplistic material model
the internal forces which preserve the integrity of the material,
can be represented by springs joining the particles. When a
spring force exceeds a critical value, the spring fails. Thereby,
the mechanical energy stored in the spring is lost. This gives
an approximate estimate of the mechanical work needed for
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MIDE E-Wood
cracking of the material or even for disintegrating all the particles of the body.
The aim of the modeling task was to predict the mechanical
behavior (rigidity and strength) of wood in statistical sense
by direct simulation on a mathematical model at meso- and
macro-scales. The other aim was to characterize the effects
of scale, geometrical and material parameters, and temperature and humidity on rigidity and strength. In the simulation,
the material behavior at the micro-scale (sub-cell) is assumed
to be known. The meso-scale model gives the mechanical
behavior of a cell as function of the micro-scale material
parameters and as a function of meso- and macro-scale geometric parameters. The macro-scale model incorporates a
population of cells with the corresponding statistics of the geometrical and material parameters. As an example, this allows
one to study the effect of imperfections in the honeycomb-like
structure, on rigidity and strength at the macroscopic level.
Achievements. The modeling group was successful in developing theory, methods and computer tools for predicting the
rigidity and strength of wood in statistical sense. Also, the qualitative effects of scale and geometrical and material parameters
were explained satisfactorily. Computer simulations and physical experiments were combined throughout the work.
Micromechanical and continuum models were developed to
cover the scales above and including the cell size. Micromechanical model was considered as the precise model whereas
the models for the engineering scale were obtained by computational homogenization. Micromechanical model consists of a
geometrical model of cell structure and rigidity/strength model
of the cell walls. The cellular materials considered were Nomex
honeycomb and Norway spruce of which the former was considered as a simplified model of wood.
An in-house code consisting of geometric analysis, geometric synthesis, simulation, and statistical analysis parts was
written for statistical simulations on rigidity and strength. In
geometrical analysis, morphological methods are applied to an
image of cell structure to extract geometrical objects. In synthesis stage, a geometric model is used to build a specimen
of cellular material. In simulation stage, a numerical method is
applied to solve for the strain and internal force response of
the specimen under constant stress loading. Repeated simulations on statistical data were used to obtain rigidity and
strength in statistical sense and quantify the effects of scale
and irregularity on these.
An experimental method for measuring rigidity of cellular
structures was developed. The method, based on the combined use of image analysis and conventional techniques, gives
the average rigidity properties in the framework of classical
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E-Wood MIDE
linear elasticity without a priori assumptions on material type.
Computational homogenization method and code was developed to get a closed form representation of average rigidity in
terms of the geometrical and elastic parameters of regular cellular structures. The input data of the code is the description of
a typical cell and the outcomes are the average elastic properties of cellular material. The method was applied to derive and
tabulate the elasticity parameters expression for the typical cell
structures of wood.
1.2 Fracture toughness
and energy absorption
Background and goals. Understanding the fracture of wood
during mechanical processes and in particular how energy is
absorbed, is of fundamental importance in reducing energy
costs, improving production/machining efficiency and in controlling the surface properties of the wood fibre, essential for the
manufacture of high performance wood fibre-based products.
The initial goals of this subproject were twofold; firstly to
measure the fracture toughness of the middle lamella lignin
(and assess how this is influenced by factors such as moisture,
temperature and prior modification) as well as measuring the
elastic properties and other material properties of the middle
lamella. Secondly, to study the micromechanics of deformation and fracture in wood fibre reinforced polymer matrix composites. In terms of the first aim, much of the work carried out
throughout the course of the project focussed on providing
empirical data on the micro-structural and micro-mechanical
properties and characteristics of wood, so as to inform the
development of ‘the electronic wood’.
One of the aims of this project was, therefore, to better
understand fracture in wood and in particular to understand
the various contributions to energy absorption made during
wood defibration. Several such energy absorbing mechanisms are thought to be responsible for the toughness of wood
including; the “intrinsic toughness” of the wood cell wall material, creation of new crack surfaces, plastic deformation of the
cell wall polymers, pull-out of intact cells and tensile buckling
of the cell wall. In addition to this, understanding how the wood
fractures will yield important information about the types of surfaces that can be created and how these can be influenced in
the defibration process. In recent years there have been significant advances in the measurement of the fracture properties
of wood. Using advanced microscopy techniques, including
optical and electron microscopy, coupled with Digital Image
Correlation techniques (DIC), the micro-scale deformation and
fracture processes in wood and in particular the cell wall and
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MIDE E-Wood
middle lamella were planned to be studied.
In order to separate intact cells from wood, it is important
to ensure that fracture proceeds in the middle lamella and that
there is as little damage as possible to the cell wall itself. In
conjunction with the aforementioned work on the wood structure and defibration mechanisms, the fracture toughness of
the MLL were to be measured and how fracture toughness is
influenced by factors such as moisture, temperature and prior
modification were to be studied. Further, the elastic properties
and other material properties of MLL were planned to be characterized. Based on literature, the fracture toughness of middle
lamella lignin has never been experimentally measured before.
Achievements. Working in close collaboration with the modeling group, an experimental procedure to measure the displacement field in small specimens of wood undergoing deformation
was developed. The procedure uses digital image correlation
(DIC), a non-contact method for strain analysis. The DIC system
was developed to work with small-scale wood specimens and
the mechanical properties of Norway spruce under a transverse compression load were studied at the meso-scale. Certain problems in interpreting the data obtained by this method,
relating to the dependence of the elastic property data obtained
to specimen size, were identified and resolving these formed the
basis of one Master’s thesis (Albert Hernandez Estrada). The
results are being written-up as a manuscript for peer review.
Subsequent improvements in the DIC experimental procedure
enabled all the effective in-plane elastic parameters of wood
to be determined using an experimental method developed by
the modeling group. The elastic parameters for Norway spruce
were determined by loading small specimens (5x5x15 mm3) at
various angles to the growth rings (10 specimens at each angle:
0, 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90°). DIC was used to analyse the
displacement fields in the samples enabling calculation of the
strain and elastic properties of the wood.
To correctly model the mechanical properties of wood,
a detailed understanding of the microstructure is required.
Experimental methods to produce statistically meaningful data
about the structure of the wood being studied were simultaneously developed in conjunction with the modeling group. The
work focussed on developing specimen sectioning, staining
and image processing techniques to provide images of sufficiently high quality and free of artefacts to facilitate a statistical
analysis of the wood structure to be conducted.
A better understanding of wood fracture at the micro-scale
level was gained in the project. This included a better understanding of micro-scale failure modes, elucidating displacement fields near the crack-tip and understanding the how different fracture mechanics models can be used in modelling
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E-Wood MIDE
wood fracture. The results of these studies have been published in a paper entitled the “Fracture behaviour of birch and
spruce in the radial-tangential crack propagation direction at
the scale of the growth ring” published in Holzforschung. A
further manuscript focussing on the micro-scale analysis of the
crack-tip displacement field is currently being prepared.
Further work has focussed on trying to understand the
relationship between species, its micro- and ultra-structure
and the properties of wood. Using common juniper (Juniperus
communis L.), Norway spruce and Norway spruce compression wood as ‘models’, the properties of wood under static and
cyclic tensile loading were investigated. Significant differences
in the behaviour have been noted, extending our understanding
of how the micro- and ultra-structure influence mechanical
behaviour. This work was carried out in cooperation with professor Callum Hill’s group at Edinburgh Napier University, U.K.
who studied sorption behaviour. This work led to the completion of Pasi Salminen’s thesis entitled “Micromechanical properties of common junipers and Norway spruce under monotonic and cyclic tensile loading”. A publication based on this
work is also planned.
To investigate the effect of fibre surface modification on
the interfacial micromechanics in wood fibre-reinforced polymers, an approach combining digital photo-mechanics and
Raman spectroscopy was envisioned. A half-fringe photoelasticity (HFP) system was completed and the system used
to measure the interface properties in an epoxy (chosen for
its good stress-optic properties) matrix composite reinforced
with thermo-mechanical pulp wood fibres prepared under different refining conditions. Technical difficulties prevented the
development of the equipment first envisaged, but some useful
insights into fibre-matrix interactions in wood/natural fibre reinforced composites were made.
1.3 Wood cell wall structure
Background and goals. Understanding the structure of wood
material forms the basis for its applicability and processability
for present and new products. Although the distribution and
variation in the structure of lignin relative to its morphological
location has been studied in a few publications, information on
the more detailed chemical structure and properties of middle
lamella lignin (i.e. the lignin that “glues” the fibers together) is
almost completely lacking. There are several reasons for this.
The most representative preparations of native lignin have so
far been made through ball-milling of wood meal in an organic
solvent. The yield of extraction is limited by the low porosity of
the cell wall that prevents both the matrix and middle lamella
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MIDE E-Wood
lignins from dissolution. The extensive ball-milling has also been
claimed to modify the structure of lignin.
The original plan was to study the structure of the cell wall
through two separate approaches. In the first one, thin crosssections of wood were planned to be mapped by high resolution Raman microscopy combined with AFM and TEM in
combination with EDX/EELS. These techniques were thought
to provide information on the organization and spatial distribution of the cell wall polymers and their functional groups in
the cell wall. The second approach included extraction of the
middle lamella lignin from thin microtome cross-cuts of wood
by using known lignin solvents. It was expected that the matrix
lignin (i.e. the lignin associated with hemicelluloses and cellulose in the cell wall) would not dissolve due to the low porosity
of the cell wall. The dissolved MLL could then be analyzed
for its chemical and polymeric structure by various methods.
For example, the actual degree of polymerization of the native
lignin is something that nobody has been able to analyze so
far.
Achievements. Thin sections of fresh spruce wood from both
longitudinal and transverse sections were imaged by high-resolution liquid nitrogen cooled cryo-TEM. Various microtome cutting options and post-staining options were studied. New information regarding the ultrastructure of wood cell wall was gained
by high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM)
and image processing and that will apparently lead to resolve
many of the ultrastructural complexities in the cell wall biogenesis. A model of the wood cell wall was developed where the
novelty is in out-of-plane orientation of cellulose microfibrils in
comparison with the earlier adopted in-plane orientation model.
Ultrathin sections of wood were studied by high resolution
electron tomography to observe the microfibril orientation in
3D. A novel approach to single particle reconstruction using
2D micrographs was taken to see the molecular structure
of cellulose microfibril in 3D with very high resolution. Using
this method it was possible to see the number of contributing
chains in the cellulose microfibrils. Docking probes of cellulose chains to the 3D density maps increased understanding
on the arrangement of cellulose chains and possible planes
of hydrogen bonding. The 3D maps confirmed the crystallinity
of cellulose microfibrils. 3D printing of the models produced
by this approach gave very useful information on the internal
structure of microfibrils.
Study on extraction of lignin from ultrathin wood sections
gave better understanding of cell wall behaviour during the
process. Both Raman microscopy and TEM showed that lignin
was removed not only from the compound middle lamella but
also from the other cell wall layers during the extraction pro-
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E-Wood MIDE
cess but in an incomplete fashion. Observed ruptures in the
S1 layer indicated that lignin extraction weakened this layer in
particular. The results were totally unexpected since the secondary wall lignin was thought to be both physically docked
and chemically bonded to the wood polysaccharides. Raman
microscopy showed certain structural differences between
middle lamella and secondary wall lignin and also between the
extractable and unextractable lignin.
Reviewing existing literature on wood materials and transmission electron microscopy gave an overview of the on-going
research on this particular field. Later all the important information was gathered into a manuscript which is aimed to be
published as a review in the recent future. Collaborations with
other research groups continued during the whole period.
Additionally, drying induced changes in wood structure
were studied by carrying the drying in deuterium oxide vapour
after wetting the samples in an excess of deuterium oxide.
After the controlled drying the samples were flushed with water
and dried again. The band area of residual OD groups in the
sample was indicative of formation of irreversible hydrogen
bonds during the first drying. The content of OD groups
increased in the order of wood < mechanical wood pulp <
unbleached chemical wood pulp < bleached chemical wood
pulp. Increasing the drying temperature (25-80 oC) increased
the extent of irreversible hydrogen bonding. Later it was
observed that similar changes in the structure and reactivity of
cellulose took place in any treatment where elevated temperatures were applied.
1.4 Defibration mechanisms
and new products
Background and goals. Mechanical grinding or refining of
wood leads to ruptures in the cell wall and thus to broken fibers
and fiber bundles instead of intact fibers. It has been shown
that the defibration mechanism depends on temperature which
again has been associated with the higher softening temperature of middle lamella compared to secondary cell wall. If the
target of mechanical pulping were to get intact fibers, the alternatives could be to apply high temperature in refining or to
carry out the refining in a non-aqueous medium that would
enable softening of the middle lamella lignin at relatively low
temperatures (< 100 oC).
During the mechanical cutting of wood, free radicals are
believed to form. There are, however, only a few publications
concerning this radical formation. These radicals may lead
to various cross-linking, oxidation and polymerization reactions depending upon the medium. These secondary reac-
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MIDE E-Wood
tions may not only change the material properties of wood
but could be used to engineer wood (fiber) surfaces from
the nano- to macro-scales. Therefore mechanically (or laser)
induced radical reactions of lignin and cellulose were planned
to be studied in the presence and absence of radical trappers, antioxidants, radical oxidants and radically polymerizing
monomers. The formation and significance of radicals during
the mechanical pulping process has never before been established.
Achievements. Refining of spruce wood chips at 150-170 oC
reduced the specific energy need by up to 70 % in comparison
with refining at 130 oC. At the high temperature the fiber separation took place dominantly in the border of S1 and S2 layers
or closer to middle lamella. The surface lignin content of these
fibers was 50 % higher than for the fibers produced at the lower
temperature. The lignin covered fibers were hardly bonded in
normal handsheet preparation. In contrast, they were superior as composite reinforcing elements providing 50 % more
strength that the fibers of low temperature.
When eucalyptus wood chips were incubated at 120 oC
prior to refining, the specific energy need was reduced by
50-75 % depending on the length of the pretreatment. In
mild conditions mainly lignin and hemicelluloses were solubilized and the site of defibration was moved towards middle
lamella. The increase in the surface lignin content and the parallel decrease in the handsheet tensile strength were though
smaller than in the high temperature refined pulps.
Mechanical rupture of wood must lead to cleavage of
chemical bonds. Usually the rates of chemical reactions are
dependent of temperature and time. In mechanoradical formation the driving force is the tension applied on covalent bonds.
Under these circumstances homolytic bond cleavage, leading
to free radicals, is the prevailing reaction mechanism. The formation of mechanoradicals during thermomechanical pulping
of spruce was confirmed.
The mechanoradical formation was studied in more details
by ball-milling pure cellulose at the temperature of liquid
nitrogen. Strong EPR signals of the formed radicals were
observed at the low temperature. At room temperature only
very weak signals were left due to the high reactivity of the
free radicals. When cellulose was ball-milled in the presence of
styrene, the radical content remained very low probably due to
polymerization of styrene on the radical sites of cellulose. UV
Raman spectroscopy verified increasing content of styrene in
the product as the function of the milling time.
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E-Wood MIDE
2 Output
2.1 List of publications
Doctoral theses
Marcelo Coelho dos Santos Muguet, Effect of fiber wall chemisty on pulping processes of novel Eucalyptus hybrids, 2013 (in
pre-examination).
Alp Karakoç, Effective stiffness and strength properties of cellular materials in the transverse plane, 2013
(in pre-examination).
Miro Suchy, Accessibility and Enzymatic Degradation of Native
and Model Cellulose Substrates, 2011.
Tuomas Hänninen, Studies on the Ultrastructure of Natural
Fibres and its Effects on the Fibre Utilization, 2011.
Master’s theses
Pasi Salminen, Micromechanical properties of common junipers and Norway spruce under monotonic and cyclic tensile
loading, 2013.
Jani-Markus Malho, Dedicated Liquid Helium Cryo-Transmission Electron Microscope - New High Resolution Imaging Possibilities for Wood and Biomaterials, 2010.
Albert Hernandez Estrada, Influence of Anatomy on the Transverse Mechanical Properties of Norway Spruce, 2010.
Peer-reviewed scientific papers
1. Miro Suchy, Eero Kontturi and Tapani Vuorinen,
Impact of Drying on Wood Ultrastructure: Similarities in Cell Wall Alteration between Native Wood and Isolated
Wood-Based Fibers, Biomacromolecules 11 (2010) 2161-
2168 (IF 5.37).
2. Miro Suchy, Markus Linder, Tekla Tammelin, Joe Campbell, Tapani Vuorinen and Eero Kontturi, Quantitative Assessment of the Enzymatic Degradation of Amorphous Cellulose
by Using a Quartz Crystal Microbalance with Dissipation Monitoring, Langmuir 27 (2011) 8819-8828 (IF 4.19).
3. Tuomas Hänninen, Eero Kontturi and Tapani Vuorinen,
Distribution of Lignin and its Coniferyl Alcohol and
Coniferaldehyde Groups in Picea abies and Pinus
sylvestris as Observed by Raman Imaging, Phytochemistry 72 (2011) 1889-1895 (IF 3.05).
4. Tuomas Hänninen, Eero Kontturi, Kirsi Leppänen, Ritva
Serimaa and Tapani Vuorinen, Kraft Pulping of Juniperus communis Results in Paper with Unusually High Elasticity, Bioresources 6 (2011) 3824-3835 (IF 1.31).
5. Alp Karakoç and Jouni Freund, Experimental studies on mechanical properties of cellular structures using Nomex 159
MIDE E-Wood
honeycomb cores, Composite Structures 94 (2012) 2017-
2024 (IF 2.23).
6. Tuomas Hänninen, Pekka Tukiainen, Kirsi Svedström, Ritva Serimaa, Pekka Saranpää, Eero Kontturi, Mark Hughes and Tapani Vuorinen, Ultrastructural evaluation of
compression wood-like properties of common juniper
(Juniperus communis L.), Holzforschung 66 (2012)
389–395 (IF 2.42).
7. Alp Karakoç and Jouni Freund, A statistical failure
initiation model for honeycomb materials, Composite
Structures 95 (2013) 154-162 (IF 2.23).
8. Alp Karakoç, Kari Santaoja and Jouni Freund, Simulation experiments on the effective in-plane compliance of the
honeycomb materials, Composite Structures 96 (2013)
312-320 (IF 2.23).
9. Alp Karakoç and Jouni Freund, A direct simulation method for the effective in-plane stiffness of cellular materials,
International Journal of Applied Mechanics (2013)
(IF 1.48).
10.Alp Karakoç and Jouni Freund, Statistical strength
analysis for honeycomb materials, International Journal of Applied Mechanics 5 (2013) 1350021/1-1350021/12
(IF 1.48).
11.Alp Karakoç, Pekka Tukiainen, Jouni Freund and Mark Hughes, Experiments on the effective compliance in the radial-tangential plane of Norway spruce, Composite
Structures 102 (2013) 287-293 (IF 2.23).
12.Pekka Tukiainen and Mark Hughes, The fracture behaviour of birch and spruce in the radial-tangential crack
propagation direction at the scale of the growth ring,
Holzforschung (2013) DOI 10.1515/hf-2012-0139 (IF 2.42).
13.Marcelo Coelho dos Santos Muguet, Kyösti Ruuttunen, Anna-Stiina Jääskeläinen, Jorge Luiz Colodette and Tapani Vuorinen, Defibration mechanisms of autohydrolyzed
Eucalyptus wood chips, Cellulose (2013) DOI 10.1007/
s10570-013-0023-3 (IF 3.48).
14.Marcelo Coelho dos Santos Muguet, Fernando José Borges Gomes, Kyösti Ruuttunen, Leena-Sisko Johansson, Anna-
Stiina Jääskeläinen, Jorge Luiz Colodette and Tapani
Vuorinen, Pulping-tailored surface properties of Eucalyptus cellulosic fibers, Holzforschung (2013) accepted (IF 2.42).
15.Iina Solala, Toni Antikainen, Mehedi Reza, Leena-Sisko Johansson, Mark Hughes and Tapani Vuorinen, Hydro
phobic high-temperature thermomechanical pulp as a potential reinforcement element in composites,
Holzforschung (2013) accepted (IF 2.42).
16.Mehedi Reza, Leonardo R. Galvis, Eero Kontturi, Tapani Vuorinen and Janne Ruokolainen. Raman and
Transmission Electron Microscopic Study on Extraction of 160
E-Wood MIDE
Lignin from Ultrathin Norway Spruce (Picea abies) Sections, submitted to Phytochemistry (IF 3.05).
Conference presentations
1. Jouni Freund, Mesh Generation of Honeycomb Material, Proceedings of the 10th Finnish Mechanics Days, Jyväskylä 2009, 43-50.
2. Johanna Sjölund and Jouni Freund, Quantification of Geo
metrical Irregularity of Wood, Proceedings of the 10th Finnish Mechanics Days, Jyväskylä 2009, 502-509.
3. Johanna Sjölund and Jouni Freund, Evaluation
of Geometrical Irregularity of Wood-like Hexagonal
Structures, Proceeding of the Twenty Second Nordic
Seminar on Computational Mechanics, Aalborg 2009,
285-287.
4. Alp Karakoc and Jouni Freund, Effect of Geometrical
Features and Scale on Failure Initiation of Wood like
Cellular Material, Proceedings of the 10th Finnish Mechanics Days, Jyväskylä 2009, 534-540.
5. Alp Karakoc and Jouni Freund, Effect of Geometrical
irregularity and scale on Failure of wood-like cellular
materials, Proceeding of the Twenty Second Nordic Seminar on Computational Mechanics, Aalborg 2009, 285-287.
6. Miro Suchy, Eero Kontturi and Tapani Vuorinen, Drying-
Induced Changes in Wood and Wood Pulp Fiber Cell Wall Structure, Proceedings of 11th European Workshop on
Lignocellulosics and Pulp, Hamburg 2010, 485-488.
7. Jouni Freund, Jukka Tuhkuri and Mark Hughes,
Microstress Statistics of Honeycomb Material, IV European Congress on Computational Mechanics, Paris 2010, https://
www.eccm-2010.org/abstract_pdf/abstract_805.pdf.
8. Alp Karakoc and Jouni Freund, Failure Initiation
Statistics on Wood-like Cellular Structures, IV European congress on Computational Mechanics, Paris 2010, https://www.eccm-2010.org/abstract_pdf/abstract_863.pdf.
9. Alp Karakoc and Jouni Freund, Experiments on Nomex® Honeycomb Compliance, The 24th Nordic Seminar
on Computational Mechanics, Helsinki, Finland, 2-4 November 2011, 55-59.
10.Alp Karakoc and Jouni Freund, Validation of a Cellular Micromechanical Model, The 3rd International Conference on Heterogeneous Material Mechanics, Shanghai, China, 22-26 May 2011, 262-266.
11.Johanna Sjölund and Jouni Freund, Mesh Generation of Nomex® Honeycomb Material, The 3rd International
Conference on Heterogeneous Material Mechanics, Shanghai, China, 22-26 May 2011, 214-217.
12. Jouni Freund, Cohesion Force Statistics of Cellular
Materials, Proceedings of Engineering Mechanics Institute 161
MIDE E-Wood
2011, Boston, USA, 2-4 June 2011.
13. Miro Suchy, Eero Kontturi and Tapani Vuorinen, Alterations in Wood Ultrastructure Induced by Drying, COST Action FP 0802 – WORKSHOP: Hierarchical Structure and
Mechanical Characterization of Wood, Helsinki, 24-25 August 2011, 15-16.
14. Alp Karakoç and Jouni Freund, A statistical representation of failure for cellular materials, European Congress on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences and
Engineering, Vienna, Austria, September 10-14, 2012.
15. Alp Karakoç and Jouni Freund, Homogenization of 2-D honeycomb material, European Congress on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences and Engineering, Vienna,
Austria, September 10-14, 2012.
16. Alp Karakoç and Jouni Freund, Effect of scale on the
cellular material strength, Nordic Seminar on Computational Mechanics, Lund, Sweden, October 25-26, 2012.
17. Jouni Freund and Alp Karakoç, Homogenization of 2-D honeycomb material, European Congress on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences and Engineering, Vienna,
Austria, September 10-14, 2012.
18. Jouni Freund, Homogenization of regular honeycomb
material, Proceedings of the 11th Finnish Mechanics Days, University of Oulu, 2012, 21-26.
19. Johanna Sjölund and Jouni Freund, Analysing and
modeling the geometry of a cellular material, Proceedings of the 11th Finnish Mechanics Days, 2012, 15-20.
20. Johanna Sjölund and Jouni Freund, Geometrical modeling of wood from cell to growth ring scale, COST workshop on microcharacterisation of wood material and properties, 2012.
21. Mehedi Reza and Peter Engelhardt, 3-D reconstruction of cellulose nano-particles in Norway spruce (Picea abies) wood sections, Proceeding of 3rd International Cellulose Conference, 2012, Sapporo, Japan.
22. Alp Karakoç and Jouni Freund, Direct simulations on rigidity of cellular materials, 7th M.I.T. Conference on
Computational Fluid and Solid Mechanics - Focus:
Multiphysics & Multiscale, Boston, USA, June 10-12, 2013.
23. Johanna Sjölund, Jouni Freund and Alp Karakoç,
Comparison between precise and statistical methods for modeling cellular wood geometry, 7th M.I.T. Conference on Computational Fluid and Solid Mechanics - Focus:
Multiphysics & Multiscale, Boston, USA, June 10-12, 2013.
24. Jouni Freund, Gluing of the continuum and micromechanical models for planar cellular material, 7th M.I.T. Conference on Computational Fluid and Solid Mechanics - Focus:
Multiphysics & Multiscale, Boston, USA, June 10-12, 2013.
25. Mehedi Reza, Peter Engelhardt and Janne Ruokolainen,
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E-Wood MIDE
3-D Reconstruction of Cellulosic Nano-Particles in Norway spruce (Picea abies) Wood Sections Using Bayesian Method, Finnish Physical Society Conference, Espoo, March 14-16, 2013.
26. Mehedi Reza, Peter Engelhardt and Janne Ruokolainen, Electron tomography, sub-tomography and single particle reconstruction of microfibrils in wood sections reveal nano-
cellulose particles at atomic resolution, Annual Meeting of the Nordic Microscopy Society (SCANDEM),
Copenhagen, June 10-14, 2013.
2.2 Parallel and follow-up projects
Several closely related projects were already ongoing or started
simultaneously with MIDE funding to E-wood project. These
were:
• Nano scale Raman microscopy of wood-based materials funded by Academy of Finland (2009-2012). The
objective was to develop new techniques for wood
characterization by high-resolution Raman spectroscopic techniques. Leader in charge: Dr. Anna-Stiina Jääskeläinen.
• Using Raman spectroscopy to investigate the micro-
mechanics of microfibrillated cellulose reinforced
composites funded by Academy of Finland (2009-2011). This project was carried out in collaboration with the
University of Manchester (Dr. Steve Eichhorn). Leader in charge: prof. Mark Hughes.
• Combined finite-discrete element method for 3D
discontinuum problems in ice mechanics funded by Academy of Finland (2006-2009). Leader in charge: prof. Jukka Tuhkuri.
• Biomimetic self-assembling bioadhesive (BSB) for fixation of polymer composites to bone funded by Academy of
Finland (2009-2011). Objective is use high resolution microscopy techniques to study bone and polymer
composite interfaces. The hierarchical bone morphology is very similar to wood structure; therefore the same
techniques can also be used in this project. Leader in charge: prof. Janne Ruokolainen.
In addition to the projects listed in the original plan several other
closely linked projects have got funding afterwards:
• Effect of fibre wall chemistry on energy demand in wood defibration funded by the Academy of Finland (2010-2012) and CNPq (Brazil). Leaders in charge: Dr. Anna-Stiina Jääskeläinen and Dr. Kyösti Ruuttunen. This was a joint project with University of Vicosa, Brazil (prof. Jorge
Colodette) and VTT, Espoo (Dr. Tarja Tamminen).
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MIDE E-Wood
• The Academy of Finland is funding collaboration between Aalto University and VTT on Utilization of Microscopic Methods in Developing Biorefinery Processes in 2011-2013. In this project specific labelling combined with light,
electron and Raman microscopy are applied to study how the wood polymers are degraded and dissolved in various chemical treatments. Leaders in charge: Dr. Anna-
Stiina Jääskeläinen and prof. Tapani Vuorinen
• Free radical formation in mechanical refining of chemical wood pulps has been studied in HitPulp – Highly
Thermally Stable Cellulose Pulps that forms a part of Finnish Bioeconomy Cluster Ltd’s EffFibre Program
(2010-2013). Leader in charge: prof. Tapani Vuorinen
• MIDE is funding a proof-of-concept project (2013-2014) on a new web forming technology that is, in part, follow-
up of E-wood. This technology can utilize also the hydro
phobic TMP fibres that can be produced at high
temperature at low specific energy consumption. With this new technology fibrous webs (e.g. paper and board) can be produced with reduced water consumption, with higher energy and materials efficiency and improved productivity compared to conventional processes. Participant:
professors Tapani Vuorinen, Jouni Paltakari and Pekka Ahtila.
2.3 Patent application
Alp Karakoç, Geometric input generation for cellular materials in
two dimensional space, FI 20135751.
2.4 Relevance
The results of the project have been presented already in 26
scientific presentations, 16 peer-reviewed scientific articles
and 4 doctoral theses. Many others are still coming out the total
number of peer-reviewed scientific papers is estimated to be
25 and the number of doctoral theses 8. Some of the findings
are scientifically highly relevant, at least those that have created
new understanding on the structure of cell wall.
The energy efficient mechanical pulping processes studied
may have potential in manufacture of new types of fiber webs
and composites. Due to the high hydrophobicity of the fibers
new technologies may be needed for web formation. These
technologies are now evaluated with the aid of proof-of-concept funding from MIDE.
The future of the forest industry in Finland depends primarily on the price and availability of wood and energy and
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E-Wood MIDE
the material and energy efficiency of wood processing. The
ultimate target of E-wood project was to facilitate changes in
the mechanical wood defibration and wood machining industries by radically decreasing their use of energy. As a result
of the project new type of wood fiber based industry can be
envisioned that combines high material yield with low energy
demand and low capital investment (in comparison with today’s
technology).
2.5 Impact on education
Most of the research work was carried out by doctoral students
and in part by master students in the three schools involved. In
total 20 students were involved in doing the research as full- or
part-time employees. These students collaborated closely with
each other, thus giving an interdisciplinary flavor to their education and researcher career development. The doctoral and master’s theses funded at least partly through E-wood project and
completed so far are listed in Chapter 3.1.3. Additionally several
other doctoral theses will be published by the end of year 2014.
Moreover, the proposed research work exemplifies the artificial nature of the borders between chemistry, mechanics
and physics. A mechanical action that is usually described in
physical terms actually involves chemical reactions that can
be directed towards engineered structures such as chemically
modified surfaces. Incorporating this approach into teaching
must surely have an extraordinary impact on student’s acceptance of different disciplines.
3 Departments, staff
and cooperation
3.1 Departments and staff
The research was a joint-project between the Departments of
Forest Products Technology, Applied Mechanics and Applied
Physics. The participating groups are led by Professors Tapani
Vuorinen, Mark Hughes, Jukka Tuhkuri and Janne Ruokolainen.
In addition to these Drs. Anna-Stiina Jääskeläinen, Eero Kontturi, Jouni Freund and Kari Santaoja have acted as instructors
to doctoral students or carried out research personally. The
following doctoral students have worked in the E-wood project:
Miro Suchy, Tuomas Hänninen, Iina Solala, Marcelo Muguet,
Akio Yamamoto, Mehedi Reza, Toni Antikainen, Pekka Tukiainen, Albert Hernandez Estrada, Alp Karakoc and Johanna
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MIDE E-Wood
Sjölund. A more detailed description of the roles of the participants are below (the numbers in parentheses show how many
months each person was paid from MIDE funding).
Department of Forest Products Technology (185 months)
Professor Tapani Vuorinen, Project Leader, Chemical structure
of the cell wall
• Dr. Anna-Stiina Jääskeläinen: instructor to doctoral
students, lignin chemistry and Raman spectroscopy
• Dr. Eero Kontturi: instructor to doctoral students, cellulose chemistry
• M.Sc. Miro Suchy: ultrastructure of cell wall (9 months)
• M.Sc. Tuomas Hänninen: chemical structure and Raman imaging (33 months)
• M.Sc. Iina Solala: mechanical pulping and mechanoradical formation (29 months)
• M.Sc. Marcelo Muguet: defibration mechanisms (11 months)
• M.Sc. Akio Yamamoto: mechanical peeling of wood
(8 months)
• M.Sc. student Emilia Kauppi: research assistant
(3.5 months)
• M.Sc. student Mats Lindström: research assistant
(3 months)
• M.Sc. student Joona Hokka: research assistant (3 months)
• M.Sc. student Suvi Kyyrö: research assistant (3 months)
Professor Mark Hughes, Wood fracture mechanism and wood
fibre composites (4 months)
• M.Sc. Toni Antikainen: micromechanics of fibre composites (30 months)
• M.Sc. Pekka Tukiainen: wood fracture (27 months)
• M.Sc. Albert Hernandez Estrada: wood microstructural
analysis and micromechanics (15.5 months)
• M.Sc. Kristiina Laine (2 months)
• M.Sc. student Lauri Paatela: research assistant (2 months)
• M.Sc. student Teemu Vainio: research assistant (2 months)
Department of Applied Mechanics (116 months)
Professor Jukka Tuhkuri, Modeling of wood structure
• Dr. Kari Santaoja: mechanics of materials
• Dr. Jouni Freund: mechanics of materials (3 months)
• M.Sc. Alp Karakoc: statistics of failure (56 months)
• M.Sc. Johanna Sjölund: irregularity in wood structure
(57 months)
Department of Applied Physics (72 months)
Professor Janne Ruokolainen, Nanomicroscopy of wood cell wall
• Dr. Peter Engelhardt: nanomicroscopy (6 months)
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E-Wood MIDE
• M.Sc. Jani-Markus Malho: cell wall structure by TEM
(20 months)
• M.Sc. Mehedi Reza: cell wall structure by TEM (46 months)
3.2 Cooperation
Generally the collaboration between the groups worked well.
All the researchers gathered together monthly to discuss about
the progress and plans. In each meeting one of the researchers
gave a more comprehensive presentation on a selected topic
that is relevant for the project. Additionally more focused meetings were arranged when needed between the researchers.
Very tight collaboration existed between the groups in Wood
Technology and Applied Mechanics in the area of wood fracture and mechanics. Also the groups in Wood Chemistry and
Nanomicroscopy have met regularly to discuss about TEM of
wood samples.
As a result of the ‘E-wood’ project, new co-operation with
the Applied Mechanics group has been initiated and it is
expected that this will continue into the future (joint activities
and projects are being planned). The DIC system developed
for measuring strains in small-scale specimens as part of the
project will be used in future projects.
In the project plan several foreign research groups were
listed as possible collaborators within the project. Many of
these collaborations also realized in addition to some new
ones. These include e.g. The University of Tokyo (prof. Akira
Isogai), University of Wisconsin (Dr. David Yelle), Edinburgh
Napier University (prof. Callum Hill), University of Manchester
(Dr. Steve Eichhorn), University of Natural Resources and Life
Sciences in Vienna (prof. Thomas Rosenau) and Federal University of Vicosa in Brazil (prof. Jorge Colodette).
The project had an external steering group that was formed
of representatives of UPM (Annikki Vehniäinen, Vuokko Pietarila), Metso (Petteri Vuorio), Finnish Bioeconomy Cluster
(Lars Gädda) and VTT (Lauri Salminen).
4 Experiences and feedback
We were very ambitious in setting targets for the research plan.
Although we couldn’t fully reach these in all aspects, we can
feel that we succeeded well. It was important that we had the
freedom to make selections by ourselves and that we didn’t feel
too much pressure in doing so. In fact the managing team of
MIDE was supporting throughout the project and also showed
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MIDE E-Wood
great interest on our work. The five-year length of the project
was also unusual in comparison with the normal three years or
less in most other research projects. Since the groups of the
three departments hadn’t collaborated earlier, a shorter time
would not have been equally productive.
It was also quite unusual that the donators, although sitting
in the steering group, didn’t try to direct our work too much.
They gave though valuable advices in certain aspects and
were also supportive. We can only hope that our results will
be adopted by the Finnish forest-based industry for the benefit
of the society. We have got a vision on this and an additional
great tool of MIDE, the proof-of-concept funding will help us in
demonstrating the potential of our discoveries and broadening
them further.
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E-Wood MIDE
169
MIDE Exergy
Minimization of exergy losses
in combustion processes - Exergy
Length: 2008-2010
Budget: 390 000 €
Project management:
Prof. Markku J. Lampinen,
Department of Energy Technology
[email protected]
Steering group representatives
from Fortum Plc, Metso Power
Ltd, Outokumpu Plc, Outotec
Plc, UPM Kymmene Plc and
YIT Plc
170
Abstract
The starting point of the research was the publication of Markku
J. Lampinen and Ralf Wiksten: Theory of Effective HeatAbsorbing and Heat-Emitting Temperatures in Entropy and
Exergy Analysis with Applications to Flow Systems and Combustion Processes. J.Non-Eq.Thermod., 2006, Vol.31, pp.257291.The interesting point was that the efficiency of internal
combustion engines and gas turbine processes are free from
Carnot limitations as they are not performing cycle processes –
the initial state of the thermodynamic system is the fuel with air,
whereas the final state is the flue gas, whose chemical composition is different than fuel and air. Therefore, as we have shown
here, the theoretical thermodynamic efficiencies of ideal combustion engines and gas turbine processes can be very high
– much higher than what the Carnot efficiency gives – actually
quite near the same as it is for fuel cells.
The goal of the research project was two-folded. In the
first part an exact exergy loss analysis method was developed – such a method which shows exactly where the exergy
losses are and how great they are. This part of the research
work has been successful. We managed to develop an exergy
loss method which gives exactly the same working power as
the pure energy balance method gives. The entropy generation analysis is included in the exergy loss analysis by the
exact definition of effective heat emitting temperature which
was published in an international conference in Barcelona
2010. We have tested the method for the internal combustion
engines and gas turbines, and we have seen that they suffer
for relatively low efficiencies because of the exergy losses in
the combustion processes. The main reason for this is that the
combustion reaction takes place quite far from the equilibrium
state.
The second goal of the research project was to find technical solutions to improve the combustion process. In this
Exergy-project of MIDE-program we have studied several
different combustion processes which could decrease the
entropy generation of the combustion process. If the entropy
generation can be reduced, by any means, then as a “reward”
we get the outlet pressure of the flue gas higher than the inlet
air pressure without using any compressor. This in turn would
then increase the efficiency essentially. Methods which we
Exergy MIDE
studied theoretically were flue gas circulation and counterparallel partial oxidation process. Both of them look promising.
Also a promising method is a membrane combustion which
can be described as a molecular scale oxygen gas compressor driven by the combustion reaction. The force acting on
the oxygen ion is the electric field across the membrane generated by the reaction. We made also some preliminary laboratory demonstrations of this method.
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MIDE Exergy
1 Theoretical method for
exact exergy loss studies
In adiabatic combustion process the outlet temperature of the
flue gas depends on the air factor λ and the fuel. It does not
depend on the pressure as far as we consider the flue gas as
an ideal gas, because then the specific enthalpy of the species (i) depends only on its temperature: hi = hi (T ). In very
high pressures near to the critical pressure, where the ideal gas
assumption is no longer valid, the pressure affects also on the
specific enthalpy.
Hence, the pressure of the outflow gas does not follow from
the energy balance, but it depends on the manner how the
combustion process is realized. So we need the second law
of thermodynamics to analyze this. The specific entropy of the
gas species (i) depends on the temperature T , and also on
its partial pressure p i , i.e. according to the ideal gas model
si (T, pi ) = si (T, p0 ) − R ln( pi / p0 ) , which shows that the
higher the pressure p i the smaller is the entropy s i . Here
the reference pressure p 0 = 1 bar and the gas constant
R = 8.314 J / molK . The entropy generation in the adiabatic combustion is
σ irr = ni si − n j s j ≥ 0, (1)
∑
∑
out
in
from which we see that the higher is the outlet pressure, the
smaller is the entropy generation σ irr . Instead of the entropy
generation we may as well speak of the exergy loss defined as
T(−)σ irr = exergy loss
,
(2)
which describes the loss of mechanical work in chemical combustion reaction, or the loss to increase the pressure of the flue
gas by the chemical reaction. Temperature T(−) is defined with
the aid of the real final state (B ) and the ideal isentropic final
state ( Bs ) as follows [1]:
H (Bs ) − H (B)
(3)
T ≡
(−)
S(Bs ) − S(B)
Usually the flue gases from the combustion chambers in the gas
turbine processes flow out approximately at the same pressure
as the inlet flow of the air, and we speak then about combustion
at constant pressure. In our earlier paper [2] we have shown
that in the conventional combustion with constant pressure the
entropy generation is very high and the exergy loss (T(−)σ irr ) ,
depending on the air factor and the fuel, is about half of the heat
value of the fuel.
In the classical form of the Guoy-Stodola, the exergy loss
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Exergy MIDE
is defined as (T(−)σ irr ) , where To is the lowest temperature
of the surroundings with which the system is in thermal contact. As we have shown in our earlier paper [2] the choice of
the temperature To for Eq.(2) does not give the accurate value
for the lost of the work and for the efficiency of combustion
engines (for Eq.(4) below), only an upper limit, and therefore,
as shown in [2] we use the correct temperature T(−) instead
of To .
The ideal adiabatic combustion process is such that there
is no entropy generation, σ irr = 0. In the language of thermodynamics it is called an isentropic combustion, and it means a
combustion process which proceeds via equilibrium states. In
the following we discuss how important for the efficiency it is to
keep the entropy generation σ irr as small as possible in order
to have a good efficiency.
2 Combustion engine
For the combustion engine the following general equation for
the efficiency can be derived [1]
η = 1−
T(−)σ irr
(4)
−[H (Bs ) − H (A)]
where σ irr is the generation of entropy in the whole combustion engine process and −[H (Bs ) − H (A)] is the heat value
of the isentropic combustion process from A to Bs which is
defined so that S(A) = S(Bs ) . In the denominator of Eq.(4)
there is the enthalpy difference −[H (Bs ) − H (A)] because
our system is a closed system which makes transformation process in the engine during 720o degrees of rotation of the crank
shaft. The entropy generation σ irr (J/K) means correspondingly the entropy generation during 720o degrees of rotation.
We studied [1] the exergy losses of the diesel engine process, shown in Fig.1, and we found that 79% of all exergy
losses took place between the combustion process steps
4-5-6-7. The whole efficiency of the diesel engine was 47.5%.
Therefore, if we could eliminate the exergy losses of combustion, then the exergy losses left were 21% x 52.5% = 11% and
the efficiency of the diesel engine would be η = 89%. It can
be so high as the theoretical efficiency can be even one as we
see from Eq.(4). The reason for that is that the efficiency is not
limited by Carnot formulae because the process is not a cycle
process. The efficiency is under the same type of limitations as
fuel cells, but for the combustion engine the reference process
is an ideal reversible adiabatic process whereas for the fuel
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cells it is an ideal reversible isothermal process. Therefore, the
maximum work out here is −ΔH (S = const) whereas for the
fuel cell it is −ΔG(T = const, p = const).
How would then the ideal process without any exergy losses
in the combustion steps look like compared to Figure 1a?
First of all, the engine would be then a two stroke engine, but
without having any dead volume. Suppose first that the piston
is at left (with volume=0) and the hot flue gas starts to fill the
cylinder by pushing the piston to the right in Fig.1b by constant pressure (say at 230 bar as in Fig.1a) from the point 4*
to the point 5*. At that point the inlet valve is closed and the
isentropic expansion process starts, during which the pressure
and the temperature become lower. The length of the piston
stroke is such that the point 9* is reached. After that the outlet
valve is opened and the flue gas is flowing out to the turbocharger at constant pressure (3 bar in Figs.1a and 1b). All the
flue gas is pushed off at constant pressure to the zero dead
volume and then the process is repeated by filling the cylinder
again by hot flue gas with a high pressure. The turbine unit of
the turbocharger is rotating the shaft of the compressor which
is feeding air into the special external membrane combustion chamber. That external membrane combustion chamber is
assumed to produce the flue gas out at high pressure without
any remarkable additional work (only the compression work for
fuel feeding) and theoretically with zero entropy generation.
The efficiency of this type of a combustion engine shown
Fig.1b is much higher than the engine in Fig.1a because the
compression work (3-4 in Fig.1a) is not needed and because
the expansion (point 8) continues down to 3 bar whereas it
stops now (Fig.1a) at 12 bar, which means that more expansion work can be taken out to the crank shaft by the process.
Fig. 1a. Turbocharged diesel engine process.
Combustion takes place between 4-5-6-7.
Fig. 1b. Turbocharged external membrane combustion engine.
Combustion only between 2*-4*.
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Exergy MIDE
3 Gas turbine process
Also for the gas turbine processes the exergy losses in the
combustion chamber are of crucial importance. In a methane
gas driven power plant in Finland the gas turbine gives out 94
MW of shaft power with the flue gas inlet at 1100oC and pressure 11 bar (abs). The compressor driven by the gas turbine
takes 54MW which means that the shaft power delivered to the
generator is 94 MW – 54 MW = 40 MW. By reducing sufficiently
the entropy generation in the combustion unit the outlet pressure of 11 bar could be achieved without using the compressor
at all, and thus the whole turbine power could be transferred
to the generator which of course, would increase the efficiency
essentially. The principal power process based on the use of
the theoretical isentropic combustion chamber is shown in
Fig.2.
Fig. 2. Illustration of an ideal theoretical gas turbine process
where the combustion takes place isentropically [1].
Figure 2 shows the theoretical limits for the gas turbine process if the entropy generation is zero in the combustion
chamber and also in the turbine. If σ irr = 0 in the combustion chamber, then as shown in Fig.2, the outlet pressure will
be as high as pout = 746 bar . This is, of course just a theoretical number, but it shows that there is a great potential to
improve the conventional combustion process. For instance,
to achieve pressure ratio pout / pin = 11 in the combustion chamber with carbon as fuel and with λ =1, we need to
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MIDE Exergy
decrease entropy generation from σ irr = 366 J / molK only
to σ irr = 270 J / molK. In the following we will shortly discuss how we could do this by a membrane combustion.
4 Principle of semipermeable membrane combustion
Ceramic membranes made of yttria-stabilized zirconia (in Fig.3:
ZrO2/Y2O3) has the property that in sufficient high temperatures
(800-1000 oC) they start to conduct oxygen ions (O2-). The ionic
conductivity depends on the amount of yttria in the structure.
Approximately half of the amount of yttria atoms in the crystalline structure can offer vacancies to be occupied by “hopping”
oxygen ions. These materials are well known from Solid Oxide
Fuel Cells and from lamda-sensors used in cars for measuring
the oxygen concentration in flue gases.
As shown in Fig.3, the oxygen gas is consumed on the surface of the combustion side and therefore, the partial pressure
of oxygen gas becomes there lower than on the surface of the
airside. Because of the ionic form of oxygen, the difference of
partial pressures generates a potential difference, which can
be estimated by Nernst equation (see Fig.3). The electric field
performed by the potential difference is the driving force for
the oxygen transport through the membrane. Depending on the
concentration of oxygen ions, the electric volumetric force field
(ion charge density x electric field, N/m3) can be amplified to
several magnitudes higher than the partial pressure gradient of
oxygen gas.
Fig. 3. Semipermeable oxygen gas membrane.
Electric potential difference across the membrane is
illustrated by assuming that the partial pressures of
oxygen are 0.21 bar (on the air side) and 0.1 bar
(on the flue gas side).
The total pressure of the flue gas p(B) is kept higher than
the total pressure of air p(A) by adjusting the outlet flow
of flue gas accordingly.
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Exergy MIDE
Recently, it has been studied the ionic and electronic charge
transport for single crystals of yttria-stabilized zirconia with
additional nitrogen doping, e.g. [3] and [4]. At temperatures
above 850 oC, even in the presence of a very small oxygen
concentration in the surrounding gas phase, the nitrogen ion
dopant becomes highly mobile, and thus diffuses to the surface where it is oxidized to gaseous N2(g). The technical motivation for that study [3] has been to achieve sufficient nitrogen
ion conductivity for the development of a nitrogen sensor or
nitrogen pumps. In the membrane combustion the driving force
for the nitrogen transportation comes also from the electric
field generated by the oxidation of the fuel. The flow of nitrogen
gas lowers the temperature of the membrane, which merely by
oxygen combustion would be too high. A construction using
nitrogen and oxygen gas semipermeable membranes is shown
in Fig.4.
Fig. 4. Hollow ceramic fibers used in
the membrane combustion. Fuel (here
the methane gas) is fed in the fibers
and air outside of the fibers.
Fig. 5. Combustion system with
non-CO2-permeating membrane
combined with ideal piston engine
In the figure above, combustion reactor with a non-CO2permeating membrane, generates pressure to a piston engine.
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MIDE Exergy
5 Improvement by flue gas
recirculation
In isochoric combustion (constant volume) combustion reactions increases the pressure of the combustion chamber by
increasing the temperature in the chamber. The second law of
thermodynamics shows that potential of pressure increase in
ideal combustion is much higher than just resulting from the
increased temperature in isochoric combustion.
Fig. 6. Pressure increase in terms
of entropy generation in
combustion with different air-fuel
ratios.
5.1 Flue gas recirculation
Combustion process reaction balance conditions can be
reached after with flue gas recirculation. As the recirculation is increased, the entropy generation in the combustion is
decreased, as illustrated in the figure below.
Fig. 7. Entropy generation and flue
gas recirculation in combustion,
Where amount of flue gases from
stoichiometric combustion is 1 and
added recirculated flue gas from
the combustion is K (Master thesis
of Marjut Penttinen)
As can be seen form the figure above, already with recirculation
factor 1 significant reduction in entropy generation in combustion of coal can be achieved.
σ irr = 366 J / molK → σ irr = 200 J / molK (λ = 1)
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Exergy MIDE
6 Methods to minimize exergy losses in combustion processes
Methods for realizing the self-pressurizing combustion processes were studied. Two methods for self-pressurized combustion were developed; mobile chambers compressing gas
with Comprex-principle, and membrane combustion technology.
Fig. 8. Mobile chambers with
comprex principle, combined with
CO2 recirculation together with
gas turbines
In the figure above mobile gas reactors where high pressure
reactors pressurize low pressure reactors. Comprex systems
capability to increase pressure was measured experimentally
(Figure 9).
Fig. 9. Comprex charger
capability to increase pressure
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MIDE Exergy
7 Experiments
These process principles above were studied theoretically and
practical tests with oxygen conducting membrane in the form of
an oxygen sensor were done (Figure 10).
Fig. 10. Oxygen ion flow through
an oxygen ion conducting membrane from an oxygen sensor was
measured in practice.
In the experiments oxygen flow through an oxygen ion conducting membrane was measured. Due to the membrane qualities the oxygen flow rate was quite small but still noticeable.
In order to cool down the combustion, possibilities to transport nitrogen to the combustion chamber through a membrane
were also studied. In theory it was calculated that combustion reactions in the combustion chamber could drive oxygen
and nitrogen into the combustion chamber and pressurize the
reactor (Equation 5, Figure 11).
(1−
Fig.11. Stefan-flow of nitrogen
in the pore of the membrane
generated with the oxygen flow.
180
∂c
cN 2
c
) jN 2 = N 2 jO2 − DN 2/ / memb N 2
c
c
∂x
(5)
Exergy MIDE
8 Summary of co-operation
and achievements
8.1 Publications
Conference papers
1. Markku J. Lampinen, Ralf Wikstén, Arto Sarvi, Kari Saari and Marjut Penttinen: Minimization of exergy losses in
combustion processes and its consequences. XXII Sitges Conference on Statistical Mechanics. Energy Conversion: From Nanomachines to Renewable Sources. Sitges,
Barcelona, Spain, 7-11. June 2010.
2. Finnish-Swedish Flame Days, Naantali, 28-29.1.2009
(conference presentation only)
Theses
Master’s thesis, Marjut Penttinen, 2009
Side projects, follow-up projects
MIDE EXERGY follow-up project, years 2011-2012
8.2 Participants
Departments involved in the project
Department of Energy Technology
Staff divided by departments
Department of energy technologies, Aalto University
Prof. Markku Lampinen, Head of the laboratory, months
2008-10 (4 4,4)
DSc Maunu Kuosa, Project manager, months 2008-10
(1, 2.5, 2.5)
Lic.Sc. Kari Saari, months 2008-10 (1, -, -)
M.Sc. Ralf Wikstén, months 2008-10 (4 , -, -)
M.Sc. Marjut Penttinen, Master thesis worker, months 2008-10
(6, 12, 12)
Pasi Petra
University of Turku
B.Ph. Lassi Hietarinta, months 2008-10 (8, -, -)
M.Ph. Jenni Sallinen, months 2008-10 (2, -, -)
Åbo Akademi
Dr. Arto Sarvi
Keijo Rauhala, months 2008-10 (-, -, 2)
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MIDE Exergy
8.3 Co-operation
Aalto-level
Aalto University School of Arts
Prof. Tapio Yli-Viikari. Preparing of porous ceramic supports
International
Stockholm University, Arrhenius Laboratory
Prof. James Chen, Production engineering
Prof. Aatto Laaksonen, Computer modelling and
simulation in Chemistry
Dr. Vladimir Sizov, Perovskite behaviour simulation
University of Twente (Netherlands)
Dr. H.J.M. Bouwmeester
Dr. Johan Elshof, YSZ-perovskite doping
Dr. David Salamon, Capillary tube coating
Industry
Finnish Special Glass Oy, Espoo: Ceramic manufacturing aid
Friatech, Mannheim, Germany: Ceramic tube manufacturing
RHI Gmbh, Austria: Preparing of porous ceramic supports
Hyflux Ltd: Singapore, Ceramic support tubes
8.4 Experiences from the project work
and feedback from the research program
The development of the exergy loss model – or called also
the loss of available work – in different parts of the combustion process has been successful. We have a well-functioning
designing tool at our disposal to analyze complex chemical
combustion systems. This part of the work is currently a part of
the teaching program for our students.
One of the setbacks has been that we have not invented
what type of realistic process would give the minimum exergy
loss and how – in principle – the theoretically optimal solution
should look like. The numbers of exergy loss calculations say
that the ideal process is possible but it does not say how to do
it. We have not changed the research plan for this reason, we
have continued seeking the solution in various directions. One
and a very promising one seems to be the membranes which
are made of oxygen ion conducting materials (or recently
oxygen storage materials).
The research program MIDE has been really very well organized and the atmosphere has been pleasant and encouraging all
the time during the program. The leadership – all the team – was
motivating and has carried out the program with a very small
bureaucracy. We would not change anything in the system.
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Exergy MIDE
References
[1] M.J. Lampinen, R. Wiksten, A. Sarvi, K. Saari and
M. Penttinen: Minimization of exergy losses in combustion
processes and its consequences. XXII Sitges Conference on
Statistical Mechanics. Energy Conversion: From Nanomachines
to Renewable Sources. Sitges, Barcelona, Spain, 7-11, June
2010.
[2] M.J. Lampinen and R. Wiksten, Theory of effective heatabsorbing and heat-emitting temperatures in entropy and
exergy analysis with applications to flow systems and
combustion processes. Journal of Non-Equilibrium
Thermodynamics 31, 2006, pp. 257-291.
[3] I. Valov, V. Ruhrup, R. Klein, T.-C. Rödel, A. Stork,
S. Berendts, M. Dogan, H.-D. Wiemhöfer, M. Lerch, J. Janek,
Ionic and electronic conductivity of nitrogen-doped YSZ single
crystals. Solid State Ionics 180, 2009, pp. 1463-1470.
[4] M. Lerch, J. Janek, K.D. Becker, S. Brendts, H. Boysen,
T. Bredow, R. Dronskowski, S.G. Ebbinghaus, M. Kilo, M.W.
Lumey, M. Martin, C. Reimann, E. Schweda, I. Valov, H.D.,
Wiemhöfer, Oxide nitrides: From oxides to solids with mobile
nitrogen ions. Progress in Solid State Chemistry 37, 2009, pp.
81-131.
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MIDE HighLight
High efficiency solid state lighting enabled by
new technologies – HighLight
Length: 2008-2013
Budget: 1 884 000 €
Project management:
Prof. Harri Lipsanen,
Department of Micro and
Nanosciences
Prof. Jukka Tulkki,
Department of Biomedical
Engineering and Computational
Science
Prof. Kyösti Kontturi,
Department of Chemistry
Prof. Filip Tuomisto,
Department of Applied Physics
Prof. Liisa Halonen,
Department of Electronics
{harri.lipsanen, jukka.tulkki,
kyosti.kontturi, filip.tuomisto,
liisa.halonen}@aalto.fi
Steering group representatives
from the City of Espoo,
Fortum Plc, Technology
Industries of Finland
Centennial Foundation
and University of Helsinki
184
Abstract
Lighting is the largest single user of electric energy and a rapidly growing source of energy demand and greenhouse gas
emissions. In 2005 the electricity consumed by lighting was 2
650 TWh worldwide, about 19 % of the total global electricity
consumption. The main goal of HighLight has been to contribute
to fabricating, designing, understanding and deploying solid
state lighting technologies that enable significant reductions in
global electricity consumption. This is possible because the efficiency of LEDs by far exceeds the efficiency of any other light
sources. In fact we have shown that the electricity-to-light conversion efficiency of LEDs can even exceed 100%, as thermal
energy can provide a part of the energy of the emitted light.
The research and more detailed goals of HighLight were
divided under several related research topics which resulted in
numerous journal articles (53) and conference articles as well
as several doctoral thesis (8) and other publications, new collaboration, spin-off research programs and even some fairly
extensive media coverage on contact lenses embedding LED
matrices. As selected most important achievements one could
mention the better understanding of the thermodynamic limits
of the light emission enabling the electricity-to-light conversion
efficiencies exceeding 100 %, new insight on the degradation
of the blue LEDs and lasers leading to the currently modest
lifetime of blue lasers in particular and contact lenses embedding LED matrices.
HighLight MIDE
1 Research goals and
achievements
The achievable efficiency of LEDs by far exceeds the efficiency
of any other light source, like incandescent light bulbs (~5 %)
and lighting based on fluorescent and high-intensity discharge
(HID) technologies (~40 %). While fluorescent and HID lighting
are mature technologies introduced more than half a century
ago, LED based SSL technology has been evolving rapidly after
major breakthroughs were made in fabrication of wide band gap
compound semiconductors in the beginning of the 90s. As a
result the overall electric energy to light conversion efficiency of
commercially available SSL has increased from the 2008 level
of ~20 % to even well over 50 %. Furthermore, the investigations
of the thermodynamics of light emission conducted in HighLight
have shown that the electricity-to-light conversion efficiency of
LEDs can eventually even exceed 100%, as thermal energy can
provide a part of the energy of the emitted light.
The research and more detailed goals of HighLight were
divided under several related research topics. These topics
and the related main research results are briefly introduced
below.
­
1.1 Improving the material quality of LEDs
One of the largest problems with materials based on GaN has
been the lack of substrates with matching lattice constant and
the resulting large defect density and large nonradiative recombination rate in LEDs based on GaN. Currently most GaN based
components are fabricated on a sapphire substrate. Due to the
lattice mismatch between the two materials, a large number of
crystal defects are produced. The defects decrease the internal
quantum efficiency (IQE) of the material. One of the main goals
of HighLight was to improve the IQE and material quality of the
GaN based LED structures by studying and reducing defects
and their density on a molecular scale, and by improving the
fabrication and characterization methods for LED materials.
Much of the experimental work aimed at increasing the
material quality and reducing the effect of crystal defects,
non-radiative recombination and resistive losses by advanced
buffer layers and fabrication methods as well as by substrate
patterning techniques and by new LED structure geometries.
These studies made in collaboration with Ioffe Institute helped
e.g. to understand how substrate patterning affects the dislocation bending mechanisms.
For reduced dislocation density we also studied the growth
and material quality of the GaN-material grown homoepitaxi-
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MIDE HighLight
ally on ammonothermal GaN, in collaboration with HASYLAB
DESY in Germany and a Polish company Ammono. In this joint
research a record low threading dislocation density (TDD) of
1.2x104 /cm2 was achieved.
One of the focus areas of this topic was the use of patterned sapphire and GaN templates in the fabrication process
of LEDs to simultaneously improve the light extraction from the
LED chip as well as to control the strain in the active region
of the device. A process to pattern sapphire substrates was
developed in the early stages of highlight. As a result of the
patterning the light output of LED was increased by as much
as 20% due to light scattering as well as the reduced strain
and dislocation density in the LED structure. Similar results
were also obtained for an alternative patterning method consisting of etching of GaN films and subsequent regrowth of
these films with an LED structure. In this method the patterning
of the GaN film created voids inside the film. Furthermore it
was possible to control the void shape to increase the light
extraction from the LED chips.
­
1.2 Improving the light extraction
from LED materials
The refractive index of typical III-N semiconductors is fairly
high (~2.5) and causes a large fraction of the emitted light to
remain confined within the LED chip and not emitted into free
space. Increasing the light extraction efficiency is a crucial
factor in increasing the efficiency of LEDs. In HighLight we have
been focusing on improving light extraction by scattering due
to rough surfaces and by plasmonic structures making use of
metallic nanostructures or patterns to increase both radiative
recombination rate as well as scattering.
The surface treatments have been made by etching and
patterning of the sapphire substrates as well as by using templated nanostructures (Ag, Co, ZnO) and ZnO nanoforests
deposited on the semiconductor and other surfaces. The
developed chemical deposition methods have used e.g. nanoparticles prepared by a wet chemical technique followed by
controlled deposition on surfaces using covalent linkers. The
processes were refined so that we can prepare monodisperse
particles with tunable size in the 5-12 nm size range of both
gold and silver (see Fig. 1 for an example) and control the distribution of the particles at the surface to create e.g. gradients
in the nanoparticle concentration. The wet chemical approach
was also extended to the growth of aligned ZnO rods at surfaces by hydrothermal deposition.
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HighLight MIDE
Fig. 1. SEM images of a GaN LED with a
gold pattern electrodeposited onto a PS
template with a periodicity of 600 nm.
Coupling the light emitters to plasmonic structures to enhance
light emission rate in parallel to enhancing light extraction by
scattering allows also increasing the light emission rate. The
plasmonic structures have been studied in collaboration with
Prof. Joel Bellessa from the Laboratoire de Physique de la Matiere Condensee et Nanostructures of Universite Claude Bernard
Lyon 1. The interpretation of the experimentally observed strong
interference patterns originating from the guided modes and
plasmonic modes present in the measured LED structures were
mapped out by the simulation tools developed in HighLight.
It was found that the luminescence enhancement obtained
through the gratings may be considerable. Very recently we
have also been studying the additional losses the metallic gratings add to the structure, and our results confirm the well known
premise that the losses are not negligible, but can be well over
90% if care is not taken to minimize them.
1.3 Physics and characterization of defects
To improve the material quality one has to know the defect
types and their distribution in the LED structures. We have used
characterization by positron annihilation spectroscopy to unambiguously identify and quantify vacancy defects and their surrounding atoms in semiconductors. The close collaboration
with the National Center of Excellence COMP (Acad. Prof. Risto
Nieminen) of the Department of Applied Physics has also enabled the interpretation of the positron experiments on the basis
of ab initio electronic structure calculations. This research has
helped to understand e.g. mechanisms of electrical compensation and the origin of optical absorption, as well as the radiative
and nonradiative recombination processes. These experiments
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MIDE HighLight
have enabled new methods to measure the quality of the QW
interfaces in the LEDs and generate new physics about positrons confined in low-dimensional structures.
In addition, the construction of the pulsed positron beam
(only two similar instruments exist in the world) has paved the
way for even better possibilities in nitride semiconductor and
device structure research. The information obtained from positron annihilation spectroscopy combined with photoluminescence measurements of electron beam irradiated samples has
also revealed that the electron beam energy dissipation density was a key factor in luminescence reduction of the samples. The strongest decrease in luminescence intensity was
observed with lowest energy electron beam, which has very
tight energy dissipation confinement. Based on the results, we
found that current induced point defect activation is a possible
cause for the degradation of GaN-based laser diodes (LD) and
could explain the somewhat modest lifetime of blue LDs.
1.4 Thermodynamics of light emission and new current injection structures
Computational and theoretical models have played an important role in helping to interpret many experimental results in the
project as well as in understanding and predicting the various
transport and energy conversion effects present in LEDs. The
heating of high power LEDs is currently the most important
single factor limiting general use of SSL luminaire. Thermodynamical analysis, however, shows that the heating problems
can, in principle, be fully solved by increasing the efficiency of
light emission. In fact, since the electricity-to-light conversion
efficiency of LEDs can even exceed 100%, the problem may be
reversed in the future: in order for a LED to operate most efficiently one needs to provide heat for the LED. The present efficiency of wide band gap LEDs is naturally still far from the thermodynamic limit and there is still much room for improvement.
In addition to the thermodynamic models we have also
developed simplified LED models as well as more complete
models for describing photon, current and energy transport in
semiconductors. The simple models are particularly well suitable e.g. for simple characterization for the effective recombination and photon recycling coefficients by measuring the current-voltage-light output curves of LEDs. These models allow
straightforward estimation of the optical and material quality of
LED structures.
The initial computational models for light extraction allowed
also to explain and model in detail the experimentally well
known fact that scattering surfaces improve light extraction
from LEDs. Since the early models based on radiative transfer
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HighLight MIDE
equations we have developed the models further by developing
Green’s function based methods to solve Maxwell’s equations
in the fluctuational electrodynamics picture. The approach provides a complete picture of light emission and absorption in
structures exhibiting emission, absorption and interference in
terms of semiclassical theory of electrodynamics.
In modeling current transport we have recently focused in
modeling more complex 2- and 3-dimensional structures that
may offer significant advantages compared to the conventional
essentially 1D structures. As a result we have developed new
LED structures in which the active region is located outside
the conventional pn-junction and both electrons and holes flow
to the active region from the same direction, unlike in conventional LEDs. These studies have now advanced to experiments
with this far promising results.
1.5 Energy efficient lighting solutions
LEDs are sensitive to junction temperature and the raise of junction temperature decreases the luminous flux and shifts the
peak wavelength to longer wavelengths. In order to facilitate
the deployment of LEDs in various environments like buildings,
plant lighting, lighting powered with sustainable energy sources
and lighting on demand applications, it is important to understand how the environment affects LED performance. To this
end, we have studied the effect of junction temperature on the
properties of LEDs, measured their photometric performance
and surveyed LED solutions for outdoor applications. A special
application has been using LEDs and solar cells in rural areas
in developing countries where there is no electric network. The
practically instantaneous response of LEDs and their spectral
efficacy also allows efficient lighting and automatic light control in new applications, like street lighting and greenhouses.
The fact that both photosynthetic pigments and photosensory
system of plants absorb mainly blue and red light provides an
opportunity to control plant’s development and optimize photosynthesis with LED based radiation sources.
Tests for measuring the temperature dependence of the
current-voltage-light output properties of LEDs were made
and prototype luminaire in which the luminous flux and luminous intensity distribution are suitable for outdoor use were
designed. A vital research point was also the heat transfer unit.
The functionality of LED lighting combined with solar panels in
developing countries as well as in an office building in Finland
and the availability of solar energy in different geographical
locations was also studied. The aim of the work was to understand the advantages and disadvantages of the photovoltaic
systems and the optimum combination of the PV systems for
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MIDE HighLight
lighting. This involved measurements in a one room house in
Sudan using LED, fluorescent and incandescent lamps. The
costs analysis comparing photovoltaics and diesel generators
in Sudan showed that, in the Finnish conditions photovoltaic
systems may be combined with AC power sources and DC rectifiers. However, in Sudan conditions where solar radiation is
available all the year photovoltaic systems can be used without
inverters. LED lighting combined with solar panels was found
to be suitable for lighting in developing countries. Photovoltaic
systems have shown a high potential for electricity generation
in Sudan.
Optimized cooling design of outdoor LED luminaires, and
other outdoor electronics, is not possible without better knowledge of ambient cooling conditions and their variation. Temperatures and wind speeds have a significant effect on heat
transfer between the enclosure surfaces and their surroundings. In the case of LEDs, where optical characteristics, reliability, and lifetime depend strongly on temperature, information
on not only the worst case, but also on average operating conditions is needed. The data indicated that the design parameters for optimised cooling of outdoor LED luminaires vary
significantly between installation locations. In an example simulation, over 40% reductions in weight and cooling area were
achieved using a location specific approach.
2 Output
2.1 List of publications
Doctoral theses
Muhammad Ali, Experimental investigations on growth of GaNbased materials for light emitting applications, 2012.
Aapo Lankinen, Synchrotron X-Ray Diffraction Topography of
Semiconductor Heterostructures, 2012.
Jussi-Matti Mäki, Influence of vacancy defects on the optical
properties of natural diamond and aluminum nitride, 2012.
Pekka Törmä, Approaches for optimizing light emitting diode
structures based on III-N materials, 2011.
Ater Amogpai, LED lighting combined with solar panels in
developing countries, 2011.
Floris Reurings, Slow positrons in materials science: pulsed positron beam and defect studies in indium nitride, 2010.
Teppo Häyrynen, Quantum trajectory approach to statistics of
amplified and damped cavity systems, 2010.
Sami Suihkonen, Fabrication of InGaN quantum wells for LED,
2008.
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Licentiate’s thesis
Nguyet Doan, Studies of synthesis, oxidation and surface
assembly of cobalt, and gold nanoparticles, 2011.
Master’s theses
Tanja Kuittinen, Optinen transienttipositronispektroskopia:
mittausmoodien kehittäminen ja testaus luonnontimanteilla,
2012.
Lauri Riuttanen, Thermal Annealing of AlN Thin Films Fabricated by Plasma-Enhanced Atomic Layer Deposition for GaN
Epitaxy, 2010.
Pyry Kivisaari, The effect of current injection geometry on current spreading in semiconductor LEDs, 2010.
Jahkonen, Jaana, Cooling of LED-luminaire, 2009.
Esa Korhonen, Pulssitetun positronisuihkun ohjausjärjestelmän kehitys ja tulosten analysointi, 2009.
Emilie Quillet, Towards enhanced efficiency of InGaN/GaN
single quantum well Gallium Nitride Light Emitting Diode by
plasmonic nanostructures, 2009.
Oskari Heikkilä, Numerical modeling of high efficiency LEDs,
2008.
Journal articles
1. S. Suihkonen, H. Nykänen, T., M. Yamaguchi, Y. Honda, H. Amano, “Effects of low energy e-beam irradiation on cathodoluminescence from GaN”, physica status solidi (a), 210, 383, (2013), IF 1.5.
2. E. Homeyer, P. Mattila, J. Oksanen, T. Sadi, H. Nykänen, S. Suihkonen, C. Symonds, J. Tulkki, F. Tuomisto, M. Sopanen, and J. Bellessa, “Enhanced light extraction from InGaN/GaN quantum wells with silver gratings”, Applied Physics Letters, 102, 081110 (2013), IF 3.8.
3. Olsson, A., Aierken, A., Oksanen, J., Suihkonen, S.,
Lipsanen, H., Tulkki, J., “Temperature dependence of droop onset in optically pumped intrinsic InGaAs/InP hetero structures”, Applied Physics Letters, 102, 081123 (2013), IF 3.8.
4. Oskari Heikkilä, Jani Oksanen, and Jukka Tulkki.
“Influence of Internal Absorption and Interference on the Optical Efficiency of Thin-film GaN-InGaN Light-emitting Diodes.” Applied Physics Letters 102, no. 11 (March 21, 2013): 111111–111111–4. doi:doi:10.1063/1.4798326,
IF 3.8.
5. T. Sadi, J. Oksanen, J. Tulkki, P. Mattila, and J. Bellessa. “The Green’s Function Description of Emission
Enhancement in Grated LED Structures.” IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics 19, no. 5 (2013): 7800209–7800209. doi:10.1109/JSTQE.2013.2247569,
IF 4.1
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6. K. Sääskilahti, J. Oksanen, and J. Tulkki. “Thermal Balance and Quantum Heat Transport in Nanostructures
Thermalized by Local Langevin Heat Baths.” Phys. Rev. E 88, no. 1 (July 2013): 012128. doi:10.1103/
PhysRevE.88.012128, IF 2.3.
7. S. Suihkonen, M. Ali, P.T. Törmä, S. Sintonen, O. Svensk, M. Sopanen, H. Lipsanen, V. N. Nevedomsky, and N. A. Bert, “Analysis of Dislocations Generated during Metal–
Organic Vapor Phase Epitaxy of GaN on Patterned
Templates”, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 52, 01AF01, (2013), IF 1.1.
8. H. Nykänen, S. Suihkonen, M. Sopanen, F. Tuomisto,
“Thermally assisted recovery of low energy electron beam irradiation induced optical degradation of GaN”, physica status solidi C 10, 461-463 (2013), IF 0.7.
9. L. Riuttanen, P. Kivisaari, N. Mäntyoja, J. Oksanen, M. Ali, S. Suihkonen, and M. Sopanen, “Recombination lifetime in InGaN/GaN based light emitting diodes at low current
densities by differential carrier lifetime analysis”. physica status solidi (c), Vol. 10, no 3, p. 327 (2013) , IF 0.7.
10. F. Tuomisto, J.-M. Mäki, C. Rauch, and I. Makkonen, “On the formation of vacancy defects in III-nitride semiconductors”, J. Crystal Growth 350, 95 (2012), IF 1.6.
11. H. Nykänen, S. Suihkonen, L. Kilanski, M. Sopanen, and F. Tuomisto, “Low energy electron beam induced vacancy
activation in GaN”, Appl. Phys. Lett. 100, 122105 (2012),
IF 3.8.
12. I. Makkonen, C. Rauch, J.-M. Mäki, and F. Tuomisto,
“Chemical analysis using coincidence Doppler broadening and supporting first-principles theory: applications to vacancy defects in compound semiconductors”, Physica B 407, 2684 (2012), IF 1.3.
13. J.-M. Mäki, T. Kuittinen, E. Korhonen, and F. Tuomisto,
“Positron lifetime spectroscopy with optical excitation: case study of natural diamond”, New J. Phys. 14, 035023 (2012), IF 4.1.
14. K. Sääskilahti, J. Oksanen, R. Linna, J. Tulkki, “Thermal
conduction and interface effects in nanoscale Fermi-
Pasta-Ulam conductors”. Physical Review E, Vol. 86, no 3, 031107, 2012, IF 2.3.
15. M. Ali, A.E. Romanov, S. Suihkonen, O. Svensk, S. Sintonen, M. Sopanen, H. Lipsanen, V.N. Nevedomsky, N.A. Bert, M.A. Odnoblyudov, V.E. Bougrov, “Analysis of threading
dislocations in void shape controlled GaN re-grown on
hexagonally patterned mask-less GaN”, J. Cryst. Growth 344, 59 (2012), IF 1.6.
16. M.Ali, L. Riuttanen, M. Kruse, S. Suihkonen, A.E. Romanov, P. T. Törmä, M. Sopanen, H. Lipsanen M. A. Odnoblyudov and V. E. Bougrov, “Enhancement of near-UV GaN LED light extraction efficiency by GaN/sapphire template patterning”, 192
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Semicond. Sci. Technol. 27, 082002, (2012), IF 1.9.
17. Nguyet Doan, Tuomas Vainikka, Eeva-Leena Rautama, Kyösti
Kontturi, Christoffer Johans, “Electrodeposition of
Macroporous Zn and ZnO Films from Ionic Liquids”, Int. J. Electrochem. Sci., 7 (2012) 12034 – 12044, IF 3.7.
18. O. Svensk, M. Ali, L. Riuttanen, P.T. Törmä, S. Sintonen, S. Suihkonen, M. Sopanen, H. Lipsanen, “Fabrication of GaN structures with embedded network of voids using pillar patterned GaN templates”, J. Cryst. Growth, Vol. 370, p. 42–45 (2013), IF 1.6.
19. P. Kivisaari, J. Oksanen, and J. Tulkki, “Effects of lateral
current injection in GaN multi-quantum well light-emitting diodes”. J. Appl. Phys. 111, 103120, 2012, IF 2.2.
20. P. Kivisaari, L. Riuttanen, J. Oksanen, S. Suihkonen, M. Ali, H. Lipsanen, and J. Tulkki, “Electrical measurement of internal quantum efficiency and extraction efficiency of III-N light-emitting diodes”. Appl. Phys. Lett. 101, 021113 (2012), IF 3.8
21. H. Nykänen, S. Suihkonen, L. Kilanski, M. Sopanen, and F. Tuomisto, “Low energy electron beam induced damage on gallium nitride based materials”, physica status solidi C. 9, 1563, (2012) , IF 0.7.
22. O. Svensk, S. Suihkonen, S. Sintonen, O. Kopylov, R.
Shirazi, H. Lipsanen, M. Sopanen and B.E. Kardynal, “MOCVD growth and characterization of near-surface InGaN/GaN single quantum wells for non-radiative coupling of optical excitations”, physica status solidi C. 9, 1667, (2012) , IF 0.7.
23. S. Sintonen, M. Ali, S. Suihkonen, P. Kostamo, O. Svensk, M. Sopanen, H. Lipsanen, C. Paulmann, T.O. Tuomi, and M. Zajac, “Synchrotron radiation X-ray topography and X-ray diffraction of homoepitaxial GaN grown on ammonothermal GaN”, physica status solidi C. 9, 1630, (2012) , IF 0.7.
24. A.R. Lingley, M. Ali, Y. Liao, R. Mirjalili, M. Klonner, M. Sopanen, S. Suihkonen, T. Shen, B.P. Otis, H. Lipsanen and B. A. Parviz, “A single-pixel wireless contact lens display”, J. Micromech. Microeng. 21, 125014 (2011), IF 1.8.
25. H. Nykänen, P. Mattila, S. Suihkonen, J. Riikonen, E. Quillet, E. Homeyer, J. Bellessa and M. Sopanen, “Low energy elec
tron beam induced damage on InGaN/GaN quantum well structure”, J. Appl. Phys. 109, 083105 (2011), IF 2.2.
26. J.-M. Mäki, F. Tuomisto, A. Varpula, D. Fisher, R. U. A. Khan, and P. M. Martineau, “Time dependence of charge transfer processes in diamond studied with positrons”, Physical Review Letters 107, 217403 (2011), IF 7.9.
27. J.-M. Mäki, I. Makkonen, F. Tuomisto, A. Karjalainen, S. Suihkonen, J. Räisänen, T. Yu. Chemekova, and Yu.N. Makarov, “Identification of the V-O-defect complex in AlN single crystals”, Phys. Rev. B 84, 0812041(R) (2011), 3.8.
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28. M. Ali, A.E. Romanov, S. Suihkonen, O. Svensk, P.T. Törmä, M. Sopanen, H. Lipsanen, M.A. Odnoblyudov and V.E.
Bougrov, “Void shape control in GaN re-grown on
hexagonally patterned mask-less GaN”, J. Cryst. Growth 315, 188 (2011), IF 1.6.
29. O. Heikkilä, J. Oksanen, and J. Tulkki, “Light extraction limits in textured GaN-InGaN light-emitting diodes: Radiative transfer analysis,” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 99, p. 161110, 2011, IF 3.8.
30. O. Toikkanen, N. Doan, M. Erdmanis, H. Lipsanen, K.
Kontturi, B. Parviz, “Building Molecular Surface Gradients with Electron Beam Lithography”, J. Micromech. Microeng. 21 (2011) 054025, IF 1.8.
31. T. Häyrynen, J. Oksanen, and J. Tulkki, “Dynamics of cavity fields with dissipative and amplifying couplings through
multiple quantum two-state systems,” Physical Review A, vol. 83, no. 1, p. 013801, Jan. 2011, IF 3.0.
32. S. Sintonen, M. Ali, P. T. Törmä, S. Suihkonen, P. Kostamo, O. Svensk, M. Sopanen, H. Lipsanen, C. Paulmann, T. O. Tuomi, “X-ray diffraction study of GaN grown on patterned substrates”, phys. stat. sol. (c) 8, 1524 (2011) , IF 0.7.
33. S. Suihkonen, M. Ali, O. Svensk, S. Sintonen, M. Sopanen, H. Lipsanen, P.T. Törmä, V. Nevedomsky, N. Bert,
“Patterning of sapphire / GaN substrates”, phys. stat. sol. (c) 8, 1509 (2011) , IF 0.7.
34. C. Rauch, F. Reurings, F. Tuomisto, T. D .Veal,
C. F. McConville, H. Lu, W. J. Schaff, C. S. Gallinat, G.
Koblmueller, J. S. Speck, and W. Egger, “In vacancies in
Si-doped InN”, Physica status solidi (a) 207, 1083–1086 (2010), IF 1.5.
35. F. Reurings, C. Rauch, F. Tuomisto, R. E. Jones, K. M. Yu, W. Walukiewicz, and W. J. Schaff, “Defect redistribution in post-irradiation rapid-thermal-annealed InN”, Physical Review B 82, 153202:1–4 (2010), IF 3.8.
36. F. Reurings, F. Tuomisto, G. Koblmüller, C. S. Gallinat, and J. S. Speck, “In vacancies in plasma-assisted molecular
beam epitaxy grown InN”, Applied Physics Letters 97, 251907:1–3 (2010), IF 3.8.
37. F. Reurings, F. Tuomisto, Z. Liliental-Weber, R. E. Jones, K. M. Yu, W. Walukiewicz, W. J. Schaff, and W. Egger,
“Irradiation-induced defects in InN and GaN studied with positron annihilation”, physica status solidi (a) 207, 1087–
1090 (2010), IF 1.5.
38. F. Tuomisto, J.-M. Mäki, and M. Zajac, “Vacancy defects in bulk ammonothermal GaN crystals”, Journal of Crystal Growth 312, 2620–2623 (2010), IF 1.6.
39. G. Koblmüller, F. Reurings, F. Tuomisto, and J. S. Speck, “Influence of Ga/N ratio on morphology, Ga vacancies and electrical transport in (0001) GaN grown by plasma-assisted 194
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molecular beam epitaxy at high temperature”, Applied Physics Letters 97, 191915:1–3 (2010), IF 3.8.
40. I. Makkonen, A. Snicker, M. J. Puska, J.-M. Mäki, and
F. Tuomisto, “Interface sensitivity of positrons in polar semiconductor heterostructures”, Physical Review B 82, 041307(R):1–4 (2010), IF 3.8.
41. J. Oksanen and J. Tulkki, “Drooping as a simple
characterization tool for extraction efficiency and optical losses in light emitting diodes”, Applied Physics Letters, 2010. Vol. 97, No 13, IF 3.8.
42. J. Oksanen and J. Tulkki, “Thermophotonic heat pump - a theoretical model and numerical simulations,” Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 107, no. 9, p. 093106, 2010, IF 2.2.
43. O. Heikkilä, J. Oksanen, and J. Tulkki, “The challenge of unity wall plug efficiency: The effects of internal heating on the efficiency of light emitting diodes,” Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 107, Feb. 2010, pp. 033105-6, IF 2.2.
44. P.T. Törmä, M. Ali, O. Svensk, S. Suihkonen, M. Sopanen, H. Lipsanen, M. Mulot, M. A. Odnoblyudov and V. E.
Bougrov, “InGaN-based 405 nm near-ultraviolet light
emitting diodes on pillar patterned sapphire substrates”, CrystEngComm, 12, 2010, pp. 3152, IF 3.9.
45. S. Sintonen, S. Suihkonen, O. Svensk, P.T. Törmä,
M. Ali, M. Sopanen, H. Lipsanen, T. Tuomi, “Characterization of InGaN/GaN and AlGaN/GaN superlattices by X-ray
diffraction and X-ray reflectivity measurements”, phys. stat. sol. (c), 7, 2010, pp. 1790-1793, IF 0.7.
46. M. Ali, O. Svensk , Z. Zhen, S. Suihkonen, P. T. Törmä, H. Lipsanen, M. Sopanen, H. Lipsanen, K. Hjort, J. Jensen, “Reduced photoluminescence from InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well structures following 40 MeV Iodine ion
irradiation”, Physica B. (Cond. Matter) 404, 2009, pp. 4925-
4928, IF 1.3.
47. O. Heikkilä, J. Oksanen, and J. Tulkki, “Ultimate limit and temperature dependency of light-emitting diode efficiency,” Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 105, 2009, p. 093119,
IF 2.2.
48. P.T. Törmä, M. Ali, O. Svensk, S. Sintonen, P. Kostamo, S. Suihkonen, M. Sopanen, H. Lipsanen, M.A. Odnoblyudov,
V.E. Bougrov, “An investigation of structural properties of GaN films grown on patterned sapphire substrates by MOVPE”, Physica B. (Cond. Matter) 404, 2009, pp. 4911-
4915, IF 1.3.
49. P. T. Törmä, O. Svensk, S. Suihkonen, M. Ali, M. Sopanen, M. Odnoblyudov and V. Bougrov, “Maskless roughening of the sapphire substrates for enhanced light extraction of nitride based blue LEDs”, Solid State Electronics 53, 2009, pp. 166-169, IF 2.3.
50. M. Ali, S. Suihkonen, O. Svensk ,P. T. Törmä, M. Sopanen, 195
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H. Lipsanen, M. A. Obnoblyudov, V. E. Bougrov, “Study of Composition Control and Capping of MOVPE Grown InGaN/
InAlGaN MQW Structures”, Phys. Stat. Sol A 5, 2008, pp. 3020-3022, IF 1.5.
51. O. Svensk, P. T. Törmä, S. Suihkonen, M. Ali, H. Lipsanen, M. Sopanen, M. Odnoblyudov and V. Bougrov, “Enhanced Electroluminescence in 405 nm InGaN/GaN LEDs by
optimized Electron Blocking Layer”, Journal of Crystal Growth, 310, 2008, pp. 5154-5157, IF 1.6.
52. P. T. Törmä, O. Svensk, S. Suihkonen, M. Ali, H. Lipsanen, M. Sopanen, M. Odnoblyudov and V. Bougrov, “Effect of InGaN undeneathayer on MOVPE-grown InGaN/GaN blue LEDs”, Journal of Crystal Growth, 310, 2008, pp. 5162-
5156, IF 1.6..
53. S. Suihkonen, O. Svensk, P. T. Törmä, A. Muhammad,
M. Sopanen, H. Lipsanen, M. A. Odnoblyudov, V. E.
Bougrov, “MOVPE growth of InxAlyGa1-x-yN / InGaN MQW structures”, Journal of Crystal Growth, 310, 2008, pp. 1777-
1780, IF 1.6.
Conference articles
1. J. Jahkonen, M. Puolakka, L. Halonen. ”Thermal
management of outdoor LED lighting systems and street-
lights – Variation of ambient cooling conditions. LEUKOS The Journal of Illuminating Engineering Society of North America
2. J. Jahkonen, M. Puolakka, L. Halonen. ”Thermal manage
ment of outdoor LED lighting systems and streetlights –
Variation of ambient cooling conditions. LEUKOS The Journal of Illuminating Engineering Society of North America.
3. H. Nykänen, S. Suihkonen, L. Kilanski, M. Sopanen, and
F. Tuomisto,” Ga-vacancy activation under low energy
electron irradiation in GaN-based materials”, MRS
Proceedings 1432, 782 (2012).
4. A. Amogpai, “Possibilities of new light sources and
sustainable energy production in Sudan”, Ingineria
Illu-minatului-Lighting Engineering, Vol. 13, No.2, 2011.
5. O. Kopylov, R. Shirazi, O. Svensk, S. Suihkonen,
S. Sintonen, M. Sopanen, B. E. Kardynał, “Effect of GaN cap thickness on carrier dynamics in InGaN quantum wells”, physica status solidi C 9, 727 (2012).
6. A. Amogpai, “Possibilities of new light sources and
sustainable energy production in Sudan”, Ingineria
Illuminatului-Lighting Engineering, Vol. 13, No.2, 2011.
7. F. Tuomisto, “Vacancy defects in III-nitrides: what does
positron annihilation spectroscopy reveal”?, Invited paper in the Proceedings of the International Workshop on
Positron Studies of Defects (PSD-08), Journal of Physics: 196
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Conference Series 265, 012003 (2011).
8. J. Oksanen and J. Tulkki, “Effects of photon transport, emission saturation, and reflection losses on thermo photonic cooling,” Laser Refrigeration of Solids IV,
San Francisco, California, USA, 2011, p. 79510H-79510H-7.
9. O. Heikkila, J. Oksanen, and J. Tulkki, “Transport equation model for the optics of light-emitting diodes with arbitrary surface microstructure,” Physics and Simulation of
Optoelectronic Devices XIX, San Francisco, California, USA, 2011, pp. 793315-793315-8.
10. P. Kivisaari, J. Oksanen, and J. Tulkki, “Effects of Direct
Lateral Current Injection on the Performance, Overall
Efficiency and Emission Distribution in GaN LED
Structures: A 2D Computational Study,” MRS Online
Proceedings Library, vol. 1370, 2011.
11. F. Tuomisto, J.-M. Mäki, M. Ali, O. Svensk, P. T. Törmä,
S. Suihkonen, and M. Sopanen, “Defect studies with
positrons: what could we learn on III-nitride hetero structures?,” Invited paper in the Proceedings of the Advanced Science Research Symposium 2009, Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 225, 012057:1–6 (2010).
12. J. Oksanen and J. Tulkki, “Thermophotonic heat pump: towards the first demonstration of electroluminescent cooling?,” Laser Refrigeration of Solids III, San Francisco, California, USA, pp. 76140F-76140F-9, 2010.
13. J. Viitanen, A. Amogpai, M. Puolakka, and L. Halonen,
“Photovoltaic production possibilities and its utilization in office buildings in Finland”, International Review of Civil Engineering (I.RE.C.E.), Vol.2, No.1, pp. 52-59, 2010.
14. O. Heikkila, J. Oksanen, and J. Tulkki, “Role of the electron blocking layer in the current transport of efficient III-N light-
emitting diodes,” Physics and Simulation of Optoelectronic Devices XVIII, vol. 7597, pp. 75970E-8, 2010.
15. J. Oksanen and J. Tulkki; “A Thermophotonic Heat Pump/
Heat Engine”; Proceedings of the E-MRS 2009 Fall Meeting, Materials Research Society Symposium Proceedings, 2009.
16. O. Heikkilä, J. Oksanen, and J. Tulkki, “The effect of
temperature on the efficiency of nitride-based multi quantum well light-emitting diodes,” in Materials Research Society Symposium Proceedings, 2009.
17. Paakkinen, Tetri, Halonen: Photometric and Electrical
Measurements of LED Light Engines. CIE Midterm meeting. Light and Lighting Conference with Special Emphasis on LEDs and Solid State Lighting. 27-29 May 2009. Budapest, Hungary. 8 p.
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2.2 Miscellaneous publications
and achievements
• H. Nykänen, S. Suihkonen, M. Sopanen, F. Tuomisto, “Potential causes for current-induced nitride laser
degradation”, Compound Semiconductor Current News,
26 March, 2012, http://compoundsemiconductor.net/csc/
news-details.php?id=19734800
• Sami Suihkonen, ”Leditekniikan kehitys hämmentää
tutkijoitakin”, Sähköala 9 (2011).
• Päivi Mattila, Henri Nykänen, Markku Sopanen, Sami
Suihkonen, Olli Svensk, ”Valotehoa ledeistä, Pinta plasmoneilla kohti tehokkaampaa optoelektroniikkaa”,
Prosessori, Pro teknologia (2011).
• A. Amogpai, J. Viitanen, M. Puolakka, and L. Halonen,
“Solar panels combined with LED lighting - Case study from Finland”, Proceedings of the SB10 Sustainable Community - Building SMART Conference, Espoo, Finland, 2010, pp. 801-811.
• Sami Suihkonen, Muhammad Ali, Olli Svensk,
Sakari Sintonen, Markku Sopanen, Harri Lipsanen and Pekka T. Törmä, “Substrate-patterning techniques
for nitride growth”, SPIE Newsroom, 10 December 2010, DOI: 10.1117/2.1201010.003279
• S. Suihkonen “Substrate patterning techniques in Nitride growth“ invited talk, ISGN-3, 2010,Montpellier, France.
• S. Suihkonen “LED-tekniikkaa”, invited talk, Science Park Heureka, 2010.
• A LED demo by MNT was voted for the third best demo in Otaniemi Demo House 2010.
• J. Oksanen and J. Tulkki, ‘A method and device for
transferring heat’, a patent application
• Jani Oksanen and Jukka Tulkki, “A method and device for transferring heat,” Patent application submitted to
the European Patent Office, Jul. 2009
2.3 Impact on education
Many doctoral and undergraduate students have contributed to
the research in HighLight. This has offered the students an outstanding possibility to get hands-on experience and insight on
fabrication, characterization, modeling and materials related to
LEDs and semiconductors in general. This far 8 doctoral theses
and several master’s theses directly tied to the program have
been produced, and a few more will still be finished shortly after
the program ends. Among the courses offered during the program, especially the post-graduate course given by Prof. Babak
Parviz on nanofabrication was highly successful and introduced
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new interactive teaching methods.
2.4 Relevance to science,
industry and society
From scientific point of view, HighLight has been a productive
project and generated much new information on the LED materials and physics. There has also been and still is much effort
in bringing some of the scientific findings such as the optical
cooling and new current injection schemes to the reach of the
industry and society in the form of spin-off companies, patents and ready-to-use technologies. In addition to the scientific
results HighLight has also been visible in the printed national
and even international media and television. The largest visibility was obtained through the collaboration with the University of Washington on contact lenses embedding LED matrices,
but also articles publicizing plasmonic light extraction, general
development of LEDs and degradation of blue laser diodes
have been written. In January 2011 the work was presented
on Prisma Studio, a national Finnish science by Dr. Sami Suihkonen. Sami also participated in the program of Heureka Science Park by giving a talk on LED technology.
2.5 Spin-off projects
In 2010 Academy of Finland granted funding for consortiums
consisting of BECS and MNT for two projects focusing on
research of the droop of GaN based LEDs and the electroluminescent cooling of high efficiency (infrared) LED structures.
Two more spin-off research programs (both consortia formed
of MNT and AP) got funded by the Academy of Finland in 2011.
The funded programs are “Gallium nitride based nanostructures
for enhanced light emission”, Finland-India collaboration / OMA
programme with 580 k€ Academy funding to Aalto University
partners for 2012 – 2014, and “Positron stopping, diffusion and
extraction in nitrides” with 800k€ Academy funding to Aalto University partners for 2012 – 2015.
Several HighLight partners are also involved in the new
energy efficiency research project “Molecular and thin film
engineering for buildings and process industry” (MOPPI) of the
Aalto energy efficiency program.
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3 Departments, staff, cooperation
Department of Micro and Nano Sciences (MNT),
106 person months
Fabrication and characterization of semiconductor structures
• Prof. Harri Lipsanen, Project leader (5 person months)
• Visiting professor Babak Parviz (5 person months)
• Dr. Sci. (Tech.) Sami Suihkonen, head of the III-N research team (48 person months)
• M. Sc. Suvi Virtanen, D.Sc. (Tech.) student, researcher
(23 person months)
• M. Sc. Student Emilie Quillet (7 person months)
• M. Sc. Olli Svensk, D.Sc. (Tech.) student, researcher
(13 person months
• Dr. Abuduwayiti Aierken, Characterization (1 month)
• Mr. John Rönn, Graduate student (4 person months,
part-time)
Department of Biomedical Engineering and Computational
Science (BECS) 157 person months
Modeling
• Prof. Jukka Tulkki, project management (5 month)
• Dr. Sc. Jani Oksanen, Project coordinator, recombination mechanisms in LEDs (32 months)
• M. Sc. Oskari Heikkilä, graduate student, current & photon transport in LEDs (60 months)
• Mr. Pyry Kivisaari, M. Sc. Student, Current transport and droop in semiconductor structures (30 months)
• Dr. Toufik Sadi, Green’s function description of photon transport in plasmonics (12 months)
• Dr. Sc. Teppo Häyrynen, Qantum aspects of light emission, (10 months)
• Mr. Anders Olsson, M. Sc. Student, Droop in conventional III-V semiconductors (5 months)
• Mr. Leif Michelsson, B. Sc. Student, Heat transfer in
semiconductor nanostructures (3 months)
Department of Electronics (EL), 89 person months
Characterization and electrical measurements
of LED luminaires
• Prof. Liisa Halonen, Project management (5 months)
• D.Sc. Eino Tetri, Coordination, Photometric and electrical measurements (7 months)
• M.Sc. Ater Amogpai, Photovoltaic and low-voltage
applications (37 months)
• M.Sc. Jaana Jahkonen, Thermal management of LED
luminaires (17 months)
• D.Sc. Paulo Pinho, Plant lighting (12 months)
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HighLight MIDE
• M.Sc. Martti Paakkinen, Photometric and electrical
measurements (7 months)
• D.Sc. Pramod Bhusal (2 month) Photometric and electrical measurements
• M.Sc. Jorma Lehtovaara, Luminaire measurements, outdoor applications (2 months)
Department of Chemistry (DC), 59 person months
Electrodeposition and surface chemistry of LED materials
• Prof. Kyösti Kontturi, group leader
• Dr. Sc. Christoffer Johans, group leader (8 months)
• Lic. Sc. Nguyet Doan, graduate student, synthesis of
nanoparticle coatings (47 months)
• Tom Sundqvist, Graduate student as summer worker,
Synthesis of mesoporous particles (3 months)
• Janina Hakanpää, Graduate student as summer worker, laboratory assistant (1 months)
Department of Applied Physics (AP), 93 person months
Positron annihilation spectroscopy and defect studies
• Prof. Filip Tuomisto, group leader
• Dr. Asier Zubiaga, post-doc, development of theory
of positrons at surfaces and interfaces (12 months)
• Dr. Floris Reurings, post-doc, development of the pulsed positron beam (12 months)
• Mr. Jussi-Matti Mäki, PhD student, positron experiments in nitride semiconductors and semiconductor heterostructures (48 months)
• Mr. Esa Korhonen, MSc student, development of the pulsed positron beam (12 months)
• Ms. Tanja Kuittinen, BSc student, positron experiments
in nitride semiconductors (3 months)
• Ms. Mari Kaita, BSc student, positron experiments in nitride semiconductors (3 months)
• Mr. Antti Karjalainen, BSc student, Development
of experimental methods for optical experiments (3 months)
3.1 Collaboration
Collaboration within HighLight. The research in HighLight
extended from applying LEDs to real lighting environments to
fundamental materials, physics and fabrication related topics.
The topics fitted well the expertise of the participating research
groups and the collaboration especially between MNS, AP and
BECS was very fruitful. This collaboration combined the expertise of the groups in fabrication, modeling and characterizing
the LEDs. The bridge between the applied sciences and materials sciences and physics was planned to be formed by meas-
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uring and applying the LEDs fabricated in the project in real
lighting environments. This goal, however, was not fully successful as we are only now getting the capability to properly cut
and package the fabricated LEDs. Also, despite the knowledge
acquired on chemical surface patterning the integration of this
know-how in the LED fabrication fell slightly short of expectations.
Most important external collaboration:
• Visiting professor: During 2009 the Department of Micro and Nanosciences hosted a visiting
professor Babak A. Parviz from University of Washington. Prof Parviz participated in Highlight, IPPES and CNB-E
MIDE projects. He is the recipient of the prestigious and highly competitive CAREER Award from the US National
Science Foundation and was selected last year by
the MIT Technology Review as one of the top innovators in the world under the age of 35. The collaboration with
Prof. Parviz, a visiting professor for HighLight, IPPES and CNB-E MIDE projects in 2009 continued until 2011. The focus of this collaboration was in Prof. Parviz’s work in functional contact lenses. MNT’s contribution in this work was the fabrication of LED micro-arrays for contact lens embedded displays. The first joint results were
published in the Journal of Micromechanics and Micro
Engineering with extensive media coverage (BBC, Deutche Welle, Fox News, Wired, + 100 print and web media world
wide). In January 2011 the work was featured by Dr. Sami Suihkonen on Prisma Studio, a national Finnish science
program. The LED research was also featured in two newspapers articles in Sähköala and Prosessori by the researchers. Prof. Parviz gave significant contribution to the LED development done in MNT, and initiated
collaboration between MNT and University of Washington. The focus of this collaboration is in Prof. Parviz’s work in functional contact lenses. MNT contribution in this work is the fabrication of LED micro-arrays for contact lens embedded displays. The work was presented in Otaniemi Demo House 2010 and was voted for the third best demo.
• Ammono Sp, a polish company fabricating GaN substrates by the ammono thermal method. In this collaboration MNT is evaluating the physical properties of GaN substrates and their use in LED fabrication by a joint study of
dislocation analysis in bulk GaN substrates by x-ray
topography. The results were published in 2012, and work
is being continued with Ammono, HASYLAB DESY and new partners.
• Ioffe Institute, St. Petersburg on studying dislocation behavior in patterned GaN substrates.
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• Nagoya University and University of California, Santa Bar
bara (UCSB). The research of defects by positron
annihilation spectroscopy by analyzing the effects of low energy electron beam irradiation (LEEBI) in GaN films. This work led to results explaining the role Gallium vacancies and hydrogen passivation in the optical properties of GaN films. This might explain also the observed performance degradation of GaN-based laser diodes operating at high current density.
• Researcher exchange, UCSB: Dr. Sami Suihkonen from MNT received a post-doc grant from Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering for visits to leading groups in the field of III-N semiconductors. He visited the group of Prof. H. Amano at Nagoya University and Akasaki Research
Institute, Japan for two months in 2012. Dr Suihkonen is currently visiting Prof. J. Speck’s group at UCSB for a year. Both Prof. H. Amano and J. Speck are leading experts of III-N semiconductors. Dr. Sami Suihkonen also received the young researcher of the year award from the Finnish Foundation for Technology Promotion from his work on III-N semiconductors. One of the key criteria was his extensive collaboration with universities and companies, made
possible by the Highlight project.
• Researcher exchange with UCSB continues as M. Sc. Pyry Kivisaari will spend 6 months in the group of Prof. J. Speck.
• Researcher exchange: Nguyet Doan (DC) was working in Prof. Phil Bartlett’s group in Southampton from October 2010 to April 2011. Prof. Bartlett is a pioneer in electrode-
position in templates. Nguyet learned the experimental
protocols involving preparation of polystyrene bead
templates and electrodeposition of various materials.
• Workshop “HIGHLIGHT workshop on materials, devices and physics in solid-state lighting” and a kick-off meeting of the project were organized at the University of
Montpellier II, France, hosted by Prof. Bernard Gil and Doc. Filip Tuomisto (visiting scientist at UM II at the time).
• DTU, Denmark, Dr. Beata Kardynal: Near field and surface properties of surface InGaN quantum wells.
• Université de Lyon, Prof. Joel Bellessa: Surface plasmon structures to enhance light extraction from LED structures.
• The follow-up group of HighLight consisted of the
representatives of Fortum (initially Petra Lundström, later Eero Vartiainen), Teknologiateollisuus (Juha Ylä-Jääski), City of Espoo (Pekka Vikkula) and University of Helsinki (Prof. Markku Leskelä). Field tests in the Suurpelto project of Espoo were planned with the follow-up group, but
initiative was not eventually realized. Collaboration with the follow-up group was therefore limited to follow-up meetings.
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4 Feedback
Overall the MIDE program has been a most welcome funding
instrument due to the relatively long and stable funding period
of 5 years and the provided opportunity to focus more on
research than administration. From an individual point of view,
however, the preparations for the yearly reports, seminars and
meetings within MIDE did take a substantial amount of time even
if the overall administrative load is reasonable.
In HighLight’s case the follow-up meetings seemed rather
inefficient, partly due to the focus of HighLight being fairly
deep in materials science and physics. This lead e.g. to challenges in finding suitable dates for the meetings. Also the
yearly seminars and demo days were not very efficient due to
the heterogeneous project base. A more convenient alternative might have been to more regularly integrate project presentations and discussions to the breakfast events or to break
events in two, one for energy and one for digitalization.
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HighLight MIDE
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MIDE HybLab
Hybridization of work machines - HybLab
Length: 2008-2012
Budget: 2 000 000 €
Project management:
Prof. Jussi Suomela,
Department of Automation and
Systems Technology and
Chief Engineer Panu Sainio,
Department of Engineering
Design and Production
Prof. Eric Coatanéa,
Department of Engineering
Design and Production
Prof. Matti Juhala,
Department of Engineering
Design and Production
Prof. Matti Pietola,
Department of Engineering
Design and Production
Prof. Jorma Kyyrä,
Department of Electrical
Engineering
Lic. Sc. Ari Hentunen,
Department of Electrical
Engineering (2010-)
Prof. Robin Gustafsson,
Department of Management and
International Business (2011-)
{ panu.sainio, eric.coatanea,
matti.juhala, matti.pietola,
jorma.kyyra, ari.hentunen,
robin.gustafsson}@aalto.fi,
[email protected]
Steering group representatives
from Fortum Plc, Konecranes
Plc, Rocla Ltd and Sandvik Ltd
206
Abstract
The focus of HybLab project was to study the electrification
technologies and to develop innovative solutions for future
hybrid powertrains, hydraulic systems, and product development. Heavy vehicles and non-road mobile machinery have the
highest potential for a substantial increase in both the energy
efficiency and perfor­mance by electri­fication of the powertrain.
The interest in vehicle electrification has been rising steadily
as we are moving towards sustainable transportation and production. The driving forces are the remarkably tightening legislation and regulations even for the exhaust emissions of the
diesel engines used in non-road mobile machinery, the desire
to improve performance, safety, and operator comfort, and
the desire to decrease operating cost. In the project we have
demonstrated all these by means of simulations and laboratory
tests for future product development.
HybLab MIDE
1 Goals and achievements
1.1 Goals
The long-term goal of the project is to halve the energy consumption of non-road mobile machinery. A mobile machinery
platform with electrical energy as its primary source of energy
is studied. The goal was to first create and validate computer
models for the energy conversion, regeneration, and buffering
devices, which were later combined for integrated actuator
models. These models were and will be then used for research
and development of energy efficient and modular non-road
mobile machinery.
The main research goals were:
• Efficiency analyses of different driveline concepts of mobile machinery
• Development of general control systems for energy
conversion, transmission, and buffering in mobile machinery that can be applied for several applications
• Development of modular subsystem components for
drive-by-wire solutions (electrical steering and braking)
• Direct electrical hydraulics, i.e. the control of a hydraulic actuator with an electric drive (valve less circulation, MR solutions, operation without a mechanical or hydraulic
connection to the internal combustion engine nor electrical regeneration)
• Development of an integrated R&D process and its
application for the development and optimization of a hybrid system for mobile machinery
1.2 Achievements
At the beginning of the project, Rocla and Sandvik donated
machines (Fig. 1) that were then used for experimental studies.
Fig. 1. Case-machines: Sandvik underground mining load haul
dump (LHD) loader and Rocla reach truck forklift. Both type
of machines are manufactured by those companies in Finland
and exported to global markets. (Pictures by Sandvik and Rocla,
respectively)
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MIDE HybLab
Analysis and simulation of different hybrid systems
• The models for energy efficiency analysis were augmented with life cost analysis
• Fuzzy power control of a fuel cell hybrid system
• Optimization of a hybrid system consisting of a diesel
generator and two energy storages
• Development of an electrical model and experimental parameterization method for large lithium-ion traction
batteries.
• Validation of the battery model with a full-scale traction
battery (designed and made at Aalto)
• Development, modeling, design, and implementation of
a novel thermally insulated hydraulic accumulator
• Construction and measuring of a two-pressure system
Case-machines
• Optimization and testing of a hydraulic energy recovery system for the reach truck forklift
• Development of direct electric drive hydraulic and
electro-mechanical actuators for the mining loader
Analysis of the hybridization process
• Understanding of the design processes and component requirements has increased significantly
• Modeling of design requirements for a mining loader
• Formal early design synthesis for a mining loader
Development of system components
• Concept development of direct electric drive hydraulics for a mining loader
2 Output
2.1 List of publications
Doctoral theses
Galina Medyna, Environmental assessment approach for the
early stages of product design, 2013.
William Brace, A model-based approach to requirements
analysis for complex products in engineering design, 2012.
François Christophe, Semantics and Knowledge Engineering for
Requirements and Synthesis in Conceptual Design: Towards the
Automation of Requirements Clarification and the Synthesis of
Conceptual Design Solutions, 2012.
Konstantin Kostov, Design and Characterization of SinglePhase Power Filters, 2009.
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HybLab MIDE
Licentiate’s theses
Matti Liukkonen, Adopting a Multi-stage Modeling Approach to
Series-Hybrid Powertrain Design, 2012.
Ari Hentunen, Electrical Modeling of Large Lithium-Ion
Batteries for Use in Dynamic Simulations of Electric Vehicles,
2012.
Master’s theses
Ilkka Kaikkonen, The Adoption of Hybrid Electric Powertrains in the mobile heavy machinery industry and changes to
industry architecture, 2012.
Henri Nieminen, Sähköauton konvergointi testipenkiksi, 2012.
Sven Jonatan Skagersten, Performance of Hybrid Electric
Vehicles with Internal Combustion Engines and Heat Recovering Stirling Engines, 2011.
Mikko Seppälä, Virtual Prototyping in Design Concept
Selection, 2011.
Juha Santasalo, Pyörimisantureiden testipenkin mittaus ja
ohjaus, 2011.
Fatma Abidi, Diagnosis of methods and tools for implementing
the system engineering approach in automotive industry, 2011.
Lauri Hintsala, Kauhakuormaajan työhydrauliikan simulointi
ja energiatehokas ohjaus sarjahybridijärjestelmässä,
(The simulation and energy efficient control of work hydraulics
in series hybrid bucket loader), 2010.
Cournout Pierre (4 months exchange student from Supméca,
France), Electromechanical steering for articulated steered
vehicle. Design report for Supmecá, approximately 2/3 of
a Master’s thesis.
Joona Riihimäki, Innovative conceptual solutions for sand
casting pattern creation process using TRIZ methodology,
2009.
Jari Holopainen, Energiankulutuksen vähentäminen työkoneissa, 2008.
Peer reviewed journals
1. Hentunen, T. Lehmuspelto, J. Suomela, Time-Domain Parameter Extraction Method for Thévenin Equivalent
Circuit Battery Models, IEEE Transactions on Energy
Conversion, submitted for publication. Impact factor: 2.272.
2. Lajunen, J. Suomela, Evaluation of Energy Storage System Requirements for Hybrid Mining Loader, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 61, nro 8, pp. 3387-3398, 2012. Impact factor: 1.921.
3. Miaoqing Huang, Vikram Narayana, Mohamed Bakhouya, Jaafar Gaber, Tarek El-Ghazawi, Efficient Mapping of Task Graphs onto Reconfigurable Hardware Using
Architectural Variants, IEEE Transactions on Computers, vol. 61, nro. 9, 2012.
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MIDE HybLab
4. François Christophe, Faisal Mokammel, Thanh An Nguyen, Eric Coatanéa, Mohamed Ba Khouya and Alain Bernard. A Methodology for Syntactic, Lexical and Semantic
Clarification of Requirements in Systems Engineering. Advanced Engineering Informatics, Special Issue on
Modeling, Extraction, and Transformation of Semantics in Computer Aided Engineering Systems, June 2012. Impact factor: 1.489 (5Y: 2.041).
5. Mohamed Bakhouya, Jaafar Gaber, Pascal Lorenz, An
Adaptive Approach for Information Dissemination in
Vehicular Ad hoc Networks, Journal of Network and
Computer Applications, vol. 34, no. 6, pp.1971-1978, 2011.
6. Bakhouya, Mohamed, Special Issue: Adaptive Service
Discovery and Composition in Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing, ACM Transactions on Autonomous and
Adaptive Systems, vol. 6, no. 1, 2011.
7. Coatanéa E., Tumer I., Jensen D., Nonsiri S., Ritola T.,
A framework for Building Dimensionless behavioral models for function-based failure propagation Analysis, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, vol. 133, no. 12, 2011.
8. Brace W., Coatanéa E., Kauranne H., Heiska M., Formal Early design synthesis of mobile work machine, International journal of design and innovation research, vol. 5, no. 2,
June 2011.
9. Hänninen, H.,Kauranne, H., Sinkkonen, A., Pietola, M.
Equipping Reach Truck with Hydraulic Energy Recovery System. Journal for hydraulics, automation and mechatronics in Slovenia, vol. 17, no. 6, pp. 508-515, December 2011.
10. Sinkkonen, A., Hänninen, H.,Kauranne, H., Pietola, M. Energy usage in mast system of Electro­hydraulic
Forklift. Ventil/December, Journal for hydraulics,
automation and mechatronics in Slovenia, vol. 17, no. 6, pp. 500-506, December 2011.
11. Coatanéa E., Tumer I., Jensen D., Nonsiri S., Ritola T.,
A framework for Building Dimensionless behavioral models for function-based failure propagation Analysis, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, vol. 133, no. 12, 2011. Impact factor: 1.017.
12. Brace W., Coatanéa E., Kauranne H., Heiska M., Formal Early design synthesis of mobile work machine, International journal of design and innovation research, vol. 5, no. 2, June 2011. Impact factor (5Y): 1.253.
13. Christophe F., Coatanéa E., Bernard A., RFBS: A model for knowledge representation of Conceptual Design, CIRP Annals ­Manufacturing Technology, Elsevier, vol. 59, no. 1, 2010. Impact factor: 1.708. (5Y: 2.078).
14. Jukka Halme, Matti Liukkonen, Jussi Suomela, Load sharing control of dual energy storage power system in 210
HybLab MIDE
heavy duty series hybrid vehicles, World Electric Vehicle Journal, vol. 4, AVERE, 2010.
15. Ari Hentunen, Jussi Suomela, Antti Leivo, Matti Liukkonen and Panu Sainio, Full-scale hardware-in- the-loop
verification environment for heavy-duty hybrid electric vehicles, World Electric Vehicle Journal, vol. 4, AVERE, 2010.
16. Teemu Lehmuspelto, Matti Heiska and Antti Leivo, Modular driveline concept for underground mining loader, World Electric Vehicle Journal, vol. 4, AVERE, 2010.
17. Panu Sainio, Matti Heiska, Teemu Lehmuspelto and Jussi Suomela, Comparison of packaging hydraulic and electric
components in a HEV power line, World Electric Vehicle Journal, vol. 3, AVERE, 2009.
18. Jukka Halme, Matti Liukkonen and Jussi Suomela, Power bus control for series hybrid heavy-duty vehicles, World
Electric Vehicle Journal, vol. 3, AVERE, 2009.
19. Teemu Lehmuspelto, Matti Heiska, Antti Leivo, Ari Hentunen, Hybridization of a Mobile Work Machine, World Electric Vehicle Journal, vol. 3, AVERE, 2009.
20. Brace, William; Coatanéa, Eric; Kauranne, Heikki; Heiska, Matti; Formalization Approach to Early Design Synthesis.
International Journal of Innovation Research, vol 5. no. 2, 2010.
21. Coatanéa E., Alizon F., Christophe F., Yannou B.,
Technology Selection Method: A New Approach identifying Relevant Technology Alternatives during a Product Family Design, Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering, ASME journal, 2008.*
22. Christophe F., Sell R., Coatanéa E., Conceptual design framework supported by Dimensional Analysis and System Modelling Language, Estonian Journal of Engineering,
vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 303-316, 2008.*
23. Yannou B., Coatanéa E., The COMPARE method for easy and fast specification and design selection by product
pairwise comparisons, In Revue internationale d’ingénierie numérique, Conception Collaborative et Ingénierie
Numérique, Hermès Science Lavoisier (accepted), ISSN 0298-0924, 2008.*
*MIDE was not acknowledged in the publication.
Reviewed books and chapters
1. Bakhouya, Mohamed, A Bio-inspired Architecture for
Autonomic Network-On-Chip, Autonomic Networking-on-
Chip: Bio-inspired Specification, Development, and
Verification, Embedded Multi-Core Systems, 2011, Taylor & Francis/CRC, ISSN (printed) 9781439829110.
2. Marie Curie Book, Project success story, Chapter: Seeding 211
MIDE HybLab
careers/career development, Eric Coatanéa (to be
published by EU commission), 2009.
3. Innovative conceptual solutions for sand casting pattern
creation process using TRIZ methodology, Joona Riihimäki, TKK Master thesis, 2009
4. Brace, William; Huttunen, Anniina; Kantola, Vesa; Kulovesi, Jakke; Lechner, Lorenz; Silvennoinen, Kari; Manner, Jukka Augmenting Man. In: Neuvo, Yrjö; Ylönen, Sami, Bit Bang, Rays to the Future. Helsinki 2009, pp. 236-263 .
5. Brace, William; Ruotsalo, Tuukka, Storgårds, Jan Henrik; Villi, Mikko; Xiao, Yu; Vainio, Mika; Life Unwired - The Future of Telecommunication and Networks. In: Neuvo, Yrjö; Ylönen, Sami (toim.), Bit Bang, Rays to the Future.
Helsinki 2009, Helsinki University Print, s. 42-62.
Peer reviewed conferences
1. Hentunen, T. Lehmuspelto, and J. Suomela, Parameteriza
tion of electrical battery model for use in dynamic
simulations of electric vehicles, in Proceedings of the 26th International Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Symposium, Los Angeles, CA, May 2012.
2. Hänninen, Henri; Kajaste, Jyrki; Pietola, Matti, Optimizing Hydraulic Energy Recovery System of Reach Truck, Bath/
ASME Symposium on Fluid Power & Motion Control (FPMC 2012). Bath, UK 2012.
3. Lajunen, Antti, Development of Energy Management Strategy for Plug-in Hybrid City Bus, IEEE Transportation Electrification Conference and Expo (ITEC’12), Dearborn, MI, USA, June 2012.
4. Lajunen, Antti, Evaluation of battery requirements for hybrid and electric city buses. Electric Vehicle Symposium (EVS26), Los Angeles, CA, USA, May 2012.
5. Liukkonen, M, Suomela, J., Design of an Energy
Management Scheme for a Series-Hybrid Powertrain, Proc. IEEE Transportation Electrification Conference and Expo, Dearborn, MI, June 2012.
6. T. Keränen, S. Kukkonen, J. Halme, and M. Liukkonen, Fuzzy Logic Control of PEMFC Hybrid Drive Train in Industrial Vehicle Application, Proceedings of the European Fuel Cell – Piero Lunghi Conference & Exhibition (EFC2011), Rome, Italy, 14-16 December 2011.
7. Bakhouya Mohamed, Chariete Abderrahim, Gaber Jaafar, Wack Maxime, A Buffer-space Allocation Approach for Application-specific Network-on-Chip, ACS/IEEE
International Conference on Computer Systems and
Applications, Egypt, December 27 - 30, 2011.
8. Juhala, J., Pietola, M., Hydraulic Accumulator as Energy Storage, The Proceedings of ASME International
Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition, Denver, 212
HybLab MIDE
Colorado, November 2011.
9. Christophe, Francois; Ritola, Tuomas; Coatanéa, Eric;
Bernard, Alain; Semantic analysis of Function-Solution Duality, ASME 2011 International Mechanical
Engineering Congress & Exposition, IMECE2011, Denver, Colorado, November, 2011.
10. Medyna, G., Coatanéa, E., and Millet, D, Evalution of parts of a boat cabin based on exergy - focusing on environmental and economic assessments. In Proceedings of the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress 2011, Denver, Colorado, November 2011.
11. T. Lehmuspelto, A. Hentunen, and J. Suomela, Hardware in the loop research environment for electric vehicle & hybrid electric vehicle batteries combined with advanced virtual battery development tools, in Proceedings of the European Electric Vehicle Congress, Brussels, Belgium, October 2011.
12. J. Halme and J. Suomela, Optimal Rule Based Control of Series Hybrid Triple Hybrid Mobile Work Machine,
European Electric Vehicle Congress (EEVC-2011) Brussels Belgium, October 2011.
13. Wafaa Ait-Cheik-Bihi, Abderrahim Chariete, Ahmed Nait-Sidi-Moh, Mohamed Bakhouya, Jaafar Gaber, Maxime Wack, A Platform for Interactive Location-Based Services, 8th International Conference on Mobile Web Information Systems, Procedia Computer Science, Volume 5, Elsevier, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, September 2011.
14. Lajunen A., Evaluation of energy storage system
requirements for hybrid mining loader. IEEE Vehicle Power and Propulsion Conference (VPPC’11), Chicago, Illinois, September 2011.
15. Matti Liukkonen, Antti Lajunen and Jussi Suomela,
Comparison of Different Buffering Topologies in FC-hybrid Non-Road Mobile Machineries, The 7th IEEE Vehicle Power and Propulsion Conference (VPPC’11), Chigaco, Illinois, September 2011.
16. Ari Hentunen, Teemu Lehmuspelto and Jussi Suomela,
Electrical Battery Model for Dynamic Simulations of Hybrid Electric Vehicles, The 7th IEEE Vehicle Power and Propulsion Conference (VPPC’11), Chigaco Illinois,
September 2011.
17. Christophe F., Coatanéa E., Wang. M., Zeng Y.,
Grammatical and Semantic Disambiguation of
Requirements at Elicitation and Representation Stage”, Proceedings of the 23nd International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology DTM, August 29-31, 2011 in Washington DC, USA.
18. Coatanéa E., Choulier D., Forest Joelle, CK, An Engineering Design Theory? Contributions, limits and proposals,
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MIDE HybLab
International conference on Engineering Design, Lyngby, Denmark, August 2011.
19. Seppälä M., Buda A., Coatanéa E., Selection of Design
concepts Using Virtual Prototyping in the Early Design phases, International conference on Engineering Design, Lyngby, Denmark, August 2011.
20. Hänninen, H.,Kauranne, H., Sinkkonen, A., Pietola, M. Study on Energy Usage of Reach Truck Equipped with Energy Recovery System, The Proceedings of The 12th Scandinavian International Conference on Fluid Power (SICFP’11) Volume 3, pp.179-188, May 18-20 2011
Tampere, Finland.
21. Juhala, J., Kajaste, J., Pietola, M., Improving Energy
Efficiency of Hydraulic Accumulator. The Proceedings of The 12th Scandinavian International Conference on Fluid Power (SICFP’11), Tampere, Finland, May 2011.
22. Sinkkonen, A., Hänninen, H.,Kauranne, H., Pietola, M.
Analysis of Energy Balance in Electrohydraulic Forklift, The Proceedings of The 12th Scandinavian International Conference on Fluid Power (SICFP’11), Volume 1,
pp.193-204, May 18-20 2011 Tampere, Finland.
23. Buda Andrea; Makkonen, Petri; Derroisne Ronan; Vincent Cheutet, PDM suitability study for CAE data management, 8th International Product Lifecycle Management
Conference, 2011.
24. Buda Andrea, Derroisne Ronan, Cheutet Vincent, Makkonen Petri, Lamouri Samir, Towards The Management Of Product Simulation Data, ROADEF 2011 - 12th congress of the French National Society of Operations Research and
Decision Science, 2011.
25. Medyna, G., Coatanéa, E., and Millet, D, Environmental and economic evaluation of solar thermal panels using exergy and dimensional analysis. In Glocalized Solutions for 28.1.2012 Sustainability in Manufacturing, J. Hesselbach and C. Herrmann, Eds. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2011, pp. 647-651.
26. Sinkkonen, A., Hänninen, H., Kauranne, H., Pietola, M. Analysis of energy balance in electro­hydraulic forklift. The 12th Scandinavian International Conference on Fluid Power, Tampere, Finland, May 2011.
27. Hänninen, H., Kauranne, H., Sinkkonen, A., Pietola, M. Study on energy usage of reach truck equipped energy recovery system. The 12th Scandinavian International
Conference on Fluid Power, Tampere, Finland, May 2011.
28. Juhala, J., Kajaste, J., Pietola, M. Improving energy
efficiency of hydraulic accumulator. The Twelfth
Scandinavian International Conference on Fluid Power,
Tampere, Finland, May 2011.
29. Carlo Mol, Michael O‘Keefe, Arie Brouwer and Jussi 214
HybLab MIDE
Suomela, Trends and insight in heavy-duty vehicle
electrification, The 25th World Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Symposium & Exhibition, EVS-25,
Shenzhen, China, Nov. 5-9, 2010.
30. Antti Lajunen, Antti Leivo, and Teemu Lehmuspelto, Energy consumption simulations of a conventional and hybrid mining loader, The 25th World Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Symposium & Exhibition, EVS-25,
Shenzhen, China, Nov. 5-9, 2010.
31. Teemu Lehmuspelto, Matti Heiska, and Antti Leivo,
Modular driveline concept for underground mining loader, The 25th World Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Symposium & Exhibition, EVS-25, Shenzhen, China, Nov. 5-9, 2010.
32. Jukka Halme, Matti Liukkonen, Jussi Suomela, Load sharing control of dual energy storage power system in heavy duty series hybrid vehicles, The 25th World Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Symposium &
Exhibition, EVS-25, Shenzhen, China, Nov. 5-9, 2010.
33. Hentunen, J. Suomela, A. Leivo, M. Liukkonen, and P. Sainio, Full-Scale Hardware-in-the-Loop Verification
Environment for Heavy-Duty Hybrid Electric Vehicles, The 25th World Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Symposium & Exhibition, EVS-25, Shenzhen, China,
Nov. 5-9, 2010.
34. Matti Liukkonen, Ari Hentunen, Jussi Suomela, Analysis of the ultracapacitor module in power buffering, 4th European Symposium on Super Capacitors & Applications, ESSCAP’10, Bordeaux, France, October 21-22, 2010.
35. Antti Lajunen, Evaluation of the benefits of using
dual-source energy storage in hybrid electric vehicles,
The IEEE Vehicle Power and Propulsion Conference, Lille, France, September 1–3, 2010.
36. Ari Hentunen, Jussi Suomela, Antti Leivo, Matti Liukkonen and Panu Sainio, Hardware-in-the-Loop Verification
Environment for Heavy-Duty Hybrid Electric Vehicles,
The 2010 IEEE Vehicle Power and Propulsion Conference (VPPC), Lille, France, September 1–3, 2010.
37. Matti Liukkonen, Ari Hentunen and Jussi Suomela,
Verification of quasi-static Series Hybrid Electric Vehicle Simulation model, The 2010 IEEE Vehicle Power and
Propulsion Conference (VPPC), Lille, France,
September 1–3, 2010.
38. Choulier D., Coatanéa E., Forest Joelle, Engineering design CK theory: contributions and limits, Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Design Theory and
Methodology DTM, Montréal, Quebec, Canada,
August 2010.
39. Medyna G., Coatanéa E., Lahti L., Creative processes in 215
MIDE HybLab
engineering: an analogy with the evolution of wikipedia articles, Proceedings of the 22nd International
Conference on Design Theory and Methodo­logy DTM,
Montréal, Quebec, Canada, August 2010.
40. Coatanéa E., Ritola T., Tumer I., Jensen D., A framework for Building behavioral models for design-stage failure
identification using Dimensional Analysis, Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology DTM, Montréal, Quebec, Canada,
August 2010.
41. Brace, William; Thramboulidis, Kleanthis; From
requirements to design specifications- a formal approach. International design conference, Dubrovnik, Croatia,
May 2010.
42. Medyna G., Coatanéa E., Decision making and value
considerations during the early stages of engineering design, CIRP Design Conference, Nantes, France,
April 2010.
43. Huttunen, Anniina; Brace, William; Kantola, Vesa; Lechner, Lorenz; Kulovesi, Jakke; Silvennoinen, Kari; Cross-cultural application of ethical principles into the design process, case external and internal roboethics. International
conference on engineering and meta-engineering: ICEME 2010. Orlando, Florida, April 2010.
44. Juhala, J., Kauranne, J., Pietola, M., Energy losses in piston type hydraulic accumulator. Proceedings of the 7th
International Fluid Power Conference, Aachen, Germany, March 2010.
45.Hänninen, H., Juhala, J., Sinkkonen, A., Hentunen, A.,
Pietola, M. Comparing hybrid power transmission systems of work machines. Proceedings of the 7th International
Conference on Fluid Power (IFK), Aachen, Germany, March 2010.
46. Panu Sainio, Matti Heiska, Teemu Lehmuspelto and Jussi Suomela, Comparison of packaging hydraulic and electric
components in a HEV power line, The International Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Symposium, EVS24, Stavanger, Norway, May 2009.
47. Jukka Halme, Matti Liukkonen and Jussi Suomela, Power bus control for series hybrid heavy-duty vehicles, The
International Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Symposium, EVS24, Stavanger, Norway, May 2009.
48. Matti Liukkonen, Ari Hentunen, Jussi Suomela and Jorma Kyyrä, Low-pass Filtered Power-flow Control in Series Hybrid Electric Vehicl”, The International Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Symposium, EVS24,
Stavanger, Norway, May 2009.
49. Antti Leivo, Ari Hentunen and Jussi Suomela, Model
reusability and cooperation in model based HEV control 216
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system development, The International Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Symposium, EVS24,
Stavanger, Norway, May 2009.
50. Teemu Lehmuspelto, Matti Heiska, Antti Leivo, Ari Hentunen, Hybridization of a Mobile Work Machine, The International Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Symposium, EVS24, Stavanger, Norway, May 2009.
51. Matti Heiska, Jukka Halme, Ari Hentunen, Jussi Suomela, Työkoneen sarjahybridijärjestelmän ohjausarkkitehtuuri,
Automaatio XVIII Seminaari, Helsinki, Finland, 17–18.3.2009.
52. Medyna G., Coatanéa E., Lahti L., Howard T., Brace W., Christophe F., Creative design: An initial analysis and ontology, Mass Customization and Personalization
Conference, Helsinki, Finland, 2009.
53. Brace W., Coatanéa E., Kauranne H., Heiska M., Early design modelling and simulation of behaviours: case study of mobile work machine, CPI 2009, Rabat, Marroco, October 2009.
54. Ritola T., Alizon F., Coatanéa E., Implementing Mass
Customization through Product and Service Platform Strategy, Mass Customization and Personalization
Conference, Helsinki, Finland, 2009.
55. Medyna G., ., Coatanéa E., Millet D., Comparative study of environmental evaluation assessment using exergetic LCA implemented in existing software and a novel exergetic approach during the early design phase, ICED’09, Stanford, CA, August 2009.
56. Christophe F., Sell R., Bernard A., Coatanéa E., OPAS: Ontology processing for assisted synthesis of conceptual design solutions, ASME–IDETC 2009, San Diego, California, USA, 2009.
57. Brace W., Coatanéa E., Kauranne H., Heiska M., Early design modelling and simulation of behaviours: case study of mobile work machine, ASME- IDETC 2009, San Diego, California, 2009.
58. Brace, William; Coatanéa, Eric; Formal Requirement
Formulation and Synthesis in System Engineering. 17th International conference on Engineering design ICED09, Stanford, California, USA, August 2009.
59. Juhala, J., Kauranne, H., Kajaste, J., Pietola, M. Improving energy efficiency of work machine with Digital Hydraulics
and pressure accumulator, The Proceedings of The 11th Scandinavian International Conference on Fluid Power (SICFP’09), Linköping, Sweden, June 2009.
60. M. J. Liukkonen, A. Hentunen, and J. Suomela, Functional Simulations of Power Electronic Components in Series-
Hybrid Machinery for the needs of OEM, NORPIE 2008, Nordic Workshop on Power and Industrial Electronics,
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Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland, June 2008.*
61. Juhala, J., Pietola, M. Pressure Control in Digital
Hydraulics. 5th Ph.D. Symposium, Fluid Power Net
International (FPNI), Krakow, Poland, July 2008.*
62. Coatanéa E., Alizon F., Christophe F., Yannou B., Selecting technology alternatives for product families through
technological coverage and functional verification, In
Proceedings of ASME design engineering technical
conferences DETC 2008, New-York, USA, 2008.*
63. Christophe F., Sell R., Coatanéa E., Micaëlli J.P., Integrated design framework: Towards an approach for early design. International conference on engineering and product design education, UPC, Barcelona, Spain, September 2008.*
64. Sell, R.; Coatanéa, E., Christophe, F., Important Aspects of Early Design in Mechatronic, 6th International DAAAM Baltic Conference on Industrial Engineering, Tallinn, Estonia, April 2008.*
65. Christophe F., Coatanéa E., Proposal of a computer approach for the expansion of the designer’s creativity, CRECOS seminar 2008, Helsinki, Finland, 2008.*
66. Brace W., Christophe F., Coatanéa E., Requirements
modelling in SysML: proposal for the creation of a semi-
formal requirement procedure, CRECOS seminar 2008,
Helsinki, Finland, 2008.*
*MIDE was not acknowledged in the publication.
International workshops
1. Brace, William; Coatanéa, Eric; Semi formal requirement
formulations in system engineering. 3rd MODPRO
Workshop on Model-Based Product Development, Linköping, Sweden, February 2009.
Articles in other publications
1. Article from Jussi Suomela about halving the energy
consumption of mobile work machines, published in
Kauppalehti and Media Planet special issue of Automation in September 2011.
2. International press release of the HybLab-project was noticed exceptionally widely.
3. Jussi Suomela and Panu Sainio, Suoraan pyörivään
liikkeeseen – havaintoja polttomoottorien ja sähkö­
moottorien yhteneväisyyksistä (article in Finnish, ”Directly to rotational movement – observations between internal combustion engines and electrical motors”), Suomen Autolehti 10/2010.
4. Ajoneuvojen voimalaitetekniikka muutosten edessä 5.10.2010, Helsinki, Opening of a seminar day in life long 218
HybLab MIDE
learning type of education (”power line technology of
vehicles – changes to come”), Panu Sainio, http://www.
autoalankoulutuskeskus.fi/pdf/Ohjelma_05_10_2010.pdf
2.2 Side projects and follow-up projects
The investment from Tekes for EVE-program (Electric Vehicles
Systems, 2011­–2015) demonstrates how well on the cutting
edge HybLab-project was when it was launched at the end of
2007. The HybLab-project constituted a framework for longerterm research of vehicle and machinery electrification. The work
of HybLab has been continued on EVE program, where Hyblab
members from Aalto are involved in several major projects estimated funding for years 2012-2015 over 3 M€.
The mobile machinery and other commercial vehicles are
studied on the ECV project (Electric Commercial Vehicles),
which has many subprojects such as Tubridi (Future Hybrid
Mobile Machinery), eStorage2 (Electrical Energy Storages
2), and eBus (Electric Bus), in which hybrid technologies are
studied and demonstrated widely.
Also other several research groups from Aalto University not
being partners in HybLab-projects are funded from Tekes EVEprogram.
2.3 Spin-off companies
Hybria Ltd, established in 2008. Hybria develops electric drivetrains and control software to optimize the functionality and
efficiency of hybrid and electric drivetrains. Even though spinoff was established just on the step before the economic downtime beginning since early 2009 – what was dramatically impact
to work machine industry – it is still alive and employees today
three people from the original research team.
2.4 Relevance
The results show that a hybrid power train is an enabling technology, which provides higher energy efficiency for mobile
machinery with opportunity of increased performance. The
results provide also new methods for optimization of the product
development process. Research on the field of hybrid power
trains has been conducted with a close collaboration with the
domestic mobile machinery industry. The simulators, methods,
and knowledge have been utilized in the industry to improve the
energy efficiency of the processes and products to increase the
competitiveness in the worldwide markets.
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Scientific. Creating fundamental understanding and building
bridges form theory to practice and education takes years.
We have done this work during HybLab-project extensively but
the real success of this can be evaluated in years to come. It
will be done in terms of people by their success and impact
in academia and in industry. We are very confident especially
to people who worked for the project: they will do remarkable
careers in engineering.
After the project was finished, Aalto recruited D.Sc Tatiana
Minav from Lappeen­ranta University of Technology to join the
researcher groups of Fluid Power and Vehicle Engineering.
Possibility to get her to join Aalto and especially to work with
two teams is partly because of our interesting and successful
research track record.
Industrial. The advent of hybrid power train technologies into
commercial use will decrease the energy demand and emissions of future mobile machinery. In addition, it is antici­pated
that in the long term the electrification will provide more flexibility and controlla­bility into the duty cycle, allowing new functionalities, better perfor­mance, and increased productivity. At
the same time the reliability of the machinery and quality of
work are anticipated to improve as the degree of automation
and diag­nos­tics are increased.
In the beginning of 2013 Konecranes introduced the world’s
first hybrid reach stacker. Rocla is the biggest manufacturer of
electric machinery in Nordic countries. Sandvik is researching
and developing electric machinery.
Societal. We have contributed to the knowledge and common
awareness about the possi­bi­li­ties to lower the energy consumption of mobile work machines. It has been always obvious to
big audience that energy consumption of the cars should be
decreased because of petrol pump price and emissions. For
work machines raising discussion is still needed.
2.5 Impact on education
Post-graduate eligible course: AS-84.3210 Electric power
transmission in vehicles and mobile machines, 4cr, L, III-period.
The course language is English.
Knowledge that has been gained from the project has
been passed to students through special assignments, bachelor’s theses, and master’s theses. Research seminars were
arranged 6 times during years 2009–2012, in which the
researchers of the project presented their results. Industrial
partners and academic staff were invited to attend the seminar.
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3 Departments, staff, cooperation
3.1 Staff
In this section the participated personnel of the project is listed.
In addition to full-time HybLab researchers, many others have
been doing essential and assisting work in the same area in
other projects. It is also worth noticing that HybLab funding
enabled the introduction of other funding instruments into this
area of research.
Department of Automation and Systems Technology
Pro-term Prof. Jussi Suomela was the project manager. Participated personnel in alpha­betical order:
• Jukka Halme, doctoral student, M.Sc. (Tech.), 8 pm: PhD topic: Optimisation of control strategies for series-hybrid systems. Visited Chiba University (Japan) for six months.
• Perttu Heikkilä, research assistant, 20 pm: Assisting
technical tasks in the laboratory.
• Matti Heiska, doctoral student, M.Sc. (Tech.), 35 pm: R&D of the hybrid system and control of the mining loader.
Instrumentation and measurements of the conventional mining loader. Efficiency analyses of different hybrid
topologies and efficiency measurement of hydraulic
components.
• Lauri Hintsala, research assistant, Master’s thesis worker, 13 pm
• Ilkka Kaikkonen, research assistant, Master’s thesis worker, 7 pm
• Henri Nieminen, research assistant, Master’s thesis worker, 2 pm
• Janne Paanajärvi, researcher, M.Sc. (Tech), 4 pm: Expert help on optimisation methods.
• Juha Santasalo, research assistant, Master’s thesis worker
• Jorma Selkäinaho, D.Sc. (Tech.), 3 pm: Battery testing, expert help.
• Jussi Suomela, professor, Automation, project manager, 14 pm: Project management. Suomela has also been the Finnish representative at the IEA IA-HEV meetings and he has been a spokesperson and funding application writer for vehicle electrification both inside and outside Aalto
University. Suomela took a leave of absence for one year at September 1, 2012.
• Tomi Ylikorpi, doctoral student, L.Sc. (Tech.), 1 pm: Expert help in mechanical simulations.
Department of Engineering Design and Production
Research groups of Vehicle Engineering (professor Juhala),
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Fluid Power (professor Pietola) and Product Development
(professor Coatanéa) participated in the project. Professors
participated into the management group, follow-up group and
seminar work as well as normal supervisory work for master
and doctoral students. They did not get direct salary from the
project. Participated personnel in alphabetical order:
• William Brace, doctoral student, 13 pm: Requirements
modeling and early design synthesis of a development
process.
• Francois Christophe, doctoral student, 8 pm: Development processes of hybrid systems.
• Eric Coatanéa, professor, Product development, 2 pm: Member of the management team. Coatanéa participated also in practical research.
• Jari Holopainen, doctoral student, M.Sc. (Tech.), 12 pm: Completed his Master’s Thesis. After completing the M.Sc. (Tech.), researcher. He passed away suddenly summer 2011.
• Henri Hänninen, doctoral student, 31 pm: Development and modeling of regenerative hydraulic system for a reach truck forklift.
• Jyri Juhala, doctoral student 9 pm: Application and
modeling of digital hydraulics and hydraulic accumulators for rege­ne­rative hydraulic systems.
• Matti Juhala, professor, Vehicle engineering, 2 pm: Member of the management team.
• Jyrki Kajaste, teaching Researcher, 6 pm: Planning of the research and modeling of regenerative hydraulic systems.
• Heikki Kauranne, university lecturer, 6 pm: Planning of the research and experiments and implementation of
experimental test setup and making of the experiments.
• Keijo Kallio, laboratory technician, 4 pm: Making and upkeep of the laboratory test equipment.
• Antti Lajunen, doctoral student, 2 pm: Energy efficiency modeling of power trains. Lajunen visited Argonne National Labo­ra­tory (USA) for 6 months.
• Teemu Lehmuspelto, doctoral student, 41 pm: Development of the hybrid system for the mining loader including
component sizing and selection. Development of battery testing facilities.
• Antti Leivo, doctoral student, 20 pm: Modeling of the mining loader including the integration of subsystem models and deve­lopment of terrain and driver models as well as
visualization. Development of control software for machinery applications. Leivo moved to the spin-off company Hybria during year 2010.
• Pekka Martelius, senior laboratory technician, 7 pm:
Development of laboratory equipment, instrumentation, and test facilities.
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HybLab MIDE
• Galina Medyna, doctoral student, 3 pm: Early product
development process.
• Matti Pietola, professor, Hydraulics 2 pm: Member of the management team.
• Panu Sainio, chief engineer, 6 pm: Project management, upkeep and development of the laboratory facilities, and test and construction framework for the mining loader. Beside management team meetings, and general planning of the experiment planning of hybrid systems Sainio participated the development, instrumentation and hands on tasks.
• Juho Salminen, research assistant, 8 pm: Development and management of product development process.
• Mikko Seppälä, research assistant, 13 pm: Modeling and simulation of early product development.
• Antti Sinkkonen, research assistant, 22 pm: Development, instrumentation, and use of an experimental test setup for hydraulic systems.
• Jonatan Skägersten, research assistant, 8 pm: Modeling of a Stirling motor and its co-operation with an internal
combustion engine.
Department of Electrical Engineering
• Ari Hentunen, doctoral student, 50 pm: Development of hardware-in-the-loop test system for testing of hybrid
electric power trains, control software, and subcomponents. Development of an energy storage dc-dc converter.
Development of battery testing facilities and experimental testing of lithium-ion batteries. Development of a high-fidelity electrical battery model.
• Konstantin Kostov, doctoral student, 3 pm: Finalization of dissertation.
• Jorma Kyyrä, professor, Power electronics, 2 pm: Member
of the management team.
• Matti Liukkonen, doctoral student, 12 pm: Modeling and validation of hybrid power train components. Liukkonen
participated in the development and use of the experimental test system for hybrid electric power trains. Liukkonen
visited ETH (Zürich, Switzerland) for six months.
• Jarno Kukkola, research assistant, 8 pm: Development of battery test facilities, testing of batteries and hybrid
systems, and development of a dc-dc converter.
• Lauri Syväranta, research assistant, 3 pm: Development of a PCB for the dc-dc converter and technical help with test setup.
Department of Management and International Business
• Robin Gustafsson, Professor, Research Fellow, 1 pm: One instructor to Ilkka Kaikkonen’s M.Sc project giving excellent discussions
• Ilkka Kaikkonen, research assistant, 8 pm
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3.2 Internal cooperation
There were five research groups from three departments, each
having the following areas of responsibility:
• Automation technology (Aut), simulation and control of the hybrid system, project management.
• Vehicle engineering (Auto), vehicle technology,
mechanical simulations, develop­ment of the test bench for hybrid systems.
• Hydraulics (Hy), hydraulics in mobile machinery,
electro-hydraulic systems.
• Power electronics (TE), power electronics, electric drives, electrical energy storages, and modeling and simulation of the associated devices.
• Product development (TK), modeling and optimization of a product develop­ment process of a hybrid mobile machinery applications.
The starting point of the project was to achieve close collaboration within the research groups instead of having five individual
groups. The target was achieved fairly well. A common permanent work room for four full-time doctoral students from three
groups (Aut, Auto, TE) were arranged from the very the start
of the project. The room is situated right next to the laboratory
facilities, i.e. the hybrid power train and battery test benches.
The collaboration has been seamless and it is impossible to
classify the results for each group.
Hydraulics and Product development groups were not in
the same physical domain; they were located in the next buildings. Technical meetings among researchers were kept constantly, at the start of the project weekly and later at least
once a month. Practical research goals with the case-example
machines linked the groups together efficiently. For example,
Aut, Auto, TE, and Hy were all involved with electric hydraulic
hybrid power train development, and the TK modeled the
product development process of the HybLab mining loader as
a case-example. Common publications were written among the
groups throughout the project.
The research group of the HybLab project networked
closely with the researchers of the Tekes-funded TopDrive- and
HybDrive-projects, which operated in a similar area. Research
groups of Electric Drives, Electronics Reliability and Integration, and Physical Chemistry were augmented into the network
by Tekes funded projects.
MIDE visiting professor grant was issued to Professor Irem
Tumer from Oregon State University, USA. She was working
especially with Professor Eric Coatanéa and Product Development research group. The visits of Professor Tumer in Aalto
have been taking place in 3periods, during summer 2010 (3
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HybLab MIDE
weeks), summer 2011 (2 months and 1 week), summer 2012
(1 month). There is a separate report of her visit.
3.3 Cooperation and networking
with other partners
Research groups have naturally continued their cooperation
with their former partners too. The communication with the
domestic mobile machinery manufacturers and especially with
the donors of the case machines and members of the follow-up
group was close. The most important domestic research partners were VTT and LTY.
The project leader Jussi Suomela continues as the Finnish
representative at the IEA IA-HEV (Implementing Agreement for
co-operation on Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Technologies and
Programs) and its annex XII: Heavy Duty Vehicles.
Project HybLab visited Sweden at April 2008. Chalmers and
Swedish Hybrid Center as well as Volvo and Scania were visited. Sandvik Canada and some other companies relevant to
LHD were visited summer 2008.
At summer 2009 the project researchers Ari Hentunen
and Matti Liukkonen visited John Deere’s headquarters at
Dubuque, Iowa, and Deere’s company Phoenix International
at Fargo, North Dakota for one month. During that time the
researchers participated in the development project of an electric forestry machine.
At the end of 2009 the project researchers Jussi Suomela
and Teemu Lehmuspelto visited NREL (National Renewable
Energy Laboratories) at Golden, Colorado for one week. A
post-doc researcher Kandler Smith from NREL visited also
Finland. The visit was arranged by the US Embassy Finland.
Dr. Smith gave a lecture at Aalto University about the battery
research at NREL hosted by the ambassador of USA. Smith
also visited HybLab research groups and facilities as well as
Finnish mobile machinery industry.
The project researchers Jukka Halme and Matti Liukkonen
started their six month exchange visits at October 2010. Halme
visited Chiba University at Tokyo (Japan), and Liukkonen visited ETH at Zürich (Switzerland). The project researcher Antti
Lajunen visited ANL (Argonne National Laboratory) at Lemont,
Illinois for six months during 2011. All three visiting universities
and research centers were of high quality and they are anticipated to be good exchange destination possibilities for future
researchers as well. When having these exchange positions it
was great value to show and demonstrate our own research
about the subjects. When gathering experience from abroad to
Finland it is necessary also to be able to offer some for them.
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3.4 Follow-up group of the project
The follow-up group consisted of Fortum, Konecranes, Rocla,
and Sandvik. The group arranged one meeting during every
research seminar, and thus, had a possibility to see the results
of research as well.
4 Experiences from the project
Experiences from the HybLab project and MIDE funding model
were very good. Light reporting and bureaucracy allowed us to
focus fully on the actual research. This was especially important for the project management people. Doctoral students are
not so much stressed by reporting, but their supervisors and
instructors have very limited time frames for one project and for
one student. And for those tight calendars this light reporting
was essential.
The existing hybrid power train testing equipment at the
facilities of Automotive Engineering and for hydraulics Hydraulics provided a rapid start for the project. The equipment was
constantly upgraded during the project to suit better the needs
of the project. The laboratory facilities have been built during
the active projects in this area within almost ten years. During
2008–2012, the test facilities were used by e.g. HybLab, HybDrive, TopDrive, eStorage, Tubridi, eBus and EUL projects.
If we would start project now based on our exercise we
would perhaps force researchers from all groups to seat
together at least for the first year of the project. If possible in
terms of space and laboratory facilities the whole duration of
the project would be favourable.
The academic freedom and especially free-research attitude
of the programme was welcomed with delight. It also made it
possible to aim the research into new paths when new possi­bi­
li­ties were found. Possibility to tell project is funded by University was sometimes value of itself. It showed university commitment to the subject and to us are persons. But it also opened
doors to companies and other research groups not being
funded by companies.
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HybLab MIDE
227
MIDE IPPES
Innovative micro fuel cell system
for portable electronics applications - IPPES
Length: 2008-2011
Budget: 1 338 702 €
Project management:
Prof. Aarne Halme,
Department of Automation and
Systems Technology
Prof. Kyösti Kontturi,
Department of Chemistry
Prof. Markku Lampinen,
Department of Energy Technology
Prof. Sami Franssila,
Department of Materials Science
and Engineering
Prof. Simo Laakso,
Department of Biotechnology and
Chemical Technology
{aarne.halme, kyosti.kontturi,
markku.lampinen, sami.franssila,
simo.laakso}@ aalto.fi
Steering group representatives
from Fortum Plc, Nokia
Research Center and
Spinverse Ltd
228
Abstract
The number of applications and services available to handheld electronics is continuously increasing, but development of
the battery capacity has not been equally fast. Therefore new
energy storage solutions are needed. Aim of the IPPES project was to develop a novel microfuel cell system with a fuelling
technique included. The innovative technology is applicable to
mobile phones, portable computers and other mobile electronic
devices.
IPPES concept is based on in situ and on-demand production of hydrogen. The liquid fuel is transformed to hydrogen
gas by electrolysis in a replaceable fuel cartridge, the gas
is led to a PEM microfuel cell to be converted to electrical
energy. Hydrogen production is controlled by the power
demand of the appliance. The intended primary fuel is methanol due to its high hydrogen content. One of the design principles of the fuel cartridge was disposability, thus biocatalysts
were favored over the metal ones. However, in the course of
the research the biocatalytic production of hydrogen turned
out to be too energy craving. Despite of the attempts, a solution to decrease the power demand close to that of the platinum catalyst system could not be found. Instead, the development of the electrolysis unit was directed to platinum catalyst
system, which operated reliably.
At the present stage the concept has been proven feasible, both theoretically and experimentally, utilizing platinum
catalyst. Secondly, alkaline electrolysis of methanol has been
developed to a fairly good level. Thirdly, the micromechanical
fuel cell developed in the project has an innovative structure
and the level of performance, which corresponds the leading
published results in the field.
IPPES MIDE
1 Goals and achievements
1.1 Goal of the project
Goal of the IPPES project was to develop a small scale power
generation unit for portable electronic appliances of power
range of 0.5 - 20 W. The concept combines the efficiency of
PEM fuel cells and the ease of use of methanol. The process
consists of two steps, evolution of hydrogen gas via electrolysis of methanol and generation of electricity by a micromechanical PEM fuel cell. Some of the electricity produced by
the fuel cell is directed to electrolyser for the electrolysis reaction. Methanol electrolysis was reported to demand less energy
than electrolysis of water; evolution of hydrogen gas started at
0.4 V compared to 1.7 - 1.8 V (Jeffries-Nakamura, 2002). The
overall energy balance of conversion of methanol to hydrogen
and finally to electricity was expected to be positive due to the
low hydrogen evolution voltage of methanol electrolysis. The
energy content of produced hydrogen per mole is higher than
the energy needed for its production by electrolysis. Therefore
it was seen be possible to develop an autonomous generation system of energy, which will provide the surplus energy
for an application. This was confirmed with preliminary experiments using platinum catalyst prior to the project. The research
hypothesis was to at least create a system of improved performance when compared to a direct methanol fuel cell. The concept was initially based on utilization of biocatalyst, an enzyme,
methanol dehydrogenase. The project aimed at developing a
disposable electrolyser-fuel storage unit. Therefore biological
catalyst was preferred over the more efficient platinum and
the platinum catalyst electrolyser was utilized as a reference
system. The envisioned and targeted manufacture method of
the electrolyser-fuel cartridge was printing technology.
Development of a micro mechanical fuel cell was the
second part of the project. The MEMS technology enables production of stack elements having a high reactive area in a relatively small volume. Aim of the research was to find solutions to
maximize volumetric power density of the new type of fuel cell.
The fuel cell was to be integrated in the electronic appliance.
Consequently, disposability need not to be considered anymore and therefore utilisation of metallic catalysts in the fuel
cell MEA (membrane electrode assembly) can be justified.
Lastly, the functionality of the IPPES concept requires control of the current feed to the electrolyser and also control of
the fuel cell in order to keep it in an optimal operating point.
A control system with the mentioned properties was designed
and tested during the project.
All the three components described above will together
create a system illustrated below in Figure 1.
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MIDE IPPES
Fig. 1. Operation principle
of the IPPES concept.
1.2 Achievements
Feasibility of the IPPES concept. A theoretical study of feasibility of the concept was conducted in the first phase of the
project. The thermodynamic modeling of the IPPES concept
consisted of thermodynamic analysis, water and heat balance
examinations. The electrolyser – fuel cell system was compared
with direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC). In principal these systems are thermodynamically alike (figure 2, table 1 ). Therefore
comparison was made by studying efficiency of the electrolysis
and PEM fuel cell against efficiency of a DMFC. Performance
values of the PEM FC and DMFC were taken from the literature.
Values of the electrolysis unit were of the experiments performed at ATL. The calculations were based on the platinum
catalyst system.
Fig. 2. Process chart describing
the IPPES concept above and that
of a direct methanol fuel cell.
Thermodynamically the IPPES
concept is same as the DMFC.
Therefore comparison of the
systems has to be done
by comparing each component
separately.
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IPPES MIDE
Table 1. Reaction equations of an electrolyser – fuel cell system and a
direct methanol fuel cell.
Electrolyzer-fuel cell system Direct methanol fuel cell
CH3OH + H2O —> CO2 + 6H+ + 6e-CH3OH + H2O —> CO2 + 6H+ + 6e6H+ + 6e- —> 3H26H+ + 6e- + 3/2O2 —> 3 H2O
CH3OH + 3/2O2 —> CO2 + 2H2O
CH3OH + H2O —> CO2 + 3H2
3H2_ —> 6H+ + 6e6H+ + 6e- + 3/2O2 —> 3 H2O
3H2 + 3/2O2 —> 3 H2O
Overall reaction
CH3OH + 3/2O2 —> CO2 + 2H2O
Based on the results the feasibility of the IPPES concept with
platinum catalyst compared to direct methanol fuel cell was
established in studies based on both reversible and irreversible
thermodynamics. The main performance differences between
these technologies are illustrated in figure 3. As a hydrogen fuel
cell has a much wider performance range and a higher performance level, an acceptable electrolysis voltage in methanol
electrolysis-hydrogen fuel cell system is in practice quite high.
The lilac crossed line in figure x below illustrates the allowed
upper limit of electrolysis voltage .This practical limit of electrolysis voltage has also been reached in experiments with platinum
catalyst electrolysis unit.
1.2
0.7
0.6
Voltage losses compared to the
theoretical value 1
0.5
The upper limit of
an electrolysis voltage 0.4
0.6
0.3
0.4
Fig. 3. A comparison between
performance characteristics of
direct methanol and hydrogen
fuel cells. The lilac crossed line
illustrates the allowed upper limit
of electrolysis voltage; below the
crossed line, the IPPES concept is
more efficient than a DMFC.
0.2
0.2
0
P (W/cm2)
U (V)
0.8
0.1
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
0
i (A/cm2)
H2FC (voltage U)
DMFC (voltage U)
Limit of electrolysis voltage
H2FC (power density P)
DMFC (power density P)
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MIDE IPPES
The other focal point of the thermodynamic assessment was
the thermodynamic comparison of different enzyme-mediator
pairs as anode alternatives. Reversible thermodynamic calculations have been extended to evaluate also entropy generation of the alternatives. The entropy generation of an enzymatic
catalysis reaction can be divided in two parts: 1) pure chemical
part between enzyme and mediator and 2) electrochemical part
between mediator and anode structure. These calculations are
not restricted to electrolysis unit, but also the same reactions
are attached to anodes of enzymatic fuel cells.
Defining the theoretical values of the biocatalytic reaction
was complicated as the potential of the mediator depends on
the conditions inside the reaction chamber. One definite value
was not found in the literature; the value used in calculations
was the same used in earlier biofuel cell studies in which the
same enzyme was utilized (Appelqvist 2006). The enzymatic
reaction of methanol oxidation, electron transfer from enzyme
via pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ) group to the mediator
tetramethylphenylenediamine (TMPD) and hydrogen evolution are described below (table 2). In electrolysis reaction the
release of electron from the mediator causes a small potential
step to overcome.
Table 2. Reaction equations of the biocatalytic electrolysis of methanol.
CH3OH + PQQ —> CH2O + PQQH2, ΔGo=-38,54 kJ/mol
CH2O + H2O + PQQ —> CHOOH + PQQH2, ΔGo=-115,78kJ/mol
CH3OH + H2O + 2PQQ —> CHOOH + 2PQQH2, ΔGo=-154 kJ/mol
PQQH2 + 2TMPD(ox) —> PQQ + 2TMPD(red) + 2H+, ΔGo= 47,08kJ/mol
2H+ + 2e- —> H2(g)
,
Eo=0V,E’o = -0,416V
Eo=-0,260V,E’o = -0,260V
2TMPD(red) —>2TMPD(ox) + 2e , E’o = -0,676V
2H+ + 2TMPD(red) —> H2(g) + 2TMPD(ox), Eo=-0,260V, The finding led to study of how to create a direct electron
transfer between methanol dehydrogenase and the electrode.
The study on enzymatic electrolysis has also led to new idea:
how to analyze theoretically the most probable reaction steps
during the reformation process. The idea is based on the unselective nature of abiotic catalysts. This means that every step
in a reaction chain has to take part at the same potential if they
take place simultaneously.
Development of the electrolyser unit. The original research
goal was to develop a biocatalytic and an alkaline electrolyser
using the platinum catalyst system as a reference.
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IPPES MIDE
The research on material issues of the enzyme electrode in
2010 resulted in an improvement of 20-25 % of the situation in
the beginning of the project. Changing the assembly improved
the performance slighty more; the achieved current consumption was 2,6 Ah/l H2 (@ 1,5-2V) and power consumption 3,1
Wh/ l H2 (@ 1,5-2V). The current consumption value is acceptable, but the power consumption value was still three –fold to
an acceptable level. The electrolyser-fuel cell system has not
been tested with the enzymatic electrolyser due to the inadequate rate of hydrogen production of the enzymatic process .
The main bottlenecks in obtaining low enough energy/hydrogen
values in enzymatic electrolysis lay probably in the mediated
electron transfer between the enzyme and the electrode and
the physical connection between the membrane and the paste.
The mediator has somewhat higher potential than the anode
electrode and thus causes a hinder for the electron transfer
(see Section 2.2.1). Due to the heat-sensitivity of enzyme heat
cannot be used to fix the paste on the membrane and as a consequence the contact resistance easily becomes high. As the
problem of low efficiency of the biocatalytic process remained
unsolved, the platinum catalyst electrolysis was chosen to be
the primary method of hydrogen production.
As to the platinum catalyst electrolyser, a very satisfactory level of performance was reached by the end of the project. Production of hydrogen gas required 0,575 Wh per liter
hydrogen at voltage of 243 mW and current density of 1 mA/
cm2 at 49 ºC. During the last 12 months two interesting and
important observations were made. Firstly, elevated temperature increased remarkably the energy efficiency of electrolysis.
Rising the temperature from 20 oC to 49 oC decreased the
energy consumption per liter of hydrogen approximately 25 %.
The improvement can be even higher depending on the applied
current density. For example, at 10 mA/cm2 current density the
electrolysis voltage decreases from 420 mV to 332 mV in 16%
methanol solution. The other observation concerned the methanol concentration. In a platinum catalyst fuel cell the maximal
methanol concentration can be 8-10% in order to avoid catalyst
poisoning. In electrolysis reaction the catalyst seemed to tolerate methanol in as high concentration as 32% v/v.
Figure 4a below shows the platinum catalyzed electrolyserfuel cell system as it was presented in MIDE Demo House
event in 2011. The electronics of the control system (figure
4a) is built up from commercially easily available components.
It was redesigned and assembled to a smaller size using a
customized design in the collaborative ISH2SUP project. Further information on the control system in Section 2.2.x. A prototype 10 W laptop operation extender is to be published in
November 2012 (figure 4b) at MIDE Demo House event. Suitability of the IPPES concept beyond the 10 W scale will be
233
MIDE IPPES
studied to find other application areas in mobile hybrid energy
systems.
Fig. 4a. the IPPES testing system charging the mobile phone on the desk.
The system consists of two electrolysers and one PEM fuel cell. The small
silvery cube on the table is the jig of 1 cm2 microfuel cell. (MIDE Demo
Day 2011).
Fig 4b. A prototype 10 W laptop operation extender based on platinum
catalyzed electrolyser-fuel cell to be presented in MIDE Demo Day 2012.
The above described electrolysers, the biocatalytic and the
platinum catalysts one, are both operating with an acidic
Nafion(R) membrane. The alkaline electrolysis of methanol
was the first one worldwide according to the knowledge of the
group research of. Benefit of the alkaline conditions compared
to acidic ones is the possibility to utilize less expensive metallic
catalysts than platinum, such as nickel for example. Functionality of the principle was proven during the project. Hydrogen
was produced at voltage under 0.5 V and at good current efficiency. However, the power efficiency of the electrolysis is not
good enough for commercial applications. One liter of hydrogen
demands a minimum of 1.8 Wh of electrical energy, which is
twice as much as in Nafion(R) based system. This is likely due
to the unoptimized electrode structure of the alkaline system.
Figure 5 presents principle of the alkaline electrolysis and comparison of performance of the two methods.
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IPPES MIDE
Fig. 5. Principle of the alkaline electrolysis of methanol (on the left) and
the comparison of performance of alkaline and acidic membrane electrolyser (on the right).
A Master’s thesis was made in the subject of MEA preparation for methanol fuel cell and electrolyser using an alkaline
membrane (Fumatech FAA2). The aim was to optimize the
use crosslinked polyvinylbenzyltrimethylammonium ionomer
(PVBTA) as the electrode binder and test Pt and PtRu catalysts
for methanol oxidation. A stable electrode structure was discovered after optimization of the MEA preparation procedure.
PtRu was measured to be to more efficient catalyst in methanol
electrolysis at low voltage (< 1 V), but Pt was superior at higher
voltages. MEA performance was studied for different ionomer
and crosslinker content in the electrode, but no clear trend was
observed in the tested range.
The alkaline technology would be worth of further development as the membrane materials have improved remarkably
since the start of the project.
Development of the microfuel cell. Several novel microfuel
cells designs were created and successfully fabricated. Silicon
MFCs produced power densities and current densities somewhat below the best silicon MFCs in the world (650 mA/cm2,
170 mW/cm2), while the aluminum MFC seems to be one of the
record high performance worldwide: >1 A/cm2, 230 mW/cm2
(figure 6.).
A new stacking concept which eliminates stacking overhead
was invented . However, the fragile nature of silicon prevented
practical assembly of these cells into a useful stack, and only
a few working samples were made. Ongoing work of using
aluminum MFC in the same stacking configuration promises
235
MIDE IPPES
to solve this packing problem (work carried out with Graduate
School funding).
Picosecond laser machining (not in the original research
plan) was tested in MFC fabrication. The results are very promising: the speed of laser machining far exceeds anything possible by traditonal micromachining. However, since the experiments were carried out at Aachen, access to laser equipment
was limited, and only preliminary results were achieved. Performancewise the laser machined MFCs are equal or better than
traditional silicon MFCs.
Fig. 6. Performance curve of the
microfuel cell developed by MFG.
Fig. 7. Microfuel cell electrode
with flow field of 1 cm2 (on the
left). The nanograss on the flow
field (on the right).
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IPPES MIDE
Control strategy of the IPPES system. The designed control
system is the basis for autonomous operation of the system. It
allows for automatic starting and stopping of the system as well
as keeping the system in an optimal efficiency state while minimising the water-methanol solution consumption. The control
system is implemented as a state machine on an mbed NXP
LPC 1768 microcontroller.
The state machine consists of the states seen in i.e. startup, reload start-up source, charge load, and shutdown –
reloading start-up source. When the user turns the system on
the microcontroller starts executing the start-up state in which
the methanol electrolyser is started using a rechargeable battery. As the fuel cell voltage becomes high enough the state
changes to reload start-up source in which the start-up source
is recharged to a given state-of-charge (SOC). When the startup source has been charged the charge load state is entered
in which the system outputs power to the load according to the
power demand of the load. At low power demands the control
system lowers the operating point of the system to reduce the
methanol consumption. The system stays in the charge load
state until the methanol runs out or the user turns the system
off. At power off triggered by the user the system enters the
shutdown – recharging start-up source state where the startup source is recharged, if not already at required SOC, to
ensure safe start-up the next time the system is used. If the
methanol starts running out the system informs the user to refill
the methanol container. At very low methanol levels the system
shuts itself off.
Two Master’s thesis (Viitala 2009, Kohonen 2010) has been
made on the IPPES control system.
Development of direct electron transfer for the biocatalytic
electrode. As previously mentioned an unfavorable potential
step was observed in the reaction chain of the enzymatic reaction of methanol reduction mediated by TMPD. In order to avoid
this problem and therefore improve performance of the electrochemical behavior of the cofactor pyrroloquinoline quinone
(PQQ) of methanol dehydrogenase (MDH) was studied. Goal of
the study was to create direct electron transfer from the enzyme
to the electode. Enzyme electrodes were prepared by immobilizing PQQ on few-walled carbon nanotubes (FWCNT) on a
glassy-carbon electrode. Measurements were performed in 0.2
M phosphate buffer solution under N2 atmosphere. The electrochemical response from the electrode was strong indicating
the FWCNTs are a good substrate for adsorption of electroactive molecules. However, PQQ was reacting at a different potential compared to immobilized methanol dehydrogenase (MDH)
(-360 mV vs SCE for PQQ and +40 mV for MDH) even though
the reactive species should be same. This could indicate PQQ
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MIDE IPPES
inside the enzyme is either in a different form than regular PQQ
or that the pH at the FWCNTs in very different from the bulk pH
and may render the enzyme inactive. Also, the results indicate
that the enzyme-FWCNT structure may not be very stable at the
enzymes preferred pH 9.5. The detailed results of the study are
reported in Kanninen et al. (2010). CVs corresponding to different pH values (between 2 and 12) are shown in figure 9. The
potential change over a pH unit is approximately 67 mV, which
suggests a two-proton, two-electron transfer typical to PQQ. As
the direct electron transfer of the MDH does not seem likely, the
efforts were focused on developing a printable enzyme electrode which contain the mediator substance.
Fig. 8a. CVs from PQQ/FWCNT modified electrodes in different pH.
Fig. 8b. Stability of a PQQ-FWCNT electrode in different pH.
Stability here is relation between the transferred charge at beginning
of the experiment and after 500 CVs (red). A two-acid-constant system
is fitted to the results (black).
Development of printed electrodes. One of the goals set in
the research plan was to manufacture the electrolyser unit with
printing technology. In January 2011 a semi-automatic lab scale
screen-printer (figure10) was purchased for the development of
printed electrodes.
As mentioned earlier development of biocatalytic electrode
with direct electron transfer suffered a setback. Research work
was directed to a printable enzymatic electrode in April-august
2011. The first task was to modify consistency of the electrochemically well functioning KB600-CMC paste to be suitable for the screen printing process. KB600-CMC paste was
composed of Ketjen black 60, carboxymethylcellulose, phosphate buffer and mediator. Also, the binding properties to the
printing substrate (PE coated cardboard) were non-existing.
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IPPES MIDE
Testing of different hydrogels and binders in several combinations resulted in a few paste compositions with good binding
properties and spreadability. The developed paste mixtures
had the same surface conductance as a commercial carbon
ink optimized for enzyme applications (BQ221, DuPont). After
preliminary printing trials a printed enzyme electrode was manufactured and tested. The performance was poorer than that of
the previous manually made KB600-CMC ones but the enzyme
functionality was maintained.
Fig. 9. RokuPrint table top
semi-automatic screen printer.
Printing of platinum catalyst materials has also been under
study in the IPPES project. After some early stage difficulties reproducible platinum catalyst prints were obtained after
adjustment of solvent quality and amount. The MEAs were
manufactured of commercial PtRu (anode) and Pt (cathode)
on Vulcan with target catalyst loading 2 mg cm-2 and active
area 7.29 cm2. Five to eight printing cycles were needed to
reach the target. Printing substrate was Nafion membrane.
Figure 11 illustrates the cross-section of a printed MEA. The
catalyst layer is even and well bound to the Nafion membrane.
Fig. 10. A SEM micrograph of
printed PtRu anode (left) and
Pt cathode (right).
Manufacture of a complete electrolyser unit by screen printing
was not realized during the project. The effort continued in the
co-existing project ISH2SUP (a FCH JU project).
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MIDE IPPES
2 Output
2.1 List of publications
Master’s theses
Axel Kohonen, (2011) Further development of a fuel cell electrolyser test bed and developing a microcontroller-based
control system for it.
Sami Tuomi (2011) Alkalinen polymeerielektrolyyttimetanolipolttokenno ja elektrolyyseri käyttäen PVBTAionomeeria.
Lassi Viitanen (2010) Vedyn paikalliseen elektrolyyttiseen
tuottamiseen perustuvan polttokenno-hydridijärjestelmän
ohjaus.
Bachelor’s theses
Maria Virkkala (2011) Biologinen vedyntuotanto.
Mikko Lassila (2010) Sähkökemiallinen ja biologinen vedyntuotanto.
Katariina Natunen (2009) Hydrogen producing enzymes and
their applications.
Viljami Kangasmäki (2009) Biologiset polttokennot.
Timo Tolvanen (2009) Vedyn tuottaminen aurinkoenergialla.
Journal papers
1. Gianmario Scotti, Petri Kanninen, Tanja Kallio, Sami
Franssila: Integration of carbon felt gas diffusion layers in silicon micro fuel cells, J. Micromech. Microeng. 22 094006 (2012)
2. Petri Kanninen, Virginia Ruiz, Tanja Kallio, I.V. Anoshkin, Esko I. Kauppinen, Kyösti Kontturi, Simple immobiliztion of pyrroloquinoline quinone on few-walled carbon nano
tubes, Electrochem. Comm. 12 (2010) 1257-1260 (impact factor 5,159)
3. G. Scotti, P. Kanninen, M. Mäkinen, T. Kallio, S. Franssila, Silicon nanograss as micro fuel cell gas diffusion layer, Micro & Nano Letters, 2010, Vol. 5, Iss. 6, pp. 382-385 (impact factor 2009 1,167; 2012 still counting)
Conference papers
1. Gianmario Scotti, Velcro-type attachment of black
silicon and carbon cloth for improved galvanic
contact in micro fuel cells, PowerMEMS 2011, Seoul, Republic of Korea, 15-18 Nov. 2011, Technical digest, Pages 403-406
2. G. Scotti, P. Kanninen, T. Kallio, and S. Franssila,
Symmetric Silicon Micro Fuel Cell With Porous Electrodes, Proceedings Transducers ´09, p. 1401-1404
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IPPES MIDE
3. Scotti, G.; Kanninen, P.; Kallio, T.; Franssila, S.; Micro Fuel Cell With Lithographically Defined Flowfield Channels And Random Patterns For Gas Diffusion Layer, Proceedings Power MEMS, 2009, pages 486-489
Posters
1. Petri Kanninen, Virginia Ruiz, Tanja Kallio, I.V. Anoshkin, Esko I. Kauppinen and Kyösti Kontturi, Immobilization of Pyrroloquinoline Quinone on Few-Walled Carbon
Nanotubes, 9th ISE Spring Meeting, 8.-11.5.2011, Turku, Finland.
2. Petri Kanninen, Virginia Ruiz, Tanja Kallio, I.V. Anoshkin, Esko I. Kauppinen and Kyösti Kontturi, Immobilization of Pyrroloquinoline Quinone on Few-Walled Carbon
Nanotubes, EICOON Workshop and Summer School:
Nanomaterial Issues in Electrochemical Energy Conversion: Fuel Cells, Batteries, Supercapacitors, 13.-17.6.2011,
Helsinki, Finland.
3. Gianmario Scotti, PowerMEMS 2011 (Nov. 15- Nov. 20., Seoul, Republic of Korea), Velcro-type attachment of black silicon and carbon cloth for improved galvanic contact in micro fuel cells.
a. note: The poster won runner-up to best
conference poster and J. Micromech. Microeng. from IOP invited the author to submit a paper for a special edition,
submission will be in 2012.
4. Petri Kanninen, Virginia Ruiz, Tanja Kallio, Esko I.
Kauppinen, Kyösti Kontturi, Immobilization of
Pyrroloquinoline Quinone on Few-Walled Carbon
Nanotubes, 61st Annual Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry, 26.9.-1.10.2010, Nice, France
5. P. Kanninen, T. Kallio, V. Ruiz and K. Kontturi, Direct
Electron Transfer of Methanol Dehydrogenase with Carbon Nanotubes, 42nd IUPAC Congress: Chemistry Solutions, Glasgow 2009, P614_017
Other
1. Anja Ranta, Tuula Noponen, Tom Granström, Gian-Mario Scott, Petri Kanninen, Sami Franssila ja Aarne Halme, Sähköä metanolipatruunasta, Prosessori ProTeknologia 11/2010, p. 32-34.
2.2 Side projects and follow-up projects
In 2009 The Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking
(NERGHY JU) approved application of the ISH2SUP project,
coordinator of the project was TKK. The other parties were
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MIDE IPPES
Hydrocell (Finland), CEA (France) and myFC (Sweden). The
focus of the project was development of a fuel cartridge for an
in situ on-demand hydrogen production system. The 3-year project started in January 2010.
There is a strong intention to continue development of the
methanol electrolysis, both acidic and alkaline. Funding has
been granted from MIDE for preparing a Tekes TUTL project
aiming for commercialization of a power source based on
alcohol electrolysis.
2.3 Patents and spin-off companies
Published patents, patent applications and declarations of innovation:
• Halme, A., Ranta, A., Sähköntuottojärjestelmä FI 121928 (2011)
• Halme, A., Ylikorpi, T. declaration of innovation, Endplate for fuel cell stack or electrolycer cell stack, (26.6.2012)
• Halme, A., Ylikorpi, T. declaration of innovation, Combined electrolyser and PEM-fuel cell stack, (26.6.2012)
2.4 Relevance
The concept of combining hydrogen production by electrolysis
of methanol and generation of electricity by a fuel cell seems to
be unique. There are a few groups studying electrolysis of methanol in acidic conditions. As mentioned earlier other groups
studying alkaline electrolysis of methanol have not been found.
Also, performance of the microfuel cell developed during IPPES
is well in relation to worldwide status in the field. Additionally
in the microfuel cell study a more simple, thus less expensive,
manufacturing method has been developed. All together one
can state that new openings have been made in the project.
A prototype 10 W laptop operation extender is to be published in November 2012 at MIDE Demo House event. Suitability of the IPPES concept beyond the 10 W scale will be
studied to find other application areas in mobile hybrid energy
systems.
2.5 Impact on education
During the 4,5-year project three Master’s Thesis and five Candidate’s Thesis were published. Two doctoral thesis are in finalizing status at the moment, expected time of public defense is in
the spring of 2013 for the both.
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IPPES MIDE
3 Departments, staff, cooperation
3.1 Departments and staff involved
in the project
The research groups taking part in the IPPES project were
Automation technology, Applied thermodynamics, Biochemistry, Microfabrication group and Physical chemistry. Thus the
involved departments are ELEC, CHEM and ENG. Due to lack of
resources the Biochemistry group withdrew from the project for
the last 2 years.
Overall number of person months for the duration of the
project is 240 (ATL 65,6, AT 33, BIO 3,1, MFG 49,4 and PHYS
CHEM 88,9). The yearly division of the resources was following: 2008: 41.21 (3-12/2008), 2009: 55,54, 2010: 48,5,
2011: 57,7 and 2012: 30,2 (1-6/2012).
Resources utilized in IPPES during 2008-2012 are listed in
Appendix 1. The list shows person months of each member of
staff and each group.
3.2 Cooperation between
the research groups
The cooperation between the research teams has been fluent.
AT has been responsible for the thermodynamical calculations
and evaluation. The microfuel cells developed and manufactured by the MFG group have been characterized at FYKE. The
enzyme-CNT electrode was developed at FYKE, they have also
provided ATL with MEAs for the biological electrolyser. FYKE
has also been responsible for the printing experiments and
development of the alkaline electrolysis. At ATL experiments
of biological electrolysis and polymeric immobilization of the
enzyme catalyst have been performed. Additionally, development of platinum electrolysis and the control system for the
electrolyser-fuel cell system has been the responsibility of ATL.
The steering group has had meetings regularly. The last
meeting of the follow-up group together with the concluding
scientific seminar to which all members of the research teams
were invited was held in April 2012.
3.3 Cooperation in other fields of activity
The IPPES project did not receive Aalto-cooperation funding. As
to international cooperation, Gianmario Scotti visited the Fraunhofer Institut (DE) during the period of 28.03. - 04.04. of 2011.
Scotti was a guest at the Fraunhofer Institut für Laser Technik
affiliated to RWTH with the intent of testing laser ablation for
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MIDE IPPES
producing silicon MFCs analog to the one microfabricated at
Micronova. The IPPES project had also a close connection
to the FCH JU project ISH2SUP. Cooperation with industry is
related to the ISH2SUP project too, Hydrocell (FI) has followed
IPPES with interest.
3.4 Successes and setbacks,
changes in the research plan
There have been successes, but also a few setbacks. Firstly, a
functional electrolyser – fuel cell system equipped with a control system has been realized with platinum catalyst. Secondly,
alkaline electrolysis of methanol has been developed to a fairly
good level. Thirdly, the micromechanical fuel cell developed in
the project has an innovative structure and a world class performance. Setbacks are related with the biocatalyst. The biocatalytis electrolysis had a too high power consumption and a too
low hydrogen production rate. Also, the effort of improving the
performance by direct electron transfer, therefore by eliminating
the mediator, was not successful.
3.5 Feedback
Funding of challenging and high-risk basic research has been
valuable for the TKK/Aalto research community. Light administration, easy reporting and low hierarchy saved the time and
effort of the researchers.
Appendix 1
IPPES Personel 2008-2012
244
ATL
Role
2008
2009
2010
2011
1-6/2012
Sum(h)
Pm (1pm
= 153 h)
Halme,
Aarne
CO, R
247
391
41
20
0
699
4,6
Ranta, Anja
PM, R
454,9
725
531
533,25
478,5
2722,65
17,8
Kohonen,
Axel
RA, MT, R
1319,5
290
1609,5
10,5
Virkkala,
Maria
RA
217,5
217,5
1,4
Natunen,
Katariina
RA
29
609
4,0
580
IPPES MIDE
Kielosto,
Sami
R
129,25
Nenonen,
Susanna
RA
645,25
Viitanen,
Lassi
RA, MT
267
4,7
334
1610
10,5
415,25
283
696,25
4,6
198,75
1,3
276,5
1,8
652,5
4,3 pm
(ATL)
27
0,2
198,75
R
720,08
630,70
Selkäinaho, R
Jorma
Forsman,
Pekka
323,83
276,5
Kusumah,
Ferdi
580
Leppänen,
Tapio
27
72,5
Pm (ATL)
65,6
AT
Role
2008
Sallinen,
Jenni
R
145,25
Noponen,
Tuula
R
558,25
2009
2010
1359,63 1231
2011
1029,5
1-6/2012
717,75
Sum(h)
Pm (1pm
= 153 h)
145,25
0,9
4896,13
32,0
Pm (AT)
33,0
FYKE
Role
2008
2009
2010
2011
1-6/2012
Sum(h)
Pm (1pm
= 153 h)
Kallio,
Tanja
R
348
83,5
92,25
165,05
451,75
1140,55
7,5
Kanninen,
Petri
R, DS
1334,3
1827
1457,25 1305
812
6735,55
44,0
Tuomi,
Sami
RA, MT
127,5
735,25
664,1
3136,35
20,5
Jalkanen,
Kirsi
RA
563,5
171,6
735,1
4,8
Rauhala,
Taina
RA
130,5
123,25
253,75
1,7
Weckmann,
Timo
RA
384,25
529,25
159,5
1073
7,0
Hakanpää,
Janina
RA
123,25
406
529,25
3,5
1609,5
245
MIDE IPPES
Pm (FYKE)
88,9
BIO
Role
2008
2009
Granström,
Tom
R
145
333,5
2010
2011
1-6/2012
Sum(h)
Pm (1pm
= 153 h)
478,5
3,1
Pm (BIO)
3,1
MFG
Role
2008
2009
2010
2011
1-6/2012
Sum(h)
Pm (1pm
= 153 h)
Scotti,
Gian-Mario
R, DS
1116,5
1624
1240
1240
716,5
5937
38,8
Mäkinen,
Maija
RA
450
450
900
5,9
Alam,
Sardar
RA, MT
718,25
4,7
489,5
228,75
Pm (MFG)
TOTAL
Coordinator – CO
Researcher – R
Research assistant – RA
Project manager – PM
Master’s thesis – MT
Doctoral student – DS
Mechanic – M
246
49,4
6304,2
8799,73 8025,35 8961,05 4627,08
36717,41 240,0
IPPES MIDE
247
MIDE ISMO
Intelligent structural health monitoring
system - ISMO
Length: 2008-2011
Budget: 1 600 000 €
Project management:
D.Sc .(Tech.) Jyrki Kullaa,
Department of Applied Mechanics
Prof. Rolf Stenberg,
Department of Mathematics
and Systems Analysis
Chief Research Scientist
Jaakko Hollmén,
Department of Information
and Computer Science
Prof. Antti Ylä-Jääski,
Department of Computer Science
and Engineering
Prof. Riku Jäntti,
Department of Communications
and Networking
Prof. Jukka Manner,
Department of Communications
and Networking
Prof. Heikki Koivo,
Department of Automation and
Systems Technology
{rolf.stenberg, jaakko.hollmen,
antti.yla-jaaski, riku.jantti,
jukka.manner, heikki.koivo}
@aalto.fi, [email protected]
Steering group representatives
from the City of Espoo,
Konecranes Plc and
Rautaruukki Plc
248
Abstract
Structural health monitoring (SHM) is a new approach to collect data about critical structural elements using sensors to
provide diagnosis of the structure’s condition during its life.
The objective of this research project was to build a complete
intelligent monitoring system for structural health monitoring
applications.
The project had three interacting main components; technology, methodology, and demonstrator development. First,
the wireless sensing and networking technologies required in
intelligent SHM systems were developed. Second, the SHM
methodology was developed aiming ultimately at the ability to
detect and localize damage, evaluate its extent, and predict the
remaining lifetime of the structure. Finally, the developed technology platform and SHM methods were validated and demonstrated.
The result of the project was a complete intelligent monitoring system to assess the structure’s condition and to predict
the remaining lifetime. The deliverables of each work package
were: communication protocols needed in the sensors, cluster
head and gateway nodes (WP1), a reliable, energy efficient and
reconfigurable time-synchronized real-time wireless sensor
network platform (WP2), data mining methodologies for feature
extraction and selection, visualization, and clustering (WP3),
interplay between computation and communication, special
architectures and computational algorithms for resource-limited (memory, energy, accuracy, and computation) environments (WP3), statistical inference for damage detection and
sensor fault identification in a distributed sensor network environment (WP3), methods to estimate damage location and
extent with inverse methods, and estimating the remaining
lifetime (WP4), and experimental validation of the techniques
developed in the other work packages (WP5).
ISMO MIDE
1 Goals and achievements
1.1 Detailed goals
The project was divided into five work packages (WP) listed
below. The results of WP1 and WP2 formed the technology platform used, WP3 and WP4 provided the theoretical contributions
of the project, and WP5 built up the complete system and used
it for demonstrators.
• Work package 1: Wireless sensor networking
for SHM applications
• Work package 2: Middleware solutions for intelligent monitoring systems
• Work package 3: Communication-aware data mining
of structural health data
• Work package 4: Model-based analysis techniques
for SHM
• Work package 5: System integration and demonstrators
Wireless sensor networking for SHM applications (WP1)
• Requirements and restrictions of the sensor networks f
or SHM applications
• WSN modeling and simulation tools
• Radio link-layer protocols for sensor networks
• IP transport and service discovery protocols for sensors, cluster head and gateway nodes
• IP-based routing in the intelligent monitoring system
Middleware solutions for intelligent monitoring systems
(WP2)
• Reliable, energy efficient and reconfigurable real-time wire
less sensor network platform
• Programming abstractions for sensor network nodes
• Security architecture for sensor networks
Communication-aware data mining of structural health data
(WP3)
• Development of data synchronization methods
• Data mining methodologies for feature extraction
and selection, visualization, and clustering
• Special architectures and computational algorithms for resource-limited environments
• Statistical inference for damage detection and sensor fault identification
• Elimination of environmental or operational variability
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MIDE ISMO
Model-based analysis techniques for SHM (WP4)
• Model setup: FEM models, simplified models
• Model updating techniques
• Identification of uncertainties in the model and in sensor
positioning
• Development of inverse solvers
• Statistical characteristics of model uncertainties and model verification
• System setup for real data, streamlining, and speed-up
• Material and damage models
• Methods to estimate damage location and extent
• Estimation of future loading
• Simulations to predict the remaining lifetime of the structure
System integration and demonstrators (WP5)
• Inter-component interface definitions
• System management tools and user interfaces
• Demonstrator 1: Serviceman concept
• Demonstrator 2: SHM system on a bridge
1.2 Achievements
Work package 1: Wireless sensor networking for SHM applications
• The requirements and restrictions of the sensor networks were defined for SHM applications.
• Time synchronization and distributed synchronized
sampling of sensors. An accurate and robust time
synchronization protocol was proposed and implemented. The task synchronization error observed at the sampling application was less than two (2) microseconds, which well satisfies the requirements of a typical SHM application.
• Interference avoidance and channel ranking. Channel
ranking algorithms were proposed that can a) effectively detect the interference in terms of its channel temporal occupancy and the strength level and b) rank the channels to assist in the selection of a channel with suitable
interference conditions. The collaborative channel
ranking schemes were also considered to reduce the channel energy measurements and increase the reliability of channel ranking. A decision theoretic approach for
identifying the influence weights of interference parameters on the quality of a channel was proposed. A channel
ranking strategy for WSN was designed in the presence of WLAN interference.
• A configuration and management tool for WSN applications was designed and implemented.
• An efficient clock skew estimator was proposed to
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significantly reduce the frequency of synchronization points in the network.
• A new reliable multi-hop routing protocol was proposed and its performance analysis performed.
• Directional and dual antenna systems were demonstrated for the communication reliability. Also a multichannel
protocol was proposed.
• A prototyping tool was designed that can integrate the real hardware with a wireless network simulator such as ns2.
• A test-bed for the verification of Internet of Things (IoT)
protocols was designed where the test-bed runs a self-
designed generic energy metering application.
• A-Stack, a real-time protocol stack for time-synchronized, multi-channel and slotted communication in multi-hop
wireless networks was developed.
• A Generic-Multichannel MAC (G-McMAC) protocol,
a framework for co-existence of multiple WSNs was
proposed. G-McMAC is 6LowPAN compliant. The proposed protocol achieves high throughput and low packet
transmission delays while enabling coexistence of multiple overlapping wireless networks.
• A prototyping tool for wireless devices was developed.
Work package 2: Middleware solutions for intelligent
monitoring systems
• Based on the conducted survey and system requirements, a middleware architecture was designed and implemented.
• The main result in middleware solutions was the architecture and implementation of an energy aware node clustering algorithm on top of the Mires platform.
• A reliable and energy-aware node clustering algorithm on Nanonode was defined.
• A luster-based data aggregation architecture in WSN for SHM was proposed.
• A Smart Trigger for cognitive node clustering in WSN was invented.
• A HIP DEX security handshake protocol on SunSPOT was defined.
Work package 3: Communication-aware data mining of
structural health data
• Distributed damage detection and localization.
A computationally efficient Goertzel algorithm was
studied for monitoring specific frequencies only from the vibration data. Transmissibility was considered an
interesting feature to monitor and its potential in detecting damage was studied.
• Feature selection algorithms were studied and implemented for on-line damage detection in wireless sensor networks. 251
MIDE ISMO
Different projection and novelty detection methods were tested to reduce the features for damage detection.
• Damage detection was performed using novelty detection, in which only a baseline model of the normal undamaged structure is available.
• Damage detection algorithms that are insensitive to varying environmental or operational conditions were invented and implemented. The measurement of the environmental or operational variables in not necessary.
• An SHM algorithm was proposed and verified, which can distinguish between structural damage, sensor faults, and environmental or operational variability.
• Nonlinear dimensionality reduction algorithms were tested.
• A three-way decomposition (time ´ sensor pair ´ vibration frequency) of vibration data was studied for damage
detection.
• Statistical inference for damage detection and localization was studied using the minimum mean square error (MMSE) estimation with the generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT). This time-domain method yielded accurate results.
• Three different models for sensor fault identification and reconstruction of a faulty sensor were developed and
compared.
• Output-only modal analysis was performed using data acquired with WSN and compared with the same structure using traditional transducers.
• Development of energy efficient damage identification
algorithms for wireless sensor networks were proposed and compared. There is a trade-off between the energy-effi
ciency and the detection performance, which is important to consider in the design of wireless SHM systems.
• Simple but efficient time series feature extraction algorithms were developed.
• A large set of experiments were conducted with real and simulated data sets.
Work package 4: Model-based analysis techniques for SHM
• Several algorithms to regularize the ill-conditioned problem of estimating the damage from modal data were
implemented and tested on simulated data for a
cantilever beam. A stochastic inverse method that uses a hierarchical formulation of the prior assumptions was found to give good results.
• Experimental vibration tests with a cantilever beam being gradually damaged were performed. The changes in the modal parameters were analyzed and inverse methods were studied to localize and quantify damage.
• A finite element model of the wooden bridge was created. The sensitivities of natural frequencies and mode shapes 252
ISMO MIDE
to different model parameters were computed. The
sensitivities were used in the inverse solver to find the optima for the updated parameters.
• Several experimental tests were carried out. Experimental modal tests for the wooden bridge were made with
different damage scenarios: added masses or a damaged strut. The modal parameters of the structure were identified using the stochastic subspace algorithm.
• Simulations were also performed and data provided to the project team to verify different features and algorithms for damage detection.
• Model updating and damage identification of a beam model structure were shown to be feasible using the inverse solver developed. Using experimental data of the undamaged structure to take modeling error into account in the
statistical inverse method was shown to improve the
robustness of the method.
• Forward and inverse solvers were developed.
• A priori convergence analysis of the inverse problem, with a posteriori analysis was performed.
• Adaptive mesh refinement was studied. A posteriori
estimates provide adaptive mesh refinement.
• Simulations of a beam with a breathing crack for SHM were performed. A crack could be detected and localized once its length exceeded 10% of the height of the beam with a typical signal-to-noise ratio.
• Prediction of the remaining life of the structure for fatigue was performed, which is one of the most common failure modes of machines and structures.
Work package 5: System integration and demonstrators
• A wireless measurement kit was developed to support wire
less structural health monitoring. It included the integration of acceleration, temperature and humidity sensors to Sensi
node hardware.
• A high-speed interface from the sensor node to PC was developed to transfer large amounts of data collected by the sensor nodes to the PC. It reduced the transfer time
considerably.
• An algorithm was developed, which estimated the missing samples duding data storage.
• The demonstrator was a wooden bridge. It was shown
to be a nice platform for true collaboration. Several data sets were measured for different research problems.
• The architecture of the second version of the ISMO node was defined and the proposed architecture provided enough flexibility and capacity for the integration.
• The protocol stack (NanoStack) was modified for the
integration.
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• The WSN management tools and user interfaces were
developed. Through a user interface it is possible to manage, configure and program WSN applications.
• A wireless monitoring toolkit was developed, which can be defined as a portable, easy-to-use, simple-to-setup, and fast monitoring system to be used for simultaneous
multi-parameter monitoring of physical structures and
processes. The toolkit consists of user interfaces, a novel data acquisition system which optimizes wireless
communication speed in the network, a real-time monitoring application, a communication test application, a high
sampling rate application, and wireless sensors hardware equipped with multiple sensors and IEEE 802.15.4 radios. The wireless monitoring toolkit forms the basic tools of an “intelligent serviceman”. Figure 1. Wireless sensor node (left) and the wooden bridge instrumented with 15 high-
quality wired accelerometers (red) and 6 wireless sensor nodes (blue).
Fig. 1. Wireless sensor node (left) and the wooden bridge instrumented
with 15 high-quality wired accelerometers (red) and 6 wireless sensor
nodes (blue).
• Demonstrator: The SHM system was demonstrated on the wooden bridge at the MIDE Demo Day. http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=YJvz5YS_RIE
• Demonstrator: Bridge between TUAS and T-building. A two week deployment gathering 30 seconds of
vibration data every 10 minutes. The deployment worked without a problem, demonstrating automatic node re-joining and reliable operation.
• The time synchronization protocol was implemented
enabling a highly accurate experimental modal analysis of the monitored structure.
• A-stack, a framework for real-time and reliable
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communication stack was implemented. The stack
implementation has automatic node joining, scheduling, time-synchronization, and retransmission features.
• Lifetime prediction algorithm of the wireless sensor system was developed based on the parameters of the monitoring application.
2 Output
2.1 List of publications
Doctoral theses
M. Bocca. Application-driven Data Processing in Wireless
Sensor Networks, Doctoral Dissertation, Aalto University School
of Electrical Engineering, 2011.
Master’s theses
Hamidreza Shariatmadari, Channel Ranking Scheme in Wireless
Sensor Networks based on Packet Delivery Ratio Estimation,
Master’s thesis, 2012.
Bo Li, A Distributed Data Aggregation and Fusion Framework
for WSN. Master’s thesis, 2010.
Kuusisto, Jari A Reliable Multi-Hop Communication Protocol
for Wireless Sensor Networks. Master’s thesis, 2010.
Yi Gong, A Flexible Simulation Framework for Hierarchical
Clustering on WSN. Master’s thesis, 2010.
M. M. A. Hossain, How Much Room Does IEEE 802.11 Allow for
IEEE 802.15.4 Operation?, Master’s thesis, September 2009.
E.I. Cosar, A wireless toolkit for monitoring applications,
Master’s thesis, Department of Automation and Systems
Technology, Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland,
2009.
K. Venesmaa, Influence of standards IEEE-754 and IEEE854 and floating-point precision to data mining and machine
learning methods, (In Finnish), Master’s thesis, Helsinki
University of Technology, May 2009.
A. Huhtala, Locating damage in a structure using measurements of vibrational parameters, Master’s thesis, Department of
Mathematics and Systems Analysis, Helsinki University of
Technology, Espoo, Finland, December 2009.
Bachelor’s theses
L. Kannari, Rakenteiden langaton kunnonvalvonta, B.Sc.
thesis, TKK 2009.
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Journals
1. H. Yigitler, A. Mahmood, R. Virrankoski, R. Jäntti,
Recursive Clock Skew Estimation for Wireless Sensor
Networks using Reference Broadcasts, IET journal on
Wireless Sensor Systems, Accepted July 2012.
2. Prada, M.A., Toivola, J., Kullaa, J., Hollmén, J. 2012.
Three-way analysis of structural health monitoring data. Neurocomputing 80, p. 119-128. Elsevier.
3. Kullaa, J. 2012. Detection, identification, and quantification of sensor fault in a sensor network. Submitted to
Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing.
4. Bocca, M., Mahmood, A., Eriksson, L.M., Kullaa, J.,
Jäntti, R. 2011. A synchronized wireless sensor network
for experimental modal analysis in structural health
monitoring, Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure
Engineering 26 (7), 483–499.
5. Kullaa, J. 2011. Distinguishing between sensor fault,
structural damage, and environmental or operational effects in structural health monitoring. Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 25 (8), 2976–2989.
6. M. Björkbom, S. Nethi, L. Eriksson, and R. Jäntti, Wireless
control system design and cosimulation, Control
Engineering Practice, Vol 19, No. 9, September 2011,
1075-1086.
7. A. Mahmood, R. Jäntti, A Decision Theoretic Approach for Channel Ranking in Crowded Unlicensed Bands, Springer Journal on Wireless Networks, 2011.
8. Deraemaeker, A., Preumont, A., Reynders, E., De Roeck, G., Kullaa, J., Lämsä, V., Worden, K., Manson, G., Barthorpe, R., Papatheou, E., Kudela, P., Malinowski, P., Ostachowicz, W., Wandowski, T. 2010 Vibration based structural health monitoring using large sensor networks. Smart Structures and Systems, Vol. 6, No. 3, 335–347.
9. Kullaa, J. 2010. Sensor validation using minimum mean square error estimation. Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 24 (5), 1444–1457.
10. Lembo, S., Kuusisto, J., Manner, J., In-Depth Breakdown of a 6LOWPAN Stack for Sensor Networks, In: International Journal of Computer Networks & Communications (IJCNC), November 2010, Volume 2, Number 6, 204-223.
11.Kullaa, J. 2009. Eliminating environmental or operational
influences in structural health monitoring using the missing data analysis. Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, Vol. 20, No. 11, 1381–1390.
12.Kullaa, J. 2008. Continuing structural health monitoring after repair: Starting from scratch? Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 56, pp. 495-501.
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Conference papers
1. Kullaa, J. 2012. Whitening transformation in damage detection. Smart structures: Proceedings of the 5th
European Conference on Structural Control — EACS 2012, CD ROM, A.E. Del Grosso, P. Basso (eds.), Genoa, Italy, June 18–20, 2012. Erredi Grafiche Editoriali.
2. Kullaa, J. 2012. Sequential structural health monitoring and damage detection. Proceedings of the 6th European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring. C. Boller (ed.), Dresden, Germany, July 3–6, 2012. DGZfP, 674–681.
3. M. Bocca, J. Toivola, L.M. Eriksson, J. Hollmen, and H. Koivo. Structural Health Monitoring in Wireless Sensor Networks by the Embedded Goertzel Algorithm, 2nd ACM/
IEEE International Conference on Cyber Physical Systems (ICCPS 2011), April 11-14, 2011, Chicago, IL, USA.
4. M. Björkbom, R. Jäntti, H. Koivo, Real-time wireless sensor systems for monitoring and control, AutomaatioXIX seminar, Helsinki, Finland, March 15-16, 2011.
5. Toivola, J. and Hollmén J. 2011. Collaborative filtering for coordinated monitoring in sensor networks. In Proceedings of the ICDMW 2011 11th IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshops, p. 987–994. IEEE Computer Society.
6. Kullaa, J. 2011. Separating three sources of changes in structural health monitoring. Sensors, instrumentation
and special topics, Volume 6: Proceedings of the 29th IMAC, A Conference on Structural Dynamics T. Proulx (ed.), Jacksonville, Florida, USA, January 31–February 3, 2011. Springer, 17–25.
7. Pin Nie and Bo Li, A Cluster-based Data Aggregation Archi
tecture in WSN for Structural Health Monitoring, In Pro
ceedings of the 7th International Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC 2011), Istanbul, Turkey, July 2011.
8. Nie, P., Vähä-Herttua J., Aura T. and Gurtov A., Performance Analysis of HIP Diet Exchange for WSN Security
Establishment. In Proceedings of the 7th Annual
International Symposium on QoS and Security for Wireless and Mobile Networks (Q2SWinet 2011), Miami Beach, FL, USA, October 2011.
9. A. Mahmood, K. Koufos, R. Jäntti, Channel Ranking
Algorithm and Ranking Error Bounds: A Two Channel Case, In Proc. of IEEE PIMRC’11, Canada, 2011.
10. E. I. Cosar, A. Mahmood, M. Björkbom, A-Stack: A Real-
Time Protocol Stack for IEEE 802.15.4 Radios, In Proc. 6th IEEE International Workshop on Practical Issues in Building Sensor Network Applications, SENSEAPP’11, Bonn,
Germany, 2011.
11. S. Nethi, J. Nieminen and R. Jäntti, Exploitation of
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Multi-Channel Communications in Industrial Wireless Sensor Applications: Avoiding Interference and Enabling Coexistence, IEEE Wireless Networking and Communication Conference (WCNC), Cancun, Mexico, March 28-31, 2011.
12. J. Nieminen, S. Nethi, M. Björkbom, A. Mahmood, L. Eriksson and R. Jäntti, Advanced Communication Solutions for Reliable Wireless Sensor Systems, Intech, 2011.
13. Kullaa, J., Bocca, M., Eriksson, L.M. 2010. Energy-efficient SHM in wireless sensor networks by damage detection
from short time series. Proceedings of the 5th European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring. F. Casciati and M. Giordano (eds.). Sorrento, Naples, Italy, June 28–July 4, 2010. DEStech Publications, 943–948.
14. Kullaa, J. 2010. Detection, identification, and
quantification of sensor fault. Proceedings of ISMA2010, International Conference on Noise and Vibration
Engineering – CD ROM. P. Sas, B. Bergen (eds.), Leuven, Belgium, September 20–22, 2010, KU Leuven, 893–907.
15. Lembo, S., Kuusisto, J., Manner, J., Internal Map of the Nanostack 6LoWPAN Stack, In: Meghanathan, N.,
Boumerdassi, S., Chaki, N., Nagamalai, D., eds.: Recent Trends in Networks and Communications. Volume 90 of Communications in Computer and Information Science. Springer Berlin Heidelberg (2010), 619–633.
16. Lämsä V., Raiko T. 2010. Novelty Detection by Nonlinear Factor Analysis for Structural Health Monitoring,
Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE International Workshop on Machine Learning for Signal Processing, S. Kaski, D.J. Miller, E. Oja, A. Honkela (eds.), Kittilä, Finland, August 29–
September 1, 2010, IEEE, 468-473.
17. Pin Nie, Zhihua Jin, Morph: Cognitive Clustering for
Wireless Sensor Networks using Smart Materials. I
n Proceedings of the 5th European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring (EWSHM 2010), Sorrento, Italy,
June 2010.
18. Pin Nie, Zhihua Jin, Yi Gong, Mires++: A Reliable,
Energy-aware Clustering Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks. In Proceedings of the 13th ACM International Conference on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation
of Wireless and Mobile Systems (MSWiM 2010), Bodrum, Turkey, October 2010.
19. Pin Nie, Zhihua Jin, Requirements, Challenges and
Opportunities of Wireless Sensor Networks in Structural Health Monitoring. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Broadband Network and Multimedia
Technology (IC-BNMT 2010), Beijing, China, October 2010.
20. Toivola, J., Prada, M.A., Hollmén, J., Novelty Detection
in Projected Spaces for Structural Health Monitoring.
In Advances in Intelligent Data Analysis IX, Proceedings of 258
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the 9th International Symposium on Intelligent Data
Analysis (IDA 2010), volume 6065 of LNCS, pages 208-219. Springer. May 2010.
21. Prada, M.A., Hollmén, J., Toivola, J., Kullaa, J. 2010. Three-
Way Analysis of Structural Health Monitoring Data.
Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE International Workshop on Machine Learning for Signal Processing. S. Kaski, D.J. Miller, E. Oja, A. Honkela (eds.), Kittilä, Finland, August 29–
September 1, 2010, IEEE, 256–261.
22. Huhtala A., Bossuyt S., Hannukainen A. 2010. Error
analysis of the inverse Poisson problem with
smoothness prior. In A. Eriksson & G. Tibert (Eds.):
Proceedings of NSCM-23: the 23rd Nordic Seminar on Computational Mechanics (pp. 181-184), Stockholm, Sweden, October 2010.
23. Kullaa, J. 2009. Continuing structural health monitoring after repair: Experimental results. Proceedings of the International Conference on Structural Engineering Dynamics (ICEDyn 2009). Maia, N.M.M., Neves, M.M., Fontul, M. (eds.) Ericeira, Portugal, June 22–24, 2009.
Compact Disc, ISBN: 978-989-96276-0-4, Paper 30.
24. Kullaa, J. 2009. Three models for sensor validation.
Proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on
Structural Health Monitoring. Fu-Kuo Chang (ed.). Stanford, CA. September 9–11, 2009. Stanford University. DEStech Publications. 529–536.
25. A. Mahmood, R. Jäntti, Time Synchronization accuracy for Real-time Wireless Sensor Networks, Proceedings of IEEE 9th Malaysia International Conference on
Communications (MICC’09), Malaysia, 2009
26. M. M. A. Hossain, A. Mahmood, R. Jäntti, Channel Ranking Algorithms for Cognitive Coexistence of IEE 802.15.4,
Proceedings of IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC’09), Tokyo, Japan, 2009
27. J. Toivola and J. Hollmén, Feature Extraction and Selection from Vibration Measurements for Structural Health
Monitoring, Proceedings of The 8th International
Symposium on Intelligent Data Analysis (IDA 09), Lyon, France, 2009.
28. M. Bocca, E.I. Cosar, J. Salminen and L.M. Eriksson,
A reconfigurable wireless sensor network for structural health monitoring, in Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure, Zurich, Switzerland, 2009, 9 pp.
29. E.I. Cosar, M. Bocca and L.M. Eriksson, High speed portable wireless data acquisition system for high data rate
applications, in Proceedings of the ASME 2009
International Design Engineering Technical Conferences
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& Computers and Information in Engineering Conference - IDETC/CIE 2009, San Diego, USA, 2009, 11 pp.
30. A. Huhtala, S. Bossuyt, Damage localization from vibration data using hierarchical a priori assumptions,
Proceedings of 7th International Conference on Modern Practice in Stress and Vibration Analysis, Cambridge, U.K., 2009, 8 pp. published as J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 181, 012088.
31. Huhtala, Bayesiläinen lähestymistapa värähtely perusteiseen rakenteiden kunnonvalvontaan, Proceedings of the 10th Finnish Mechanics Days, Jyväskylä, Finland, 2009.
32. Huhtala, A Statistical Method for Structural Damage
Identification Using Vibration Data, Proceedings of the 22nd Nordic Seminar on Computational Mechanics,
Aalborg, Denmark, 2009.
33. Kullaa, J. 2008. Continuing Structural Health Monitoring After Repair: Starting from Scratch? Proc. of the 3rd
International Conference on Smart Materials, Structures and Systems, Acireale, Sicily, Italy, June 8-13, 2008.
34. Kullaa, J. 2008. Eliminating environmental influences
in structural health monitoring using spatiotemporal
correlation models. Proc. of the Fourth European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring 2008. T. Uhl,W.
Ostachowicz, and J. Holnicki-Szulc (eds.). Krakow, Poland, July 2-4, 2008, pp. 1033-1040.
35. Lämsä, V. and Kullaa, J. 2008. Data normalization with partially measured environmental or operational
variables. Proc. of the Fourth European Workshop
on Structural Health Monitoring 2008. T. Uhl,W.
Ostachowicz, and J. Holnicki-Szulc (eds.). Krakow, Poland, July 2-4, 2008, pp. 1041-1048.
Others
1. E. I. Cosar, A. Mahmood, M. Björkbom, A-Stack: A TDMA Framework for Reliable, Real-time and High Data-rate Wireless Sensor Networks, Aalto University publication series Science +Technology, Helsinki 2/2012.
2. Eymery, A. 2011. Crack models for structural health
monitoring. Research report at Department of Applied Mechanics, Aalto University. Helsinki. 29 p.
3. Kullaa, J. 2010. Vibration-Based Structural Health
Monitoring Under Variable Environmental or Operational Conditions. Book chapter in: New trends in vibration based structural health monitoring, A. Deraemaeker, K. Worden (eds.), CISM International Centre for Mechanical Sciences, Vol. 520. Springer, 302 p.
4. Kullaa, J. 2010. Structural Health Monitoring with
Wireless Sensor Networks. An invited talk at Open
Innovative Software Horizons Forum, March 12, 2010, 260
ISMO MIDE
hosted by SCOMA Center and University of Jyväskylä,
Finland in association with CSC and VTT. A Tekes FiDiPro Program.
2.2 Side projects, follow-up projects
• Reliable and real-time wireless automation (RIWA),
2011-2013
• Reliable and real-time wireless automation (RELA),
2010-2012
• Wireless sensor systems in indoor situation modeling II (WISMII), 20011-2012
• Wireless sensor and actuator networks for measurement and control (WiSA), 2006-2010
• Generic sensor network architecture for wireless
automation (GENSEN), 2009-2010
• Wireless sensor systems in indoor situation modeling (WISM), 2008-2009
The A-stack communication stack developed in ISMO will be
ported to the UWASA node and used in future projects of the
Wireless Sensor Systems group at Aalto.
2.3 Relevance
Scientific. SHM is a very demanding application for wireless
sensor networks. Therefore, many results can easily be applied
to less demanding applications.
WSN gives new challenges to SHM. However, a large
number of sensor nodes can be used, which facilitates the
data analysis.
Joint publications on multidisciplinary topics were published.
We believe that we reached the top international scientific
level in the following key areas:
• Time synchronization of WSN.
• Damage detection and localization using measured vibration data.
• Distinguishing between structural damage, sensor faults, and environmental or operational variability. The measure
ment of the environmental or operational variables is not necessary.
• Energy-efficient damage detection in wireless sensor
networks.
Industrial and societal. In industry, machine and process monitoring with wireless (easy and non-costly installation, flexibility)
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is really a hot topic, and the companies are interested in the
results. They are also intrigued by the “Intelligent serviceman
concept”. Such companies include Konecranes and Metso
Automation.
VTT was also interested to collaborate with ISMO project.
The prototypes developed show a number of possibilities
to adopt WSN to SHM and many other application areas, such
as environment monitoring and industry automation. Potential
benefit can be built into existing infrastructure to reduce waste,
to improve efficiency and to accelerate information process
and flow. Smart grid is a good example to leverage the power
of WSN. Oulu is implementing the 1st city-wide WSN in Finland
to collect electricity meter reading for automatic adjustment of
power distribution and energy optimization. Some researchers
of ISMO found a job in the industry (e.g. Konecranes) or VTT
due to the visibility of the project.
2.4 Impact on education
• An open SHM workshop was arranged in November 2009.
• A short course of Prof. Keith Worden from University of Sheffield, UK, on pattern recognition in structural health monitoring (3 cr) realized at Aalto University in May 6–7 2010.
• A visit of a researcher to University of Sheffield, UK, realized in January–March, 2010.
• The project also hosted several international students during their exchange studies.
• Lectures were given in a postgraduate level course held in Udine.
• AUT arranged a course on Wireless Automation
(AS-74.3199), which covered several relevant areas of
wireless networking in applications similar to SHM. Many of the postgraduate students in the ISMO project took the course. The results attained in ISMO project were demon
strated in the course. In addition, students in the course
prepared seminar presentations and papers on specific research topics and many of the topics came directly from the challenges faced in SHM applications.
• AS department also arranged a project work course
(AS-0.3200), where altogether seven students (about one third of all students!) decided to take a project topic directly related the ISMO project, which definitely showed that also students at TKK were interested in wireless monitoring and automation applications. Furthermore, there were two
bachelor thesis workers at AUT, who worked on topics given from the ISMO project.
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3 Departments, staff,
cooperation
3.1 Departments involved in the project
The following six (6) departments from three (3) schools were
partners in the project. The figure in the parenthesis is the total
number of person-months worked for ISMO.
• Department of Applied Mechanics,
School of Engineering (75.3 months)
• Department of Mathematics and Systems Analysis,
School of Science (45 months)
• Department of Information and Computer Science,
School of Science (65.5 months)
• Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
School of Science (51 months)
• Department of Communications and Networking,
School of Electrical Engineering (134.5 months)
• Department of Automation and Systems Technology,
School of Electrical Engineering (86 months)
In the following, the people and their contribution to ISMO are
described for each department.
Department of Applied Mechanics (Mech)
• Jyrki Kullaa, D.Sc. (Tech.) was the project coordinator.
He worked part time (60%) at TKK. He was also the project manager, senior researcher, and supervisor in
the sub-project at Mech. He worked 28.8 months for ISMO.
• Ville Lämsä, M.Sc. was a postgraduate student. He worked 37.5 months for ISMO. His subject was data and model based damage identification under variable environmental or operational conditions. In February 2011, he got a new position at VTT.
• Vilho Jussila, undergraduate student, studied FEM based damage detection. He worked 5 months for ISMO in 2008.
• Anthony Eymery from Supmeca Paris, France, was an exchange student for four (4) months in 2011. He studied simulation of a cracked beam for damage detection and localization.
Department of Mathematics and Systems Analysis (Math)
• Professor Erkki Somersalo started in the project but because of leaving TKK for USA, he was replaced
by Professor Rolf Stenberg as the head of the research group.
• Prof. Rolf Stenberg headed the sub-project at Math.
• Antti Huhtala, M.Sc, is a postgraduate student and worked 36 months for ISMO. He studied stochastic inverse methods 263
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to locate damage in structures using vibration
measurements, as well as efficient numerical solution methods of inverse problems.
• Sven Bossuyt, Ph.D., worked 9 months for ISMO. He studied localization phenomena in mechanics of materials and con
structions.
Department of Information and Computer Science (ICS)
• Jaakko Hollmén, Chief Research Scientist, D.Sc. (Tech.)
has interest in data analysis in sensor networks for
structural health monitoring and environmental
monitoring. He also coordinated the project and supervised the research at ICS.
• Janne Toivola, M.Sc, a postgraduate student, worked 46 months for ISMO. His research interests were the data analysis of measured time series in order to detect
anomalies. His research topic was knowledge discovery and reasoning in sensor networks and he also worked on inte
grating the methods into the ISMO Demonstrator software.
• Dr. Miguel Angel Prada Medrano, a postdoctoral researcher, worked 15.5 months for ISMO in 2009–2010. His research topic was data analysis and damage detection in a sensor network.
• Klaus Venesmaa worked 4 months for ISMO in 2009, and finished his Master’s thesis on limited precision of floating point numbers and their effect on machine learning and
data mining.
Department of Computer Science and Engineering (DCS)
• Professor Antti Ylä-Jääski was the head of the research group.
• Nie Pin, postgraduate student, worked 46 months for ISMO. His research interests were in middleware design, mainly on power adaptive communication, node clustering and data aggregation, and their application API.
• Dr. Jaakko Kangasharju, a senior researcher, was the research manager at the department. He worked 5 months for ISMO in 2008.
• Jin Zhihua, a postgraduate student, studied security
mechanisms and self-adaptive methodologies in wireless sensor network. He worked 4 months for ISMO in 2008.
• Dr. Tancred Lindholm acted as a part-time supervisor for
Nie Pin during 2009–2010.
Department of Communications and Networking (COMNET)
• Professor Riku Jäntti, was the head of the research group.
• Professor Jukka Manner was the department-local research manager.
• Aamir Mahmood, M.Sc., a postgraduate student, worked 264
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44 months for ISMO. He implemented application layer
frequency hopping and MAC layer time synchronization scheme for WSN. He studied time synchronization for dis
tributed synchronized sampling and interference avoidance.
• Mr. Aftab Hossain, undergraduate student worked 11.5 months for ISMO. He studied the Zigbee co-existence and performance under WLAN interference.
• Mr. Jari Kuusisto, undergraduate student worked 33 months for ISMO. He studied the networking capabilities including routing and reliable data delivery.
• Ang Tashi Lama Sherpa, summer trainee, worked 3 months for ISMO in 2009.
• Sergio Lembo, aspiring M.Sc., worked 4 months for ISMO in 2009. He supported routing research in WSN by
providing knowledge related to Nanostack architecture and logic, and implemented some related code snippets and functions.
• Jaakko Korkeaniemi, aspiring B.Sc., worked 5 months for ISMO in 2009. He designed and implemented a remote management program which was later used for testing the performance of routing in the network.
• Shekar Nethi, M.Sc., a postgraduate student, worked 12 months for ISMO in 2011. His research activities were focused on the link layer communication reliability, the design of a scalable multichannel MAC protocol, and a
prototyping tool for wireless devices.
• Yusein Ali, M.Sc, a postgraduate student, worked 6 months for ISMO in 2011. He mainly worked on the enhancements in clock skew estimation algorithm in reference broadcast time synchronization protocols.
• Fida Khattak, M.Sc., a postgraduate student, worked 8 months for ISMO in 2011. His task was to create a flexible, configurable testbed to test Internet of Things (IoT)
protocols. This task also included the design of an
application for evaluating the protocols of interest.
• Hamidreza Shariatmadari, a master’s thesis student, worked 8 months for ISMO in 2011. His task was to implement the channel ranking algorithms on the hardware.
Department of Automation and Systems Technology (AUT)
• Professor Heikki Koivo was the head of the research group.
• Dr. Lasse Eriksson was the manager at the department and coordinated the research. He worked 6 months for ISMO. In September 2010, he left at Aalto University for industry.
• Maurizio Bocca, a postgraduate student, worked 20 months for ISMO. He completed his doctoral studies in November 2011. As a researcher, he contributed to the development of the wireless sensor system for SHM (hardware, software, and networking protocols).
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• Emre Ilke Cosar, a graduate student, worked 34 months for ISMO. He finished his master’s thesis on the development of the wireless monitoring toolkit. He also led the WSN
integration effort in the project. He also focused on the
wireless communication protocol stack and on the project demonstrator.
• Juho Salminen, an undergraduate student, worked 13 months for ISMO. He worked on the hardware development of the wireless sensor nodes.
• Juha Orivuori, a postgraduate student, worked 3 months for ISMO. He did the first surveys in the project and analyzed the feasibility of wireless sensors for SHM applications.
• Tuomo Kohtamäki, B.Sc. student, worked 4 months for ISMO in 2009. The main task was the development of a WSN configuration and programming tool.
• A summer trainee Kashif Gulzar worked 4 months for ISMO in 2011 implementing the ISMO demonstrator.
• A summer trainee Erkka Mutanen supported Kashif Gulzar in the ISMO demonstrator (about 2 months in 2011), but was paid from another project.
• During year 2011, D.Sc. Mikael Björkbom coordinated the work of the ISMO demonstrator and research of the AUT department, but was paid from other projects.
3.2 Cooperation between
different departments
Collaboration between the Mech and Math realized in the area
of physics-based models and inverse problems. Mech was
responsible of the forward solver and experiments, while Math
developed the inverse solver. Fortnightly meetings and a benchmark problem ensured an active collaboration.
Collaboration between Mech and AUT was active. Wireless
sensor network were tested and verified on a wooden bridge
structure with gradually increasing damage. Comparison was
made using wired accelerometers. Energy-efficient structural
health monitoring system was developed. Joint papers were
published.
Collaboration between Mech and ICS realized in fortnightly
meetings. Transmissibility features, measured with the sensor
network, were studied for damage identification. Measurement
and simulated data, domain specific knowledge, and findings
from the data were exchanged. Comparison of different algorithms for damage detection in wireless sensor networks was
done. The main criteria were energy consumption and the reliability of detection. A joint paper is in progress.
AUT and COMNET collaborated in integration of MAC layer
time synchronization protocol for distributed synchronized
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sampling of sensors. The main result was the development and
implementation of the high accuracy time-synchronization protocol for the development of ISMO demonstrator application. A
joint journal article was published.
Collaboration between AUT and ICS was active. A distributed damage detection and localization method based
on the Goertzel algorithm was implemented on a resourceconstrained microcontroller. The method was successfully
designed, analyzed, implemented and tested on the wooden
pilot bridge. A joint conference paper was published.
Collaboration between DCS and ICS about the middleware
requirements and API design was active. DCS and COMNET
cooperated on data fusion point selection. Within COMNET
there was collaboration on scheduling the duty cycle of sleep/
wake-up time and routing.
Collaboration between DCS and ICS realized in the integration of a vibration data analysis algorithm on top of the reliable,
energy-aware node clustering algorithm developed at DCS.
Collaboration between DCS and ICS was realized in
defining a protocol (between application and middleware layers
of software stack) for distributing sensor data fusion in WSN.
In the development of the ISMO demonstrator, active collaboration realized between AUT, COMNET, ICS, and DCS. Things
that were integrated into the demonstrator from the different
groups were: A-stack, time-synchronization protocol, data collection application for wireless sensor nodes, middleware for
data handling and measurement specifications, damage detection, server for managing the demonstrator, server user interface, and a web interface for the user.
The demonstrator for the MIDE Demo Day was one of the
main collaboration efforts, in which several ISMO groups participated. The demonstrator was successful. Thanks to all
ISMO contributors, a project demo was compiled to show most
of the achievements in a nutshell.
Aalto. Aalto-level collaboration was mainly within and between
the departments in the project, supported by the MIDE management team.
International. Collaboration with the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH (Prof. Mikael Johansson, Prof. Jens Zander) and
the Swedish Institute of Computer Science, SICS (Adam Dunkels) was related to applying WSN technology in real-time applications and also to hardware and software issues.
Dr. Ana Gonzalez Marcos from the University of La Rioja in
Spain visited the ICS research group. Her research concentrates on variable selection in industrial processes.
Jyrki Kullaa was a lecturer in a postgraduate level course
“New trends in vibration based structural health monitoring”,
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which was held at International Centre for Mechanical Sciences (CISM) in Udine, Italy, September 22-26, 2008. A CISM
book on “New trends in vibration based structural health monitoring, A. Deraemaeker, K. Worden (eds.), CISM International
Centre for Mechanical Sciences, Vol. 520. Springer, 302 p.”
was published. The authors are:
• Arnaud Deraemaeker - Université Libre de Bruxelles,
Belgium
• Guido De Roeck - Katholiek Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
• Charles Farrar - Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA
• Jyrki Kullaa - Helsinki University of Technology
• Keith Worden - University of Sheffield, UK
• Wieslaw Ostachowicz - Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Also joint papers were published together with the aforementioned scientists (see List of publications).
A COST application titled “Interdisciplinary Engineering
through Smart Structures and Structural Health Monitoring”
was made. It consisted of 28 partners from 15 EC countries,
but the application was rejected.
An invitation was accepted to be a member of the International Editorial Board for a new international journal (temporarily entitled “Sensing Technology in Civil and Environmental
Engineering” or “Sensing and Actuation Technologies for Infrastructure”).
The project was a corporate TKK (Aalto University) member
in ISHMII - International Society for Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure, which is a non-profit organization of leading structural health monitoring institutions. The
project contributed to the work of the organization via publishing some results in their conference.
The project invited researcher Matteo Ceriotti from University of Trento (Italy) for a one week visit to present and discuss
the development of a WSN based SHM system. During the
visit, Ceriotti gave a speech in the SHM workshop arranged by
the project and discussed many details of building complete
SHM systems using WSN technology.
A short course of Prof. Keith Worden from University of
Sheffield, UK on pattern recognition in structural health monitoring (3 cr) realized at Aalto University in May 6–7 2010.
A visit of Ville Lämsä to University of Sheffield, UK, realized
in January–March, 2010.
An invited lecture was given, titled: Kullaa, J. 2010. Structural Health Monitoring with Wireless Sensor Networks. An
invited talk at Open Innovative Software Horizons Forum,
March 12, 2010, hosted by SCOMA Center and University of
Jyväskylä, Finland in association with CSC and VTT. A Tekes
FiDiPro Program.
An application to ESF EUROCORES programme Bio-
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inspired Engineering of Sensors, Actuators & Systems (EuroBioSAS). The project was not funded.
An industrial research proposal, titled ”Intelligent monitoring
and maintenance system”. The project was not funded.
An application to organize the 6th European Workshop
on Structural Health Monitoring (EWSHM2012) was submitted in collaboration with Aalto University, VTT, and Helsinki
Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. There were also two
other applications. Dresden won by 14 votes, Finland 9, and
Nantes 5.
Industry. The research groups at TKK have collaborated with
Sensinode Oy, which provided the sensor networking platforms
(Micro and Nano series) for the ISMO project.
Konecranes Plc is interested in monitoring the condition and
health of their cranes. The WSN toolkit was tested in the industrial environment at Konecranes.
Collaboration with the University of Vaasa on several WSN
related issues was active. For example, we designed certain protocols (both hardware and communication protocols)
in close collaboration. New wireless sensor hardware was
designed at University of Vaasa and we contributed significantly in the design. A joint journal publication was made.
We organized a national workshop on structural health monitoring (2.11.2009, http://mide.tkk.fi/en/ISMO/Workshop2009),
which attracted surprisingly many attendees from universities,
research institutes and companies. We invited speakers from
VTT and National Instruments, and also had researcher Matteo
Ceriotti from University of Trento (Italy) as our keynote speaker.
Collaboration in VTT Tekes project SITUEL (Siltojen ja tunnelien turvallisuus ja elinkaaren hallinta) 2010–2011. Monitoring data from a bridge were provided to ISMO project for
analysis.
4 Experiences
Although putting together a multidisciplinary team including six
departments was a challenge, the benefits were found to be
much greater.
The bureaucracy in MIDE was minimum, making it possible
to concentrate on research.
Collaboration at Aalto made it possible to develop new
ideas and innovations.
The support of MIDE programme is highly acknowledged.
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MIDE OtaSizzle
Ubiquitous social media for
urban communities – OtaSizzle
Length: 2008-2013
Budget: 2 000 219 €
Project management:
Prof. Martti Mäntylä
and Dr. Olli Pitkänen,
Helsinki Institute for Information
Technology (HIIT)
Prof. Heikki Hämmäinen,
Department of Communications
and Networking (ComNet)
Prof. Heikki Saikkonen,
Department of Computer Science
and Engineering (CSE)
{martti.mantyla, olli.pitkanen,
heikki.hammainen,
heikki.saikkonen}@aalto.fi
Steering group representatives from Elisa Plc, Nokia Plc,
Otaniemi Marketing Ltd,
Technology Industries of
Finland Centennial Foundation
and University of Art and
Design Helsinki (later Aalto
University School of Arts,
Design and Architecture)
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Abstract
OtaSizzle was a research project in the MIDE programme. It
was to develop an open experimentation environment for testing
mobile social media services. The project created prototype
mobile social media service platforms and studied them with
extensive field tests, coupled with quantitative measurements
and qualitative analysis. The project succeeded very well. All
the main goals were achieved and the scientific results have
been published in about 50 articles and theses. The project was
very international conducting research and education in collaboration with UC Berkeley in California, University of Nairobi
in Kenya, and BUPT in China. The spin-off company Sharetribe
goes on commercializing the project results.
OtaSizzle MIDE
1 Goals and achievements
According to our original project plan, the aim of the OtaSizzle
project was to
1. Create an experimentation environment for thousands
of users in Otaniemi, with extensions to other projects in greater Helsinki.
2. Create and launch three mobile social media service platforms in the experimentation environment for use by the Otaniemi scientific community.
3. Study with sufficiently large and extensive field tests,
coupled with quantitative measurements and qualitative analysis of actual service use, key service features
contributing to the service adoption, diffusion and use.
4. Create a “packaged” experimentation environment, “Sizzle Lab” concept which can be copied to and further co developed with other sites and countries in Europe and globally.
5. Qualitatively, the objective was to provide users a vibrant and real-time picture of what is presently happening in the surrounding physical area; what friends and buddies are doing; what interesting contents and services are available. In short, what’s sizzling in Otaniemi.
OtaSizzle was planned to be a 5-year project and the estimated
budget was 2 Million Euros. It started in the beginning of 2008
and given a six-month extension it officially ended in June 2013.
Now, looking back after almost six years, we can review the
project achievements with pride. Not every detail was achieved
exactly as planned, but results are very good and the overall
realization is surprisingly similar to the master plan. We can
also be pleased with the original project vision: during the project, there was no need to change the goals significantly.
1.1 Specific achievements
Privacy in the networked world. Privacy in the networked
world has been an important theme throughout OtaSizzle. We
have examined everyday practices that young adults in Finland
apply to regulate interpersonal boundaries in the context of
social network services (SNSs), that is, the efforts they make
to achieve desirable degrees of social interaction and to sustain relations with others and with themselves. The overarching
claim of this branch of our work is that while the widespread
adoption of SNSs disrupts central premises of interpersonal
boundary regulation on which people are used to relying, interpersonal boundary regulation is a co-operative process also in
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the context of these networked communication platforms.
The findings from our research highlight the importance
users of SNSs place on mutual consideration when it comes
to boundary regulation. Furthermore, they show how boundary
regulation efforts span interactions online and offline as a unified whole. The findings reveal that interpersonal boundary regulation takes place both through expressing technology preferences and through diverse practices that are applied when
engaging in social interactions in the context of particular
SNSs. Our results call for reconsidering privacy in the networked age beyond the individual level and beyond a narrow
focus on online activities.
Next to advancing the field with our own research, we
have been active in bringing together the research community working on social privacy, especially through organizing
privacy-themed workshops at the annual flagship conferences
CHI and CSCW.
Sharetribe. As mentioned above, one of the project goals was
to build a living lab environment where local social media services could be studied in real world environment. For that, a
couple of pilot services were built as a part of the project. One
of them originated from a simple concept: there should be a way
for the Aalto University’s (earlier Helsinki University of Technology, TKK) students to ask for help from each other.
A group of master’s thesis workers and summer interns was
hired to develop the service. After some student interviews a
conclusion was made that there was a need for a web-based
campus marketplace, where people could buy and sell stuff,
but also lend tools and other items to each other, and also ask
for and receive favors.
The project was originally called CampusSourcing, but after
its sister service (a mobile group communication tool) was
labeled “Ossi”, it was rebranded to “Kassi”. The word means
“bag” in Finnish, and as a marketing scheme a bunch of fabric
bags with the word “Kassi” and the service URL in them were
created and handed over to students. The first version of the
service was launched in 2009, and proved successful among
the people at the campus.
In the Spring of 2010, both Antti Virolainen and Juho Makkonen, the main developers of the Kassi service, finished their
master’s theses on the system. At the same time, a program
called “Bootcamp” was started at the campus. It was an accelerator program run by Aalto Entrepreneurship Society, and the
goal was to help aspiring entrepreneurs to create the next big
thing. Antti and Juho decided to apply to the program. They
had a business idea: since Kassi worked so well at the Aalto
campus, maybe the same model could be applied to other
university campuses around the world. Furthermore, the same
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“local sharing marketplace” concept might be useful also in
many other contexts, like neigborhoods and even companies.
After the program Antti and Juho made the decision: they
wanted to carry on with the business idea. The project had
decided to open source its whole codebase, and the leaders of
the project gave their blessing. Finally, in 2011, a startup company called Avoin Interactive Oy was born. At that point it had
already managed to acquire some significant customers, like
the cities of Helsinki and Lahti, which wanted to offer the service to their residents during the World Design Capital year of
2012, and were willing to pay for it.
In May 2012, the project was rebranded again. Antti and
Juho had realized that their market opportunity was global, and
it was time to start building an international brand. The service
and the company were dubbed “Sharetribe”, with the tagline
“Share with your community”. At the same time, Sharetribe
launched a tool that anyone around the world could use to
create their own local sharing community. In May 2013, almost
1000 marketplaces (or “tribes”) had been created with the
platform, in more than 50 countries in all 6 continents, and the
service had been translated to 8 languages. The goal of the
company is to build a “WordPress for the sharing economy”.
Sharing Economy. Our work in OtaSizzle has overlapped with
“the sharing economy’s” evolvement into a globally recognized
phenomenon. Many existing and emerging online systems allow
people to share content and coordinate the exchange of goods
and favors in local geographic settings. Kassi, now Sharetribe,
as described above, started in 2009 as a web service to help
students in the course of their everyday studies and other activities by enabling borrowing, buying, selling, and giving away
items as well as giving and receiving favors in the form of services and assistance. Working closely with the developers and
users of the service has allowed us to investigate online gift
exchange in a setting where online and offline interactions are
tightly intertwined and most of the exchanges require face-toface interaction to be completed.
Our user research sheds light on how services that rely on
peer-to-peer exchanges need to take the social friction related
to participation at least as seriously as the technological
smoothness of engaging with a web service. After exploring
more generally what motivates and discourages participation,
we analyzed in detail user experiences concerning exchange
and reciprocity in local online exchange. Findings from this
work revealed an aversion to indebtedness and several user
behaviors that lessen these negative feelings, including (1)
offering small tokens of appreciation to exchange partners, (2)
understanding and accepting the indirect nature of generalized
exchange, (3) managing expectations by framing offers and
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requests carefully, (4) minimizing efforts needed in exchange
processes, and (5) bartering and exchanging for a third party.
The observation that people may be reluctant to participate out
of fear of indebtedness challenges discourses that cast selfinterested free-riding as the most central problem of online gift
exchange.
This branch of work contributes to understandings of emergent behaviors and norms in local online exchange systems.
Based on the research we invite designers to encourage emergent and unanticipated behaviors in order to enhance users’
sense of participation and encourage the leap from intention
to realized action when it comes to engaging in the sharing
economy. As for alleviating the discomfit of indebtedness,
we argue that the key for designers is to redirect feelings of
indebtedness towards positive, participatory outcomes rather
than frustration, hesitation, and non-participation.
Contextlogger3. One of the special focus areas of OtaSizzle
project was utilizing mobile sensing to better understand users’
social and other contexts. During the Otasizzle project, we
developed a new Contextlogger3 tool and framework that enables contextual data collection from Android devices both automatically from sensors and manually by users logging their
everyday activities in a diary style. Tool was published as opensource in github and development is continued in the follow-up
projects. Results from the pilot studies are now in the process
to be published in academic articles.
Ossi and ASI. Another prototype social media service that was
developed in OtaSizzle was called Ossi. It was a social networking service enabling media-rich communication between
users on mobile and web platforms. With Ossi, users were able
to form social networks, communicate with their friends, set
up discussion channels, and so on. Ossi was browser-based
and it could be used by advanced mobile phones as well as by
ordinary computers. Ossi service didn’t gain popularity and we
decided to freeze its development in 2010. However, through
the development work, the project gained a lot of understanding
about mobile services and we were able to conduct studies with
Ossi’s users, albeit the small number of them.
Ossi was developed on top of ASI, Aalto Social Interface,
which was also developed in OtaSizzle. ASI provided Ossi with
database services to manage data on users, social networks,
etc. ASI was successfully packaged and published in open
source fashion. It has been installed in several locations to
conduct studies in California, Kenya, and China. The installation in Amazon cloud enabled the usage of ASI virtually everywhere.
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Handset-based measurements. One of the biggest achievements of the project from Comnet’s perspective was the successful implementation of the handset-based measurements
during 2009 and 2010. The handset-based data collected
from 200 OtaSizzle project participants have been used in a
number of publications (including seven journal articles and
three conference papers), and they have been a core element
in Juuso Karikoski’s PhD Thesis (Karikoski, 2013), which will be
defended in September 2013. For instance, the data have been
researched for sociological purposes, including social network
analysis (Karikoski & Nelimarkka, 2011) and communication
technology affordances (Karikoski & Soikkeli, 2013; Karikoski
& Kilkki, in press; Karikoski, 2013). Furthermore, the data are
also valuable for a number of stakeholders in the mobile communications ecosystem. From a mobile operator’s perspective,
the usage interrelationships of different mobile communication
services (Karikoski & Luukkainen, 2011) and the effect of so
called mobile social phonebooks (Karikoski & Mäkinen, 2012),
for example, have been studied.
Based on our research on social networks we believe that
multiple and dynamic datasets should be used when analyzing
social ties as the analysis of different communication channels may or may not lead to different views of the social network under study (Karikoski & Nelimarkka, 2011). Furthermore,
to help researchers understand the nature of different social
ties, we have presented a categorization model (Nelimarkka
& Karikoski, 2012). With the help of this model researchers
can discuss the domain and validity of their observations
better. Regarding the mobile phone usage studies, we have
observed (in accordance with other researchers using similar
methods) that diversity in mobile phone usage exists (Soikkeli et al., 2013). This means in practice that, for instance, the
daily mobile phone usage time differs by orders of magnitude
between users.
With the help of the handset-based data collected in the
project, we have also developed a context algorithm (Soikkeli,
2011) and utilized it from a sociological research perspective. For instance, we have identified that the use context of the
mobile phone affects the use of different communication channels. This observation supports the notion that multiple datasets should be used when analyzing social ties, because the
communication channels used might differ based on the context of the communicator.
Aside from the scientific value that the measurements and
the data have produced, also practical knowhow of how to collect and analyze handset-based data has been disseminated
(Karikoski, 2012). This dissemination is valuable as more and
more handset-based measurements are being conducted in
academia and industry.
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Finally, although the data were collected already a couple
of years ago, they are still being analyzed and even more
research results will be published based on them after the
project has officially ended (see, e.g., Kekolahti & Karikoski,
2013).
Reflecting on and refining collaborative processes. OtaSizzle has been an opportunity to reflect on and refine collaborative processes in fitting together service development, social
scientific research, and more. Contributions from OtaSizzle
are featured in the first Finnish book on methods for internet
research ‘Otteita verkosta’ where they are now available for
broad audiences in Finland.
Next to figuring out the best ways to work with our own
project teams, we have also been prototyping and thinking
through how start-ups and social psychological research could
collaborate in mutually fruitful ways. In addition to hands-on
efforts that help us learn what works and what doesn’t, we
have organized and taken part in more structured discussions.
For instance, we organized a workshop at the Annual Days of
Social Psychology in 2012 to bring together entrepreneurs
and social scientists to consider what it takes to conduct user
research in a start-up context and how social scientists can
make societal contributions by taking part in (or raising) conversations of the social implications of technologies.
Internationalization. The project was very successful in internationalization. Especially, the collaboration with UC Berkeley
in the USA, University of Nairobi in Kenya, and BUPT in China
was very strong. The platform and the Sharetribe service were
used in all the four countries and the user studies were conducted. The results of data analysis are reported in the publications listed below. The project also ensured fruitful co-operation
with these foreign universities in the future. Sizzle VCE, a virtual
center of excellence will continue the collaboration, and the
researchers are visiting the other universities. For example, Airi
Lampinen is currently visiting at UC Berkeley again.
Aalto Extension. MIDE granted OtaSizzle 150000 € to extend
the project to other schools within Aalto. That enabled us to get
Media Lab and Design at the Aalto University School of Art and
Design and ISS at the Aalto University School of Economics
participating in the project.
At School of Economics, doctoral student Meri Kuikka analyzed survey data collected from Kassi/Sharetribe users. The
study identified motivations for its use, as well as reasons for
its disuse. Using a classification based on earlier research,
she attempted to understand why and how users engage
and interact with the services supplied by Kassi/Sharetribe.
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(Kuikka, M., Tuunainen, V., & Suhonen, E., 2011). Also, she
made a case study to identify internal and external challenges
related to the adoption and use of social media in a large case
company. Her findings show that internal challenges include
resources, ownership, authorization, attitudes and economic
issues, whereas external challenges are associated with company reputation, legal issues and public/private network identity. (Kuikka, M., & Äkkinen, M., 2011).
At School of Art and Design, Aapo Rista developed software
to test mobile positioning and concepts in OtaSizzle, Chen-Pei
Chun (who later moved to HIIT) developed service concepts,
and Juha Solla was developing tools to support computeraided facilitation of project work.
2 Output
2.1 List of publications
Doctoral theses
Karikoski, J., Empirical Analysis of Mobile Interpersonal Communication Service Usage, 2013.
Lampinen, A., Interpersonal Boundary Regulation in the Context of Social Network Services, 2013.
Master’s theses
Pei-Chun, C. Paper, Pins and Ready-Made: Using Artifact Analysis to Inform Design of Public Information Systems, 2011.
Toiva, S., Event-Driven Semantic Interoperability, 2011.
Suhonen, E., Everyday Favors and Social Exchange in a Local Gift Exchange System. Case: Kassi, 2011.
Makkonen, J., Two dimensions of reputation: designing a trust-and-recognition-enhancing reputation system for an online community, 2011.
Virolainen, A., Organizing user-created content in a local community favor-exchange service, 2010.
Lehväslaiho, K., A living lab experimentation environment of mobile applications, 2009.
Abebe, B. Mobile service usage and business models in wireless local area networks, 2009.
Tirkkonen, N., Integration of End-User Research to Mobile Service Development, 2009.
Conference and journal publications
1. Karikoski, J. and Soikkeli, T. (2013) Contextual usage
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patterns in smartphone communication services. Forth
coming in: Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Vol. 17, No.3.
2. Soikkeli, T., Karikoski, J. and Hämmäinen, H. (2013) Characterizing Smartphone Usage: Diversity and End User Context. Forthcoming in: International Journal of Handheld Computing Research.
3. Karikoski, J. and Kilkki, K. (2013) Building social capital with mobile communication services. Forthcoming in:
International Journal of Electronic Finance.
4. Tang, T. and Wu, Z. and Hämäläinen, M. and Ji, Y. Internationally Distributed Digital Ecosystems Infrastructure and Networked Living Labs Approach for Everyday Life Innovation. Forthcoming in 2013. International Journal of Social Computing and Cyber-Physical.
5. Vihavainen, S., Lampinen, A., Oulasvirta, A., Silfverberg, S., & Lehmuskallio, A. (In press) The Clash between Privacy and Automation in Social Media. IEEE Pervasive Computing, Jan 24 2013. IEEE computer Society Digital Library. IEEE Computer Society.
6. Lampinen, A., Lehtinen, V., Cheshire, C., & Suhonen, E. (2013) Indebtedness and Reciprocity in Local Online Exchange. CSCW’13 Proceedings of the ACM 2013
conference on Computer supported cooperative work.
7. Page, X., Tang, K., Stutzman, F., & Lampinen, A. (2013) Measuring Networked Social Privacy. CSCW EA ‘13 Proceedings of the ACM 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work.
8. Lehtinen, V. (2013) Tieto- ja viestintäteknologioiden
kehittäminen ja sosiaalitieteelliset kenttätutkimusmenetelmät - myrskyinen rakkaustarina. In Otteita verkosta (pp. 41-77). Tampere, Finland: Vastapaino.
9. Lampinen, A., Suhonen, E., & Lehtinen, V. (2013) Verkkopalvelut paikallisyhteisöjen arjessa: käyttäjätutkimus Living lab -ympäristössä. In Laaksonen, S., Matikainen, J., & Tikka, M. (Eds.) Otteita verkosta (pp. 325-338). Tampere, Finland: Vastapaino.
10. Lampinen, A., Haapoja, J., Koponen, J., & Leppänen,
J. (2012) Social Media as Personal Informatics:
Empowerment through Self-Reflection. Personal Informatics in the Wild: Hacking Habits for Health and Happiness
workshop at CHI 2013, Paris, France.
11. Jo, H.-H., Karsai, M., Karikoski, J. and Kaski, K. (2012) Spatiotemporal correlations of handset-based service usages. EPJ Data Science, Vol. 1, No. 10.
12. Karikoski, J. (2012) Handset-based data collection process and participant attitudes. International Journal of Handheld Computing Research, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 1-21.
13. Karikoski, J. and Mäkinen, O. (2012) Mobile social phone
books. In: Proceedings of the 16th International Conference 278
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on Intelligence in Next Generation Networks. Berlin,
Germany, October 8-11 2012.
14. Lampinen, A., Cheshire, C., Huotari, K. (2012) Privacy
Management Strategies and Online Photo Sharing: A Pilot Survey. Reconciling Privacy with Social Media workshop at CSCW 2012, Seattle, USA, 2012.
15. Nelimarkka, M. and Karikoski, J. (2012) Categorizing and measuring social ties. Paper presented at: RC33 Eighth International Conference on Social Science Methodology. Sydney, Australia, July 9-13 2012.
16. Tamminen, S., Raita, E., Lehtinen, V., Silfverberg, S., Ravaja, N. (2012) Teknologian sosiaalipsykologinen tutkimus.
Psykologia, 2012. Vol. 47, nro 5-6, 410-422.
17. Tang, T. and Hämäläinen, M.(2012).Living Lab Methods and Tools for Fostering Everyday Life Innovation. Paper accepted by 18th International ICE-Conference on
Engineering, Technology and Innovation.18-20 June 2012, Munich.
18. Tang, T., Wu, Z., Hämäläinen, M. and Ji, Y. (2012). From Web 2.0 to Living Lab: an Exploration of the Evolved Innovation Principles. Vo.4, No.4, pp. 379-385, Journal of Emerging Technologies in Web Intelligence.
19. Tang, T., Wu, Z., Karhu, K., Hämäläinen, M., Ji, Y. (2012) Internationally Distributed Living Labs and Digital Ecosystems for Fostering Local Innovations in Everyday Life. Journal of emerging technologies in web intelligence, 2012. Vol. 4, No. 1, 106-115.
20. Tang, T., Hämäläinen M. (2012) Comparison of two local social media services in Finland and China by social net
work analysis. International Journal of Social Network Mining, 2012. Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 209-224.
21. Tang, T.; Karhu, K., Hämäläinen, M. (2011) Community Innovation in Sustainable Development: A Cross Case Study. ICIMT11 Conference. Dubai.
22. Tang, T. and Hämäläinen,M. (2011) An Active Ageing
Supporting Platform Design by Living Lab and Digital Ecosystem Approaches. FIRM-EPECC2011 Conference. Chengdu,June 3-5, 2011
23. Tang, T.; Hämäläinen,M.; Virolainen, A. and Makkonen, J. (2011) Understanding User Behavior in a Local Social Media Platform by Social Network Analysis. MindTrek 2011 Conference. Tampere.
24. Karikoski, J. and Nelimarkka, M. (2011) Measuring social relations with multiple data sets. Accepted for publication at International Journal of Social Computing and Cyber Physical Systems (IJSCCPS).
25. Karikoski, J. and Luukkainen, S. (2011) Substitution in Smartphone Communication Services. Accepted for
publication at The 3rd International Workshop on Business 279
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Models for Mobile Platforms.
26. Soikkeli, T., Karikoski, J. and Hämmäinen, H. (2011) Diversity and end user context in smartphone usage
sessions. Accepted for publication at The 5th International Conference on Next Generation Mobile Applications,
Services and Technologies.
27. Lampinen, A., Lehtinen, V., Lehmuskallio A., & Tamminen, S. (2011) We’re in it Together: Interpersonal Management of Disclosure in Social Network Services. CHI’11 Proceedings of the annual conference on Human factors in computing systems. NY, USA: ACM New York.
28. Lampinen, A., Stutzman, F. and Bylund, M. (2011) Privacy for a Networked World: Bridging Theory and Design. Extended workshop abstract in CHI’11 Proceedings of the annual conference on Human factors in computing systems. ACM New York, NY, USA.
29. Karhu, K., Botero, A., Vihavainen, S., Tang, T. and Hämäläinen, M. (2011) A Digital Ecosystem for Co-Creating Business with People. Journal of Emerging Technologies in Web Intelligence, 3(3). Link to the article
30. King, J., Lampinen, A. & Smolen, A. (2011) Privacy: is there an app for that? SOUPS ‘11 Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security.
31. Kuikka, M., Tuunainen, V., & Suhonen, E. (2011). Motivations for and barriers to the use of social exchange in online
communities: case Kassi. In Proceedings of the 33rd IRIS Seminar.
32. Kuikka, M., & Äkkinen, M. (2011). Determining the
challenges of organizational social media adoption and use. In Proceedings of ECIS 2011.
33. Karhu, K. and Tang, T. (2010) A comparison of digital
business ecosystems built around global smart phone
application stores. In Proceedings of Joint Conference on eServices and Business Intelligence (JCeSBI), China.
34. Karikoski, J. and Nelimarkka, M. (2010) ‘’’Measuring social relations: Case OtaSizzle. Proc. SocialCom 2010, IEEE, pp. 257-263.
35. Suhonen, E.; Lampinen, A.; Cheshire, C. and Antin, J. (2010) Everyday Favors: a Case Study of a Local Gift Exchange System. GROUP ‘10 Proceedings of the 16th ACM international conference on Supporting group work, Nov 7-10, 2010, USA.
36. Tang, T.; Wu, Z.; Karhu K.; Hämäläinen, M. and Yang, J. (2010) An Internationally Distributed Ubiquitous Living Lab Innovation Platform for Digital Ecosystem Research. MEDES¿10 Conference. Bangkok, October 26-29, 2010.
37. Verkasalo, H. and Martin, W. (2009) An Assessment of the Handset-Based End-User Research Process. The
International Telecommunications Society (ITS) Conference, 280
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Montego Bay, Jamaica, June 23-26, 2009.
38. Verkasalo, H. and Martin, W. (2009) Deployment of Mobile Audience Measurements in a Living Lab Context.
International Journal of Handheld Computing Research (IJHCR).
39. Karhu, K., Botero, A., Vihavainen, S., Tang, T., Hämäläinen, M. (2009) A digital ecosystem for boosting user-driven service business. In Proceedings of the international
Conference on Management of Emergent Digital
Ecosystems (France, October 27 - 30, 2009). MEDES ‘09. ACM, New York, NY, 246-253.DOI
40. Heikkinen, M.V.J. and Nurminen, J.K. (2009) Consumer
Attitudes towards Different Aspects of Mobile Peer-to-Peer Services. First International Conference on Advances in P2P Systems (AP2PS 2009).
41. Lampinen, A., Lehtinen, V., Huotari, K., Luusua, V., Mäntylä, M., Sarvas, R., Seppälä, L., Turunen, J. (2009)Mobile Social Media for Groups. Presented at the poster session of the European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Vienna, Austria.
42. Mäntylä, M., Hämäläinen, M., Karhu, K., Lampinen, A.,
Lehväslaiho, K., Nuutila, E., Oulasvirta, A., Pitkänen, O., Sarvas, R., Suhonen, E., Turunen, J., Törmä, S., Virolainen, A. (2009) SizzleLab: Building an Experimentation Plat
form for Mobile Social Interaction. Mobile Living Labs ‘09: Methods and Tools for Evaluation in the Wild workshop at the MobileHCI09 conference, Bonn.
43. Suhonen, E., Nuutila, E., Törmä, S., Virolainen, A.,
Makkonen, J., Sundberg, V. Wiikeri, J. (2009) Kassi:
Everyday Favors in Social Media. Matching Resources by Means of Campussourcing. Presented at the poster session of the European Conference on Computer Supported
Cooperative Work, September 2009, Vienna, Austria
2.2 Side projects, follow-up projects
Sizzle VCE. OtaSizzle was significantly an international project. We collaborated intensively with several foreign partners.
One of the highlights was to set up a virtual center of excellence, Sizzle VCE, with our partners University of California at
Berkeley (UCB) / School of Information, University of Nairobi
(UoN) / School of Computing and Informatics, Beijing University
of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT) / School of Information and Communication Engineering (SICE), and EIT ICT Labs
Helsinki.
Sizzle VCE is an international consortium to research digital
services for end-users. The studies are relatively long and they
involve large populations in real world experiments. Following
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up the OtaSizzle, Possi, and Ubiserve projects, Sizzle VCE
aims at developing innovations with university students and
other innovators.
Possi. The Possi project studied the management of privacy
and publicity in a mobile social media service in parallel in
Finland and in California. In social media services, end users
create and publish various types of media content intended for
other users. In such a setting, privacy is not longer primarily
related to protecting user’s private information from potentially
malicious third parties. Instead, users desiring at the same time
to be visible to some users and hidden from others manage
actively their desired level of privacy and publicity. Unfortunately, their goals and practices are not well understood,
leading to a mismatch between privacy facilities of media services and what users actually strive to accomplish.
Possi studied these phenomena and issues. For this, it
utilized the OtaSizzle platform for mobile social media. The
platform and experiments were also replicated to California
(“CalSizzle” experiment with Oakland Single Parents Network)
in collaboration with University of California at Berkeley, the
School of Information.
The project was funded by Tekes and Aalto University. The
total budget was 500 000 €. The project took place in March
2010 till June 2012. The results were very good. Possi produced
interesting scientific results, the researchers published a few
scientific articles, and the project fostered the working relationship between Aalto University and UC Berkeley on its part.
Funesomo. OtaSizzle was also collaborating with the Tekesfunded Funesomo project. Funesomo was partially funding
our researcher exchange between Aalto University and UC
Berkeley.
Kassi, Sharetribe. As described above, Sharetribe as a spin-off
company is continuing the development and commercialization
of the Sharetribe service, which was originally created in OtaSizzle.
MegaSizzle. MegaSizzle will collect big data about people in
a megacity. It will be a large international research project, a
very risky undertaking, but potentially it will have an enormous
impact. Our intention is to study, how much data can be collected, what research questions can be answered based on
that data, what “the next billion” is doing, and what kind of phenomena emerge from the bottom of the pyramid. The project will
obey high ethical standards – especially respecting people’s
privacy and dignity.
MegaSizzle directly continues and innovatively upgrades the
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work of OtaSizzle and Vinco, two MIDE projects. HIIT’s small
“Pump Priming” funding allowed us to try if the MegaSizzle
idea is feasible by doing a study in Helsinki, and another study
in Africa, namely in Egypt, Ethiopia and Kenya in December.
The early results of the studies suggest that it is possible
to collect very interesting data. We should probably focus on
small businesses in African megacities. Many interesting phenomena become visible and researchable in them. Starting in
Nairobi and extending to Cairo is likely the best way to proceed.
In 2013, we are continuing the work and prepare the actual
large international research project by building an international research network, improving the research questions
and writing a project plan and funding application. The aim of
the preparation is to submit a winning application to the EU’s
Horizon 2020 programme’s first or second call.
2.3 Relevance
The scientific relevance of OtaSizzle can be best reasoned by
the list of publications above: the project produced about fifty
scientific publications (including referee articles and theses),
which makes OtaSizzle scientifically most relevant.
The industrial and societal relevance is so far highlighted
by Sharetribe, a commercial spin-off company. However, we
expect more industrial applications in the field of mobile services, social media, privacy, sharing economy, handset-based
measurements, collaborative processes, and so on while our
research results spread further and the follow-up projects continue the work that we started in OtaSizzle. Also, our work will
be societally increasingly relevant, while eg. Sharing economy
matures, and privacy issues become ever more important in
the networked world.
2.4 Impact on education
To reflect and refine collaborative processes between different
areas of expertise, we brought future professionals together in
educational activities. These included co-design workshops on
the development of mobile services, and annual lecture courses
on social psychological approaches to ICT. Participants were
students from a variety of backgrounds, such as design, computer science, business, and social sciences, and the activities were organized across the OtaSizzle sites. We aimed to
encourage students from different fields to see their possible
synergies in the development of mobile services. This has been
successful to the extent that participants have been employed
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in OtaSizzle or similar projects, or continued to explore issues
relevant to the topic in their studies. To highlight, these teaching
activities included also multidisciplinary classes, which we
organized in Kenya, in collaboration with University of Nairobi,
to teach Kenyan students service design and development.
3 Departments, staff, cooperation
3.1 Departments involved in the project
OtaSizzle was coordinated by Helsinki Institute for information technology HIIT (the responsible project director was Prof
Martti Mäntylä and the project manager was Dr. Olli Pitkänen).
The other participating units are the Department of Computer
Science and Engineering (CSE) and the Department of Communications and Networking (Comnet). By MIDE’s Aalto Extension funding, also Media Lab and Design at the Aalto University
School of Art and Design and ISS at the Aalto University School
of Economics have also been able to participate in the project.
Staff divided by departments is listed in the appendix, which
also shows how the work was distributed between the units.
MIDE Extension funding for School of Art and Design and
School of Economics was 150 000 € in total.
OtaSizzle succeeded very well in developing cooperation
between the participating units. Software development was
accomplished jointly by HIIT and CSE, all the departments
participated in designing the studies and analyzing the results
and many of the publications have been written jointly by
researchers from different departments.
3.2 Cooperation
The extensive collaboration between Aalto units - including the
work that was supported by MIDE Extension funding - has been
described above.
Also, as described above, OtaSizzle was most international
project. Our collaboration was extensive especially with UC
Berkeley in California, University of Nairobi in Kenya, and Beijing
University of Posts and Telecommmunications (BUPT) in China.
In 2011, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland tested
on the OtaSizzle platform their m.HUBI.fi service.
OtaSizzle included industrial collaboration, as well. During
the project we had co-operation with many companies. Most
notably, Nokia and Elisa sponsored the project by donating
for it Nokia N97 smart phones and mobile broadband plans.
Comnet collaborated with Arbitron Mobile Oy (previously
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Zokem / Mobitrack Innovations Ltd.) regarding the handsetbased measurements.
4 Experiences and feedback
OtaSizzle was a very successful project. It produced very good
results on several levels: scientific knowledge and publications,
a commercial company and service, education and opportunities for students to complete their studies in interesting topics,
and improved collaboration within Aalto, in Finland, and intercontinentally.
A major factor behind our success was the MIDE program.
The flexibility, relative informality, as well as sufficiently long
and broad funding gave us the opportunity to concentrate on
important research themes.
Appendix
Personnel
The following people, organized by year and department, have
worked for OtaSizzle.
2008
HIIT
• Professor Martti Mäntylä is the responsible leader of the whole project (2 pm).
• Professor Marko Turpeinen has participated in planning the studies and designing the Ossi service (1.7 pm). • Dr. Olli Pitkänen is the project manager, has been
conducting research on legal topics, and partially
accomplished communications and collaboration with other organizations and projects (10.7 pm).
• M.Sc. Petri Martikainen has been communicating with other organizations and participated in administrative issues (1 pm).
• M.Sc. Kai Huotari has participated in Ossi service design and development (2.75 pm).
• Dr. Timo Partala planned user studies (2 pm).
• M.Sc Airi Lampinen has planned and conducted user studies, esp. questionnaires and interviews (5 pm).
• M.Sc Vilma Lehtinen has planned and conducted user studies, esp. ethnographic field studies (2.5 pm)
• M.Sc Mikael Johnson has planned user studies (1.2 pm).
• M.Sc. Matti Rantanen participated in conducting user studies (1 pm).
Comnet
• Professor Heikki Hämmäinen is the responsible director 285
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of OtaSizzle from Comnet, and he strategically led the
project towards the set goals. In addition, he contributed
to the overall specification and management of the project (<1pm).
• M.Sc. student Niklas Tirkkonen was a full-time OtaSizzle employee, establishing data collection and analysis
processes, and taking care of the communication between Comnet, HIIT, TKK’s Department of Computer Science, and Nokia. He completed his master’s thesis during 2008
(c. 11pm).
• Tech.Lic. Hannu Verkasalo acted as a part-time project manager, handling mostly the collaboration with Nokia, and guiding Niklas in his work, being also involved in operational project meetings (<1pm).
CSE
• Professor Antti Ylä-Jääski is a member of the OtaSizzle steering group and contributed to the overall specification of the project and research management. (1 pm)
• Professor Heikki Saikkonen is the responsible director of OtaSizzle from CSE. He contributed to the specification and management of the project (< 1pm).
• Professor Matti Hämäläinen is the responsible director of OtaSizzle at SoberIT/CSE and is a member of the OtaSizzle steering group. He has contributed to the overall
specification, to dissemination and to communication with other projects and organizations. Matti has been presenting OtaSizzle and SizzleLab in various national and international forums in Europe and Asia. (3 pm).
• Professor Juha Laine has been involved in guiding the above report work. (< 1pm)
• Dr. Jaakko Kangasharju planned and managed work on identity in Common Services and began collaboration with Flexible Services ICT SHOK (5 pm).
• M.Sc. Jani Heikkinen designed and implemented
authentication methods for Common Services and advised trainees in same (6.5 pm).
• Pedro Hernandez experimented Shibboleth authentication for Common Services (2 pm).
• Navodi Huwis Hewa experimented authentication methods for Common Services (2 pm).
• Antti Virolainen has been developing the Common Services of OtaSizzle and the Kassi service (8.2pm).
• Juho Makkonen has been developing the Common Services of OtaSizzle and the Kassi service (8.2pm).
• Emmi Suhonen has been developing the Kassi service and planning user testings (4.6pm).
• Julia Wiikeri has been developing the Kassi service and planning user testings (3pm).
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• Ville Sundberg has been developing the Common Services of OtaSizzle (2pm).
• Petteri Noponen has been developing the Common
Services of OtaSizzle and researchers’ database (1.2pm).
• Dr Seppo Törmä has been designing the Common Services and Kassi service, contributing to the specification and management of the project, and developing relationships to ICT Shok projects (8pm).
• Dr Esko Nuutila has been designing the Common Services and Kassi service and contributing to the specification and management of the project (5pm).
• Researcher Mikko Puhakka has been employed by Ota
Sizzle project for 3 months. His task has been to develop a discussion paper “Business and Legal Issues for Building and Managing SizzleLab(s)” to cover among other, the stakeholders, value propositions, incentives, and some key success factors and challenges for such an open Living Lab concept. Lessons learned from open source area are to be used as input. (3 pm).
2009
HIIT
• Professor Martti Mäntylä is the responsible leader of the whole project (2 pm).
• Dr. Olli Pitkänen is the project manager, has been
conducting research on legal topics, and accomplished communications and collaboration with other organizations and projects (4 pm).
• M.Sc Airi Lampinen has planned and conducted user studies, esp. questionnaires and interviews (6 pm).
• M.Sc Vilma Lehtinen has planned and conducted user studies, esp. ethnographic field studies (5 pm)
• Vesa Luusua developed a web interface for Ossi (2.5 pm)
• Jani Turunen has been the main developer for Ossi and positioning (12 pm)
• Lassi Seppälä developed the Sizl.org portal for the Ota
Sizzle services (6 pm)
• Veli-Matti Vikman supported the end users and organized co-operation with them (1 pm)
Comnet
• Professor Heikki Hämmäinen is the responsible director of OtaSizzle from Comnet, and he has strategically led the project towards the set goals. In addition, he contributed to the overall specification and management of the project (<1pm).
• Dr. Hannu Verkasalo acted as a part-time project
manager, handling mostly the collaboration with Nokia, and guiding Kasimir in his work, being also involved in opera
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tional project meetings (<1pm).
• M.Sc. Juuso Karikoski took over the duties of part-time project manager from Hannu Verkasalo in June. He handled the collaboration with MobiTrack Innovations Ltd. and was in charge of establishing data collection with the new
measurement software. Juuso also guided Kasimir in his work (3pm).
• M.Sc. student Kasimir Lehväslaiho was a full-time OtaSizzle employee pursuing his master’s thesis (A living lab
experimentation environment of mobile applications) during 2009. He developed an experimentation framework for
SizzleLab and analyzed the data from the handset-based measurements (10pm).
CSE
• Professor Antti Ylä-Jääski is a member of the OtaSizzle steering group and contributed to the overall specification of the project and research management. (1 pm). Professor Tuomas Aura is replacing Prof. Ylä-Jääski from the
beginning of 2010.
• Professor Heikki Saikkonen is the responsible director of OtaSizzle from CSE. He contributed to the specification and management of the project (< 1pm).
• Professor Matti Hämäläinen is the responsible director of OtaSizzle at SoberIT/CSE and is a member of the OtaSizzle steering group. He has contributed to the overall
specification, to dissemination and to communication with other projects and organizations. He has been presenting OtaSizzle and SizzleLab in various national and international forums. (1.5 pm).
• M.Sc. Kimmo Karhu has been documenting the OtaSizzle ecosystem and architecture, helping to coordinate software development work and coordinating the move of Sizzlelab into production environment (2,5pm)
• M.Sc. Tingan Tang has been evaluating different CMS
systems for Sizzlelab, developing templates for Drupal, moving Sizzlelab into production environment and
administering the Sizzlelab site (6pm)
• Pedro Hernandez experimented Shibboleth authentication for Common Services (2 pm).
• Navodi Huwis Hewa experimented authentication methods for Common Services (2 pm).
• Antti Virolainen has been developing the Aalto Social
Interface ASI (previously Common Services) and the Kassi service (8.3pm).
• Juho Makkonen has been developing the Kassi service (9.9pm).
• Emmi Suhonen has been developing the Kassi service and conducting user tests (6.3pm).
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• Ville Sundberg has been developing the Aalto Social
Interface and the Core User Interface of ASI (3.5pm).
• Petteri Noponen has been developing the researchers’
database RESSI (5.2pm).
• Dr Seppo Törmä has been designing the Common Services and Kassi service, contributing to the specification and management of the project, and developing relationships to ICT Shok projects (8pm).
• Dr Esko Nuutila has been designing the Common Services and Kassi service and contributing to the specification and management of the project (5pm).
• Dr. Jaakko Kangasharju planned and managed work on identity in Common Services and began collaboration with Flexible Services ICT SHOK (5 pm).
• Sachin Gaur, M.Sc. designed a privacy management inter
face or MSc thesis (January-June 2009) and then worked on privacy management design and research for ASI. The design was delivered to the ASI team and has since been implemented. He co-operated in the planning of a survey about privacy and Internet users. Sachin also co-supervised two summer trainees for three months. (5 p.m., plus 7 p.m. externally funded)
• Jani Heikkinen, M.Sc., designed and implemented system-
specific and federated authentication methods for Common Services. The working prototype of Shibboleth
authentication was demonstrated and delivered for
integration to ASI. Jani also instructed Sachin Gaur’s MSc thesis and supervised two summer intern projects (Chang Tong and Li Bo) and guided the developement of the Nord
SecMob service by students. (9 pm)
• Chang Tong, summer Jani also instructed Sachin Gaur’s MSc thesis and supervised two summer intern projects (Chang Tong and Li Bo) and guided the developement of the NordSecMob service by students. trainee, participated in the design and implementation of privacy rules for CoreUI/
ASI. (3 p.m. partially funded)
• Marcos Fonseca, IASTE exchange student, participated in the design and implementation of privacy rules for CoreUI/
ASI. (3 p.m., externally funded)
2010
HIIT
• Professor Martti Mäntylä is the responsible leader of the whole project (2 pm)
• Dr. Olli Pitkänen is the project manager, has been
conducting research on legal topics, and accomplished planning, communications and collaboration with other organizations and projects (4 pm)
• M.Sc Airi Lampinen has planned and conducted user 289
MIDE OtaSizzle
studies, esp. questionnaires and interviews. For the latter half of the year, she was at UC Berkeley to accomplish Ota
Sizzle related studies (CalSizzle) in California (9 pm)
• M.Sc Vilma Lehtinen has planned and conducted user
studies (6 pm)
• Jani Turunen has been the main software developer (9 pm)
• Konrad Markus has been a software developer (6 pm)
• Lassi Seppälä developed the Sizl.org portal for the Ota
Sizzle services (6 pm)
• Chao An and Lari Haataja helped to contact users (< 1 pm)
• BA Chen Pei-Chun has been working in the project as
completing her master theses and various other project activities. (4pm)
Comnet
• Professor Heikki Hämmäinen is the responsible director of OtaSizzle from Comnet, and he has strategically led the project towards the set goals. In addition, he contributed to the overall specification and management of the project (<1pm)
• M.Sc. Juuso Karikoski has been in charge of the handset-
based measurements conducted in the project by Comnet (8pm).
CSE
• Professor Heikki Saikkonen is the responsible director of OtaSizzle from CSE. He contributed to the specification and management of the project (< 1pm)
• Professor Matti Hämäläinen is the responsible director of OtaSizzle at SoberIT/CSE and is a member of the OtaSizzle steering group. He has contributed to the overall
specification, to dissemination and to communication with other projects and organizations. He has been presenting OtaSizzle and SizzleLab in various national and international forums. (1.5 pm)
• Professor Tuomas Aura is a member of the OtaSizzle steering group and contributed to the overall specification of the project and research management. (< 1 pm)
• M.Sc. Kimmo Karhu has been coordinating Sizzlelab
activities, including supervising Gizzle/SDE and Aalto Apps student teams. He has also been conducting research around Sizzlelab (8 pm)
• M.Sc. Tingan Tang has coordinated BeijingSizzle work and collaboration with BUPT (stayed in China for one month) and has been in charge of Drupal administration and development for sizzlelab.org site. He has also been con
ducting research around Sizzlelab and Kassi (8 pm)
• Antti Virolainen has been developing mainly the Kassi
service (8.3pm).
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OtaSizzle MIDE
• Juho Makkonen has been developing the Kassi service (9.9pm).
• Emmi Suhonen has been developing the Kassi service and conducting user tests (6.3pm).
• Ville Sundberg has been developing the Aalto Social Inter
face and the Core User Interface of ASI (3.5pm).
• Dr Seppo Törmä has been designing ASI and Kassi,
contributing to the specification and management of the
project, and developing relationships to ICT Shok projects (8pm).
• Dr Esko Nuutila has been participating in the steering group meetings, designing ASI and Kassi and contributing to the specification and management of the project (5pm).
2011
HIIT
• Professor Martti Mäntylä is the responsible leader of the whole project (2 pm)
• Dr. Olli Pitkänen is the project manager, has been
conducting research on legal topics, and accomplished planning, communications and collaboration with other organizations and projects (7 pm)
• M.Sc Airi Lampinen has planned and conducted user studies, esp. questionnaires and interviews. For the latter half of the year, she was at UC Berkeley to accomplish Ota
Sizzle related studies (CalSizzle) in California (6 pm)
• M.Sc Vilma Lehtinen has planned and conducted user studies (6 pm)
• M.Sc, MA Kai Huotari has been setting up user studies in California (3pm)
• Jani Turunen has been the main software developer (6 pm)
• Konrad Markus has been a software developer (10 pm)
• MA Chen Pei-Chun has been working in the project as
completing her master theses, connecting to BUPT, and various other project activities. (4pm)
• M.Sc Matti Nelimarkka has been conducting research on social relations (3pm)
Comnet
• Professor Heikki Hämmäinen is the responsible director of OtaSizzle from Comnet, and he has strategically led the project towards the set goals. In addition, he contributed to the overall specification and management of the project (<1pm)
• M.Sc. Juuso Karikoski has been in charge of the handset-
based measurements conducted in the project by Comnet (8pm).
CSE
• Professor Heikki Saikkonen is the responsible director of 291
MIDE OtaSizzle
OtaSizzle from CSE. He contributed to the specification and management of the project (< 1pm)
• Professor Matti Hämäläinen is the responsible director of OtaSizzle at SoberIT/CSE and is a member of the OtaSizzle steering group. He has contributed to the overall
specification, to dissemination and to communication with other projects and organizations. He has been presenting OtaSizzle and SizzleLab in various national and international forums. (1.5 pm)
• M.Sc. Kimmo Karhu has been coordinating Sizzlelab
activities. He has also been conducting research around Sizzlelab (8 pm)
• M.Sc. Tingan Tang has coordinated BeijingSizzle work and collaboration with BUPT and has been in charge of development for sizzlelab.org site. He has also been
conducting research around Sizzlelab and Kassi (8 pm)
• M.Sc Antti Virolainen has been developing mainly the Kassi service (5pm).
• M.Sc Juho Makkonen has been developing the Kassi
service (5pm).
• M.Sc Emmi Suhonen has completed her master’s thesis and has been developing the Kassi service and conducting user tests (5pm).
• Dr Seppo Törmä has been contributing to the specification and management of the project, and developing relation
ships to ICT Shok projects (3pm).
• Dr Esko Nuutila has been participating in the steering group meetings and contributing to the specification and
management of the project (3pm).
2012-13
HIIT
• Professor Martti Mäntylä is the responsible leader of the whole project (1 pm)
• Dr. Olli Pitkänen is the project manager, has been
conducting research on legal topics, and accomplished planning, communications and collaboration with other organizations and projects (7 pm)
• M.Sc Airi Lampinen has planned and conducted user studies, esp. questionnaires and interviews. For the first half of the year, she was at UC Berkeley to accomplish OtaSizzle related studies (CalSizzle) in California (3 pm)
• M.Sc Vilma Lehtinen has planned and conducted user studies (6 pm)
• M.Sc Matti Nelimarkka has studied deliberative decision making and social media, and participated in the statistical analysis of the data (3 pm)
• M.A. Chen Pei-Chun has studied social media service design and user studies (3 pm)
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OtaSizzle MIDE
• M.Sc Sami Vihavainen has studies user-driven service development (1 pm)
• Konrad Markus has been a software developer (2 pm)
Comnet
• Professor Heikki Hämmäinen is the responsible director of OtaSizzle from Comnet, and he has strategically led the project towards the set goals. In addition, he contributed to the overall specification and management of the project (<1pm)
• Juuso Ilomäki has been doing master thesis and research related to detecting mode of transport from accelerometer data collected from mobile devices (1 pm)
• M.Sc. Tapio Soikkeli continued work on the context
detection algorithm developed for the handset-based data collected in the project (2,6pm).
CSE
• Professor Heikki Saikkonen is the responsible director of OtaSizzle from CSE. He contributed to the specification and management of the project (< 1pm)
• Professor Matti Hämäläinen is the responsible director of OtaSizzle at SoberIT/CSE and is a member of the OtaSizzle steering group. He has contributed to the overall
specification, to dissemination and to communication with other projects and organizations. He has been presenting OtaSizzle and SizzleLab in various national and international forums. (1.5 pm)
• M.Sc. Kimmo Karhu has been coordinating Sizzlelab
activities and development work for contextlogger3 tool and framework. He has also been conducting research related to mobile sensing and mobile ecosystems (8 pm)
• Nalin Chaudhary has been doing software development and master thesis related to contextlogger3 tool and framework (2 pm)
• M.Sc. Tingan Tang has coordinated BeijingSizzle work and collaboration with BUPT and has been in charge of development for sizzlelab.org site. He has also been con
ducting research around Sizzlelab and Kassi (3 pm)
• M.Sc. Juuso Karikoski has been in charge of the handset-
based measurements conducted in the project by Comnet, and acted as the department’s manager for the project (4,3pm).
• Dr Seppo Törmä has been contributing to the specification and management of the project, and developing relation
ships to ICT Shok projects (8pm).
• Dr Esko Nuutila has been participating in the steering group meetings and contributing to the specification and manage
ment of the project (5pm).
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MIDE UI-ART
Urban contextual information interfaces
with multimodal augmented reality – UI-ART
Length: 2008-2013
Budget: 1 500 000 €
Project management:
Prof. Samuel Kaski,
Department of Information and
Computer Science
Doc. Jorma Laaksonen,
Department of Information and
Computer Science
Doc. Mikko Kurimo,
Department of Information and
Computer Science
Prof. Matti Karjalainen,
Abstract
We developed methods and pilot systems for contextdependent search and presentation of information with the
means of augmented reality. With the developed techniques,
information associated to physical objects and situations can
be accessed and then aligned with the real environment for
visual and auditory display. The user’s context and foci of
interest are measured with wearable cameras and eye tracking.
Novel statistical machine learning methods are used for multimodal information retrieval and for taking the context into
account. The main applications considered in this project have
been in urban planning, design and construction, studies and
enhancement of social interaction, and in creating a personal
assistant that supports information retrieval, media access, and
memory.
Department of Signal Processing
and Acoustics (2008-2009)
Prof. Paavo Alku,
Department of Signal Processing
and Acoustics (2010-2013)
Prof. Lauri Savioja,
Department of Media Technology
Prof. Kai Puolamäki,
(2009-2010),
Department of Media Technology
Prof. Tapio Takala,
Department of Media Technology
Prof. Pirkko Oittinen,
Department of Media Technology
Acad. Prof. Riitta Hari,
Brain Research Unit, O.V.
Lounasmaa Laboratory
Prof. Tor-Ulf Weck (2008-2010),
Department of Architecture
Prof. Kimmo Lapintie,
Department of Architecture
294
{samuel.kaski, jorma.laaksonen,
mikko.kurimo, paavo.alku,
lauri.savioja, tapio.takala,
pirkko.oittinen, riitta.hari,
kimmo.lapintie}@aalto.fi
Steering group representatives
from the City of Espoo, Nokia
Research Center, VTT and
YIT Plc.
UI-ART MIDE
1 Goals and achievements
The general research question was how to facilitate natural and
effortless communication with abstract information attached to
the real world environment. Our main objective was to develop
the necessary methods, models and algorithms needed to solve
this question by combining augmented reality with information retrieval. Augmented reality ties abstract information to the
physical world by aligned display and action, whereas adaptive
models connect relevant information to any momentary context.
New methods needed to be developed in both machine learning,
to build the necessary adaptive models for inferring relevance,
and for multimodal augmented reality, and moreover these different domains needed to work intimately together. To concretize the general problem we studied it in three pilot application
fields: urban planning, design and construction; enhancement
of social interaction and memory; and studies of brains in social
interaction. These studies need pilot systems which we built by
combining the new methods and algorithms, new measurement
and display devices developed in-house and obtained through
collaboration with Nokia Research Center, and new gesture and
speech-based interaction methods and tools developed in the
project.
This project was extremely challenging both because
advanced new methods needed to be developed and combined
in a pioneering constellation, and because of the breadth of
expertise required to construct functional pilot systems. The
Aalto-wide consortium was set up to cover the required expertise to make even this challenging, broad objective reachable.
We proceeded in two simultaneous main ways: (i) Academic
basic research on the main research questions in the project.
(ii) Planning and implementation of solutions for a set of concrete tasks that are necessary ingredients of the resulting pilot
systems.
The project was divided into sub-objectives, which are discussed below in connection with the results.
1.1 Measurement devices (Task 1)
The task was concerned with stereoscopic wearable systems
for augmented reality applications and determination of visual
responses with such systems. The high level aim was to find
what benefit (if any) and how much does stereoscopic imaging
bring to AR applications from the performance and experience
standpoints. The key issue in stereoscopic systems concerns
depth perception and the improvements which stereoscopy may
provide in comparison with monoscopic systems and the deterioration in relation to viewing with naked eyes.
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The topic was divided in two parts: on the one hand it dealt with
the performance and experience of stereoscopic image capture with variation of camera parameters, and on the other with
the performance characterising depth perception of augmentations in scenes with variation of visualisation parameters of the
augmentations. Thus the study extended over the whole stereoscopic pipeline. The experimental studies were carried out
using systems constructed in part or wholly in the project. In most
cases urban scenes and head-mounted AR systems were used.
As for camera parameters, the objective was to find out
how they influence the accuracy of depth measurement. The
method used a non-planar test target, which enables estimation of the depth resolution of stereo cameras. To our knowledge this is a novel idea which has not been published before.
The results were compared with the performance of a single
camera and human vision to find out the lower and upper
bounds for system construction.
The next step involved extension of stereoscopic image
capture to measuring not only accuracy but also subjective
image quality. Stereoscopic image capture in crowd perception
was evaluated with user tests. The results suggest that crowd
analysis benefits from stereoscopic presentation. The study
showed that people were distinguished from each other more
easily and the estimation of distances between people was
determined with least effort with stereoscopic viewing. Stereoscopic cameras and displays may thus be important enhancements in imaging systems related to crowd surveillance, such
as airport security systems. It was also found that stereoscopic
viewing can solve some visualization problems that typically
occur in augmented reality such as occluded objects.
As for studies of augmentations in stereoscopic scenes,
stereo AR glasses were constructed and the visualization of
occluded objects successfully implemented. The first experimental study dealt with depth perception in the x ray case, that
is, seeing behind a wall. The study used the approach of auxiliary augmentations which involves supporting depth perception by addition of reference augmentations for helping depth
judgments. The approach, which is believed to be novel, turned
out to be promising. The approach can be utilized for example
in construction maintenance tasks. Markerless stereo tracking
was implemented and applied to further perceptual studies.
Tracking was based on 3D reconstruction software which was
developed earlier at the Department of Media Technology in
the UI-ART -project. The software enables tracking the user in
environments where enough visual features are present without
any external devices or markers.
The auxiliary augmentation approach was further applied
in the action space to find its potential in applications such as
wayfinding and architectural design.
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Altogether the studies contributed to determination of design
guidelines for stereoscopic AR and photographic applications.
1.2 Multimodal augmented reality (Task 2)
The original goals of this task were two-fold. First, there was the
development of augmented reality audio (ARA) headset conducted at the Department of Signal Processing and Acoustics
(SPA) and at the Department of Media Technology (ME). The
result was a headset that is acoustically almost transparent so
that both spatial and timbre perception with it is almost perfect. This work was already started as collaboration between
TKK and Nokia Research Center before UI-ART, but this project
made it possible to carry out extensive tests with it and complete the development of the system. This work was continued
at ME but the focus shifted more towards use of 3D audio as a
user interface element in AR applications. This research track
resulted in collaboration and visits to HITLab NZ, one of the
most renowned AR research units worldwide.
The second main goal of this task was testing of the Alvar
augmented reality library by VTT and its further development in
collaboration with them. The work was performed at ME, and
the main part of our work was development of automatic 3D
reconstruction related to augmented reality. This research was
performed in collaboration with the DIEM/MMR sister project.
Another related research topic was user tracking both by video
tracking and acoustic tracking. These techniques were utilized
e.g. in the UI-ART Virtual Laboratory Guide application.
Due to personnel changes the focus of research at SPA
changed quite remarkably in 2010. The new goal was development of high-quality statistical parametric speech synthesis
by taking advantage of physiologically oriented vocoding techniques. A special emphasis was on techniques that perform
well even in environments with high noise levels.
At ICS the two main research topics were both related to
speech recognition. First topic was to develop new versions of
our Aalto ASR (automatic speech recognition) systems to suit
to the various UI-ART demo platforms. The target in research
was online topic adaptation of the statistical language models
where the speech topics were observed by using the other
system modalities and by the ASR system output itself. Another
target in ASR was to solve the recognition of foreign proper
names which was found as the most critical performance
bottle-necks of our system. The second topic was to apply the
speaker adaptation methodology developed in our ASR system
to personalize the speech synthesis system developed at SPA.
Both the speech recognition and synthesis systems were utilized in the UI-ART Virtual Laboratory Guide application.
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1.3 Studies of eye gaze and fixations (Task 3)
A central basic-research question of this project was how users’
state and interests can be inferred from gaze tracking signal,
and how useful that information is in optimizing what will be
retrieved and shown to the user. We studied these questions in
a series of papers and developed tools usable as components
of retrieval systems.
Giving explicit commands by using gaze is not the best
solution in a ubiquitous environment, since it demands the full
attention of the user and it suffers from the Midas touch effect:
each glance activates an action whether it is intended or not,
distracting the user. Hence, in our system, we use the relevance inference engine to infer the relevance of the objects in
the scene implicitly from gaze patterns. For this, we extended
our methods from text and image retrieval studies to a feasibility study on video data to obtain an empirical grounding on
the idea that object relevances are indeed estimable given the
gaze features of the user and the video stream data. We then
extended the work to test the idea of learning “natural” selection commands from learning data and applying them on-line.
Learning data was collected by monitoring the eye movements
of the user equipped with a button which she pressed when
she wanted to “select”, in a mobile setup. We applied machine
learning techniques to learn to predict the button presses from
eye movement data, and the results were clearly better than
random predictions and naive predictions. Extending to audio,
we developed a method for finding completely automatically,
without users having to indicate any ground truth, when the
user pays attention to the auditory stream.
A summary of the results is that the eye tracking signal is
useful, both for text and image retrieval and in dynamic ubiquitous settings, but since it is very noisy it is advisable to combine it with other sources of implicit feedback.
1.4 Contextual information retrieval (Task 4)
In the UI-ART project we aimed to break free from the static setting of multimodal search methods devised for the conventional
computer setup with a screen, keyboard and mouse, by making
multimedia searches mobile and ubiquitous. With the novel
combination of devices for measuring the user’s context and his
behavior in it, and devices for producing personally augmented
reality, we aimed to facilitate new kinds of contextual and proactive retrieval methods. In our scenario and experiments,
the search keys were extracted from the location, actions and
speech of the user and then used to refine the search by the
means of relevance feedback.
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UI-ART MIDE
The work resulted in two pilot experiment systems for contextual
information retrieval. These systems were close to the depicted
in the research plan and were used in two series of user experiments. In these experiments the usability of the systems and
the utility of the developed contextual information retrieval techniques were evaluated and found to be promising.
1.5 Integration of the enabling technologies for mobile platforms (Task 5)
We planned to develop a wearable test system that integrates
the results of the research on the enabling technology areas
and make possible research on the application areas. The
system was planned to consist of a small computer hidden in
the clothes of the user. It was planned to communicate over
wireless networks and be equipped with the special peripherals: the Gaze Tracker device integrated in the Near-to-Eye display of the user’s glasses, the spherical camera that measures
the user’s view, mobile augmented audio reality headset, user’s
handsfree phone, a GPS receiver, an electronic compass and
tilt sensors.
The pilot experiment system implemented in two stages
consisted in the first stage of a small palm-size computer and
in the second stage of a mobile phone. The gaze tracker and
near-eye display glasses were studied in a setup that contained a laptop computer carried in the back of the user. Also
audio input and output were used, but GPS receivers, electronic compasses or tilt sensors were never integrated. Even
without those peripherals the pilot system proved to be applicable to user experiments in the Personal Data Management
Assistant application task.
1.6 Virtual Architect: augmented reality
in design and collaboration (Task 6)
We aimed at studying augmented reality applications in the
development of architectural and planning representation in
the context of its social and professional practices and related
meanings.
Our first suggested experiment was planned to be the future
metro station in Otaniemi shown as a traffic point, information
centre and social meeting place.
Unfortunately the devices and their integration did not yet
allow actual testing of the potential user interfaces, so we
analysed the problems and the possibilities related to future
additions. We found out that the existing data of plans and
designed environments did not yet allow direct integration in
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real-life situations. Additionally, the theoretical work related to
augmented reality in the planning context was clearly undeveloped. Therefore we concentrated first on the theoretical problems related to spatial perception and its relationship to planning and design practices.
Collaborative design in augmented reality, creating plans
from scratch and manipulating existing models in a setting
where each participant could immediately see the plan and
contribute to it was our vision. The scenario is particularly
attractive since it combines architectural goals, need for AR,
and need for contextual information retrieval in showing and
modifying the plans.
In the beginning we used marker-based tracking in outdoor
perception (such as X-ray vision). Practical applications would,
however, require markerless, i.e., feature-based tracking, and
we studied the algorithm required for this to be realized. Secondly, we studied the usefulness and relevance of the application with respect to the practical tasks of urban planning, by
qualitatively analysing the way that spatial perception changes
with the addition of new devices of augmented reality. Current
state of the application, however, did not allow actual testing at
this stage, but the results were fed into a new theoretical formulation of space for users, planners and architects.
Since the quality of the hardware was not yet sufficient
for testing augmented reality in a professional context, we
turned to the possibilities of collaboration and communication
between different stakeholders.
There the main problems are related to shared language
and perception, epistemology, theory of space, and the role
of different representations in architecture. Experimental case
studies were carried out by Peter Tattersall, in which different
mixed reality devices were tested in real-life situations where
users were able to participate in the development of planned
changes in the environment. In addition Jan Wolski, together
with Päivi Rauhamaa, developed a so-called Strategy Table,
which enables participants to discuss different development
scenarios and immediately see their modeled consequences.
The key observation was that the term “augmented reality” is
misleading, since what is being augmented is rather perception, experience, memory and expectations. Consequently, the
challenges are not merely those of illustration or added knowledge, but the lack of a common life-world between planners
and laypersons. In a sense, planners “augment” their representative knowledge based on maps, charts, plans etc. with
on-site perception, whereas laypersons do the opposite: they
augment their direct perception with depiction and other representations which are not necessarily a natural language for
them.
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1.7 Contextual information retrieval
application (virtual laboratory guide
and memory assistant, Task 7)
As our first pilot application, we developed an augmented reality
demo called Virtual laboratory guide. It displays relevant information to a visitor in a university department on a head-worn
or a hand-held display. People and objects in the view are recognized from the video feed and information related to them is
searched from a database. The combination of speech recognition and inference of the relevant cues from eye tracking or
pointing is used to decide what kind of information should be
retrieved. Retrieved textual annotations are augmented to the
view and become part of the context the user can attend to.
The application was extended into a mobile memory assistant that makes browsing of personal history later easy. It
is based on a new interface for proactive browsing of timeordered data, in practice images of personal history, and
related texts. The interface estimates on-line the relevance of
the history items based on available feedback from the user,
and adjusts the size (saliency) of the images according to the
estimated relevance.
1.8 Brains in social interaction (Task 8)
Within the consortium we had two-way synergy between the
methodological work and studies of social interaction and
human attention. We needed basic research about attentional
mechanisms in realistic settings in order to better infer interests
of the user from eye movements, and the developed machine
learning methods were invaluable in studying brain function and
cognition during interaction in natural settings.
During this project, we also combined eye tracking with
modern brain imaging to learn about the underlying brain
mechanisms during natural viewing conditions. This kind of
research is currently possible only in a handful of laboratories all over the world. Eye tracking in social environments,
especially between interacting subjects, will have several
applications in assessing the synchrony in anticipating and
responding to other individual’s acts and intentions, such as
those occurring in master-apprentice or rehabilitator-patient
relationships.
We did basic research about attentional mechanism in
natural settings by studying eye movements in several different setups. Moreover, eye tracking was combined with
both magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in natural viewing to find interests of the user and the related brain mechanisms. We also
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started an MEG study to explore brain function and eye movements during visual search task; the main aim was to develop
machine-learning algorithms.
2 Output
2.1 List of publications
Doctoral theses
Ajanki A., Inference of relevance for proactive information retrieval, 2013.
Tähtinen S., Writing architecture, textual image practices — a textual approach in architectural research questioning other visual and Virtual, 2013
Kandemir M., Learning Mental States from Biosignals, 2
013.
Pulakka H., Development and evaluation of artificial
bandwidth extension methods for narrowband telephone speech, 2013.
Tikander M., Development and Evaluation of Augmented Reality Audio Systems, 2009
Master’s theses
Wang, C., Latent variable models for a probabilistic timeline browser, 2011.
Wu, J., Online Face Recognition with Application to
Proactive Augmented Reality, 2010.
Günther. T., Developing a Context-Aware Mobile Augmented Reality Application, 2010.
Järvinen A., Rakennusten visualisointi lisätyn todellisuuden
avulla, 2010.
Lavinen, S., Augmented Reality Concepts for Urban
Planning, 2010.
Viinikanoja J., Locally linear robust Bayesian dependency modeling of co-occurrence data, 2010.
Kozma L., A proactive interface for image retrieval, 2009.
Kytö M., Stereokameran tarkkuuden mittausmenetelmä lisätyn todellisuuden sovellusalueella, 2009.
Ruokolainen T., Topic adaptation for speech recognition in
multimodal environment, 2009.
Journals
1. Gamper H, Dicke C, Billinghurst M, Puolamäki K: Sound sample detection and numerosity estimation using auditory display. ACM Transactions on Applied Perception (1.14), 2013
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2. Hirvenkari L, Ruusuvuori J, Saarinen V-M, Kivioja M, Peräkylä A, Hari R: Influence of turn-taking in a two-person conversation on the gaze of a viewer. Plos One (3.730), 2013
3. Koskinen M, Viinikanoja J, Kurimo M, Klami A, Kaski S, Hari R: Identifying fragments of natural speech from the listener’s MEG signals. Human Brain Mapping (6.878), 2013
4. Kytö M, Mäkinen A, Häkkinen J, Oittinen P: Improving
Relative Depth Judgments in Augmented Reality with
Auxiliary Augmentations. ACM Transactions on Applied
Perception (1.14), 2013
5. Raitio T, Suni A, Vainio M, Alku P: Synthesis and
perception of breathy, normal, and Lombard speech in the presence of noise. Computer, Speech and Language (1.463), 2013
6. Jokinen E, Yrttiaho S, Pulakka H, Vainio M, Alku P:
Signal-to-noise ratio adaptive post-filtering method for
intelligibility enhancement of telephone speech. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (1.55), 2012
7. Kujala MN, Carlson S, Hari R: Engagement of amygdala in third-person view of face-to-face interaction. Human Brain Mapping (6.878), 2012
8. Kujala MN, Kujala J, Carlson S, Hari R: Dog Experts’ Brains Distinguish Socially Relevant Body Postures Similarly in Dogs and Humans. PloS One (3.730), 2012
9. Kytö M, Hakala J, Oittinen P, Häkkinen J: Effect of camera separation on the viewing experience of stereoscopic photo
graphs. Journal of Electronic Imaging (1.061), 2012
10. Pulakka H, Laaksonen L, Myllylä V, Yrttiaho S, Alku P:
Conversational evaluation of speech bandwidth extension using a mobile handset. IEEE Signal Processing Letters (1.674), 2012
11. Pulakka H, Laaksonen L, Yrttiaho S, Myllylä V, Alku P:
Conversational quality evaluation of artificial band
width extension of telephone speech. Journal of the
Acoustical Society of America (1.55), 2012
12. Pulakka H, Remes U, Yrttiaho S, Palomäki K, Kurimo M, Alku P: Bandwidth extension of telephone speech to low
frequencies using sinusoidal synthesis and Gaussian
mixture model. IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing (1.675), 2012
13. Ajanki A, Billinghurst M, Gamper H, Järvenpää T, Kandemir M, Kaski S, Koskela M, Kurimo M, Laaksonen J, Puolamäki K, Ruokolainen T, Tossavainen T: An augmented reality
interface to contextual information. Virtual Reality (0.341), 2011
14. Pihko E, Virtanen A, Saarinen V-M, Hirvenkari L,
Tossavainen T, Haapala A, Hari R: Influence of expertise and the painting’s abstraction level on experiencing art.
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Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (2.9), 2011
15. Pulakka H, Alku P: Bandwidth extension of telephone speech using a neural network and a filterbank
implementation for highband mel spectrum. IEEE
Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing (1.675), 2011
16. Raitio T, Suni A, Yamagishi J, Pulakka H, Nurminen J, Vainio M, Alku P: HMM-based speech synthesis utilizing glottal inverse filtering. IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing (1.675), 2011
17. Schürmann M, Hlushchuk Y, Hari R: Embodied visual
perception of distorted finger postures. Human Brain
Mapping (6.878), 2011
18. Hirvenkari L, Jousmäki V, Lamminmäki S, Saarinen V-M, Sams M, Hari R: Gaze-based MEG averaging during audio
visual speech perception. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (2.9), 2010
19. Ajanki A, Hardoon DR, Kaski S, Puolamäki K, Shawe-Taylor J: Can eyes reveal interest? - Implicit queries from gaze
patterns. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction: The Journal of Personalization Research (1.6), 2009
20. Tikander M: Usability Issues in Listening to Natural Sounds with an Augmented Reality Audio Headset. Journal of Audio Engineer Society (0.43), 2009
Conference papers
1. Chen X, Koskela M: Classification of RGB-D and Motion Capture Sequences Using Extreme Learning Machine.
Proceedings of the 18th Scandinavian Conference on Image Analysis, 2013
2. Chen X, Koskela M: Sequence Alignment for RGB-D and Motion Capture Skeletons. Proceedings of the International Conference on Image Analysis and Recognition, 2013
3. Chen X, Koskela M: Motion Sequence Classification With Extreme Learning Machine. Accepted to the International Conference on Extreme Learning Machines, 2013
4. Gamper, H: Selection and interpolation of head-related transfer functions for rendering moving virtual sound sources. Proceedings of the International Conference of Digital Audio Effects (DAFx), 2013
5. Głowacka D, Ruotsalo T, Konyushkova K, Athukorala K, Kaski S, Jacucci G: Directing exploratory search:
Reinforcement learning from user interactions with key
words. Proceedings of IUI’13, 2013
6. Luzardo M, Karppa M, Laaksonen J, Jantunen, T: Head Pose Estimation for Sign Language Video. Proceedings of the 18th Scandinavian Conference on Image Analysis, 2013
7. Ruotsalo T, Athukorala K, Glowacka D, Konyushkova K, Oulasvirta A, Kaipiainen S, Kaski S, Jacucci G: Supporting 304
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exploratory search tasks with interactive user modelling. Proceedings of ASIST 2013, 2013
8. Ruotsalo T, Peltonen J, Eugster MJA, Głowacka D,
Konyushkova K, Athukorala K, Kosunen I, Reijonen A,
Myllymäki P, Jacucci G, Kaski S: Directing exploratory search with interactive intent modeling. Proceedings of CIKM 2013, 2013
9. Viitaniemi V, Karppa M, Laaksonen J, Jantunen T: Detecting Hand-Head Occlusions in Sign Language Video.
Proceedings of the 18th Scandinavian Conference on Image Analysis, 2013
10. Auvinen H, Raitio T, Siltanen S, Alku P: Utilizing Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method for improved glottal inverse filtering. Proceedings of Interspeech’12, 2012
11. Kandemir M, Kaski S: Learning relevance from natural eye movements in pervasive interfaces. Proceedings of the
International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI), 2012
12. Kandemir M, Klami A, Vetek A, Kaski S: Unsupervised
inference of auditory attention from biosensors.
Proceedings of the European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge
Discovery in Databases (ECML PKDD 2012), 2012
13. Kayal S: Experiments on the LFW database using curvelet transforms and a random forest-kNN cascade. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Second International Conference on Digital Information Processing and
Communications, 2012
14. Lindeman RW, Lee G, Beattie L, Gamper H, Pathinarupothi R, Akhilesh A: GeoBoids: A Mobile AR Application for
Exergaming. Proceedings of International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR), 2012
15. Lorenzo-Trueba J, Barra-Chicote R, Raitio T, Obin N, Alku P, Yamagishi J, Montero JM: Towards glottal source
controllability in expressive speech synthesis. Proceedings of Interspeech’12, 2012
16. Mansikkaniemi A, Kurimo M: Adaptation of morpheme-
based speech recognition for foreign entity names.
Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference Human Language Technologies - The Baltic Perspective, 2012
17. Mansikkaniemi A, Kurimo M: Unsupervised vocabulary adaptation for morph-based language models. Proceedings of the NAACL 2012 Workshop on the Future of Language Modeling for HLT, 2012
18. Pulakka H, Laaksonen L, Myllylä V, Yrttiaho S, Alku P:
Conversational evaluation of artificial bandwidth
extension of telephone speech using a mobile handset. Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP’12), 2012
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19. Raitio T, Suni A, Vainio M, Alku P: Wideband parametric speech synthesis using warped linear prediction.
Proceedings of Interspeech’12, 2012
20. Raitio T, Takanen M, Santala O, Suni A, Vainio M, Alku P: On measuring the intelligibility of synthetic speech in noise – Do we need a realistic noise environment?. Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP’12), 2012
21. Sjöberg M, Koskela M, Ishikawa S, Laaksonen J: Real-Time Large-Scale Visual Concept Detection with Linear
Classifiers. Proceedings of 21st International Conference on Pattern Recognition, 2012
22. Sjöberg M, Koskela M, Ishikawa S, Laaksonen J, Oja E: PicSOM Experiments in TRECVID 2012. Proceedings of the TRECVID 2012 Workshop, 2012
23. Suni A, Raitio T, Vainio M, Alku P: The GlottHMM Entry for Blizzard Challenge 2012: Hybrid Approach. Proceedings of the Blizzard 2012 Workshop, 2012
24. Ajanki A, Kaski S: Probabilistic proactive timeline browser. Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on
Artificial Neural Networks (ICANN), 2011
25. Gamper H, Lokki T: Spatialisation in audio augmented reality using finger snaps, in Principles and Applications of Spatial Hearing. World Scientific Publishing, 2011
26. Gamper H, Tervo S, Lokki T: Head orientation tracking using binaural headset microphones. In 131st AES
Convention, 2011
27. Kafentzis G, Stylianou Y, Alku P: Glottal inverse filtering using Stablilised Weighted Linear Prediction. Proceedings of the International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP’11), 2011
28. Kytö M, Hakala J: Geometric and subjective analysis of
stereoscopic I3A cluster images. Proceedings of SPIE 7863, Stereoscopic Displays and Applications XXII, 2011
29. Kytö M, Häkkinen J, Oittinen P: Stereoscopic viewing
facilitates the perception of crowds. IEEE International
Conference on Advanced Video and Signal-Based
Surveillance (AVSS), 2011
30. Kytö M, Nuutinen M, Oittinen P: Method for measuring stereo camera depth accuracy based on stereoscopic vision. Proceedings of SPIE 7864, Three-Dimensional Imaging, Interaction, and Measurement, 2011
31. Pohjalainen J, Raitio T, Alku P: Detection of shouted speech in the presence of ambient noise. Proceedings of Interspeech’11, 2011
32. Pulakka H, Remes U, Palomäki K, Kurimo M, Alku P: Speech bandwidth extension using Gaussian Mixture Model-based estimation of the highband Mel spectrum. Proceedings of the International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and 306
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Signal Processing (ICASSP’11), 2011
33. Pulakka H, Remes U, Yrttiaho S, Palomäki K, Kurimo M, Alku P: Low-frequency bandwidth extension of telephone speech using sinusoidal synthesis and gaussian mixture model. Proceedings of Interspeech’11, 2011
34. Raitio T, Suni A, Pulakka H, Vainio M, Alku P: Utilizing glottal source pulse library for generating improved excitation signal for HMM-based speech synthesis. Proceedings of the International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP’11), 2011
35. Raitio T, Suni A, Vainio M, Alku P: Analysis of HMM-based Lombard speech synthesis. Proceedings of Interspeech’11, 2011
36. Sousa R, Ferreira A, Alku P: Estimation of harmonic noise components of the glottal excitation. Proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Models and Analysis of Vocal Emissions for Biomedical Applications (MAVEBA’11), 2011
37. Suni A, Raitio T, Vainio M, Alku P: The GlottHMM entry for Blizzard Challenge 2011: Utilizing source unit selection in HMM-based speech synthesis for improved excitation generation. Proceedings of the ISCA Blizzard Challenge 2011 Workshop, 2011
38. Zhang H, Ruokolainen T, Laaksonen J, Hochleitner C, Traunmüller R: Gaze- and speech- enhanced content-based image retrieval in image tagging. Proceedings of 21st
International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (ICANN 2011), 2011
39. Ajanki A, Billinghurst M, Gamper H, Järvenpää T, Kandemir M, Kaski S, Koskela M, Kurimo M, Laaksonen J, Puolamäki K, Ruokolainen T, Tossavainen T: Contextual Information Access with Augmented Reality. Proceedings of IEEE
International Workshop on Machine Learning for Signal
Processing (MLSP), 2010
40. Ajanki A, Billinghurst M, Kandemir M, Kaski S, Koskela M, Kurimo M, Laaksonen J, Puolamäki K, Tossavainen T:
Ubiquitous Contextual Information Access with Proactive Retrieval and Augmentation. Proceedings of the fourth
International Workshop on Ubiquitous Virtual Reality (IWUVR), 2010
41. Kandemir M, Saarinen V-M, Kaski S: Inferring object
relevance from gaze in dynamic scenes. Proceedings of Eye Tracking Research & Applications (ETRA), 2010
42. Pulakka H, Myllylä V, Laaksonen L, Alku P: Bandwidth
extension of telephone speech using a filter bank
implementation for highband Mel spectrum. Proceedings of the European Signal Processing Conference 2010 (EUSIPCO), 2010
43. Raitio T, Suni A, Pulakka H, Vainio M, Alku P: Comparison of formant enhancement methods for HMM-based speech 307
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synthesis. Proceedings of the 7th ISCA Speech Synthesis Workshop, 2010
44. Sjöberg M, Koskela M, Viitaniemi V, Laaksonen J: Indoor location recognition using fusion of SVM-based visual
classifiers. Proceedings of IEEE International Workshop on Machine Learning for Signal Processing, 2010
45. Sjöberg M, Koskela M, Viitaniemi V, Laaksonen J: PicSOM experiments in ImageCLEF RobotVision. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 6388, 2010
46. Suni A, Raitio T, Vainio M, Alku P: The GlottHMM speech synthesis entry for Blizzard Challenge 2010. In CD
Proceedings of the Blizzard Challenge 2010 Workshop, 2010
47. Tossavainen T: Approximate and SQP Two View
Triangulation. 10th Asian Conference on Computer Vision, 2010
48. Kozma L, Klami A, Kaski S: GaZIR: Gaze-based zooming interface for image retrieval. Proceedings ICMI-MLMI 2009, The Eleventh International Conference on Multimodal
Interfaces and The Sixth Workshop on Machine Learning for Multimodal Interaction, 2009
49. Puolamäki K, Ajanki A, Kaski S: Learning to learn implicit queries from gaze patterns. Proceedings of ICML 2008, 2008
50. Tikander M, Karjalainen M, Riikonen V: An Augmented Reality Audio Headset. International Conference Digital Audio Effects (DAFx-08), 2008
Related papers
1. Kaksonen M, Saarinen V-M, Vuilleumier P, and Hari R: Viewing neutral and fearful faces: Effect of spatial frequency on eye movement patterns. Under preparation.
2.2 Side and follow-up projects
• Tivit SHOK project Devices and Interoperability Ecosystem (DIEM), 2008-2010
• EIT ICT Labs project Pervasive Information, Interfaces, and Interaction (PI3), in Smart Spaces Action Line, 2011-2012
• EIT ICT Labs project Cross Linking Visual Information and Internet Resources using Mobile Networks, in Future Media Content and Delivery Action Line, 2012• Tivit SHOK project From Data to Intelligence (D2I) 2012• The Finnish Centre of Excellence in Computational
Inference Research (COIN), Flagship application on
Intelligent Information Access, 2012-2017
• Beyond Search. TKK MIDE follow up-project 2013
• Revolution of Knowledge Work REKNOW. Tekes big
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strategic opening 2013• Symbiotic Mind Computer Interaction for Information Seeking Mindsee. EU 7th FP 2013-2016
2.3 Impact on education
The first students started their studies in EIT ICT Labs Master’s Programme in ICT Innovation’s Major in Human Computer
Interaction and Design (HCID) in autumn 2012 at Aalto University and other ICT partners. At Aalto, the HCID major is closely
linked to the UI-ART project as Profs. Kaski and Takala are
among the responsible professors of the major.
2.4 Relevance
The principles and abstract methods developed in the project
are general and usable in a wide area of applications. There
is now clear indication for interest in industry, as evidenced
through our participation in the several projects of EIT ICT Labs.
Those projects and UI-ART collaborated closely, and the same
technologies and models are be used in them. The big Tekes
strategic opening Reknow will further enhance the take-up
of these and related ideas in practical use across the various
kinds of knowledge work.
Press releases of the research have reached multiple
notable channels, including Russian state television and Financial Times Deutschland.
Academic impact is coming, in addition to the successful
and highly visible demos and pilots, from the widely applicable
basic technologies, algorithms and data analysis models developed in the project, and through the basic research on human
brains and social interaction. The main research themes will
be continued in a flagship application of the Finnish Centre of
Excellence in Computational Inference Research (COIN).
Related research was continued in the EIT ICT Labs Smart
Spaces thematic action line project Pervasive Information,
Interfaces, and Interaction (PI3) and in an EIT ICT Labs Future
Media Content and Delivery thematic action line project Cross
Linking Visual Information and Internet Resources using Mobile
Networks, which was started in 2012. Our speech synthesis
research was expanded into a European FP7 STREP project Simple4All in 2011.The eye-tracking experience obtained
during the UI-ART project has importantly facilitated combined
brain imaging and eye-tracking studies in the multidisciplinary
aivoAALTO project of the Aalto University, and will be used and
expanded in the MindSee FP7 STREP 2013-2016.
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3 Departments, staff, cooperation
3.1 Departments involved in the project
Department of Information and Computer Science
Three research groups, headed by Prof. Samuel Kaski, Doc.
Jorma Laaksonen and Doc. Mikko Kurimo.
Other participating personnel: Dr. Markus Koskela, Dr. Arto
Klami.
Department of Signal Processing and Acoustics
One research group, headed by Prof. Paavo Alku (2010-2013),
Prof. Karjalainen (2008-2009)
Department of Media Technology
Three research groups, headed by Prof. Lauri Savioja,
Prof. Kai Puolamäki (2009-2010), Prof. Tapio Takala,
Prof. Pirkko Oittinen.
Brain Research Unit, O.V. Lounasmaa Laboratory
One research group, headed by Acad. Prof. Riitta Hari.
Department of Architecture
One research group, headed by Prof. Kimmo Lapintie, Prof.
Tor-Ulf Weck (2008-2010).
Person-hours table
Department of Information and Computer Science
310
Name
Position
2012
2011 2010 2009 2008 Total
Andre Mansikkaniemi
PhD student
12
12
Melih Kandemir
PhD student
10
Xi Chen
PhD student
8,5
Chiwei Wang
PhD student
5
Tuomas Rajala
PhD student
3
Antti Ajanki
PhD student
2
Max Sandholm
MSc student 3
Jarno Lintusaari
MSc student 3
4,5
4
2,5
2,5
Teemu Ruokolainen
PhD student/MSc
student
1
10
1,5
Jing Wu
MSc student
5
8
UI-ART MIDE
Laszlo Kozma
MSc student
Lu Wei
Msc
9
2
108,5
Department of Signal Processing and Acoustics
Tuomo Raitio
PhD student
8
8
Hannu Pulakka
PhD student
4
4
Miikka Tikander
PhD student
12
9
8
53
Department of Media Technology
Miika Aittala
PhD student
1,3
11
Robert Albrecht
PhD student
3
Hannes Gamper
PhD student
1,6
1
1
Mikko Kytö
PhD student/MSc
student
9,9
9
8
Aleksi Mäkinen
MSc student
1
Päivi Rauhamaa
PhD student
8
Timo Tossavainen
PhD
4
Tomas Günther
MSc student
2
Atte Järvinen
MSc student
4
Mikko Nuutinen
PhD student
Hanieh Taipalus
PhD student
12
9
1
1,5
4
5
97,3
Brain Research Unit, O.V. Lounasmaa Laboratory
Veli-Matti Saarinen
engineer/
researcher
7,5
9
10
11
6
Veikko Jousmäki
Docent
2
45,5
Department of Architecture
Jan Wolski
PhD student
11
Jari-Pekka Mäkiaho
PhD student
8
Karen Buurmans-Niemi
PhD student
5
3
1,5
1,5
Sari Tähtinen
PhD student/
MSc student
4
12
3
2
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MIDE UI-ART
Peter Tattersal
PhD student
1
9
Hossam Hewidy
PhD student
Satu Lavinen
PhD student
3
3
Arvi Mäkitalo
PhD student
3
6
Vuokko Lehmuspuisto
Architect
1,5
2
79,5
Totals:
110,8
92,5
52,5
71
57
383,8
3.2 Cooperation
Within Aalto. The UI-ART project has gathered the required
expertise from the participating 5 departments and 10 research
groups. The project has brought together teams that have
common interests but have not collaborated before. Moreover,
the collaboration between partners who had already collaborated has expanded.
An important form of collaboration was monthly research
seminars where the partners have been able to get to know
earlier related work by other parties and discuss plans for the
current project. There were 52 seminar sessions during 20082012 with active attendance by the researchers. In addition to
research seminars, the steering group has held meetings once
a month.
We have had a research visit program between the UI-ART
project and a few departments of School of Art and Design
and School of School of Economics since 2010.
International. Internationally the project benefited directly from
our related EU projects EMIME, Simple4All, PASCAL2 NoE, and
several projects of the EIT ICT Labs.
Mark Billinghurst, INRIA Paris & KTH in EIT ICT Labs project
Cross Linking Visual Information with Internet Resources using
Mobile Networks.
Industry. Nationally we had direct interaction with key industrial partners through the ICT SHOK where we participated in
the DIEM programme by creating enabling technologies that are
shared between the projects.
Nokia RC in Tivit SHOK project Devices and Interoperability
Ecosystem (DIEM) and EIT ICT Labs projects Pervasive Information, Interfaces, and Interaction (PI3).
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Most importantly, we collaborate with the Nokia Research
Center which has provided us with the latest hardware (wearable eye tracking and display, context-collecting mobile
devices), and VTT who have a strong research group on Augmented Reality.
4 Experiences from the
project work, feedback from
the research program
We generally succeeded in implementations of pilot systems and the experiments with the pilot systems. Some of the
research plans were changed remarkably in the course of the
project, which was naturally to be expected due to addressing
a combination of tough challenges. Development of full markerless tracking techniques to be integrated into the Alvar AR
library by VTT turned out to be too challenging, and the new
target was set to concentrate on 3D reconstruction of models
which is challenging as well, and in that area we managed to get
good progress.
The other area in which the plan changed was in the augmented reality audio due to passing away of Prof. Karjalainen
who was heading that research line. Fortunately, the prototype AR headsets were finished and they were used in further
experiments although the main focus in audio was switched to
text-to-speech synthesis and speech recognition.
Some difficulties were encountered in making use of the
special devices loaned to us from Nokia RC.
The collaboration allowed valuable experience in areas such
as eye-tracking to be communicated between different departments. Further collaborative studies are still ongoing, with the
aims such as combining eye tracking and MEG recordings with
machine-learning algorithms.
The once per month held seminar meetings were valuable in informing others and get the group of different departments to work together. Still more co-operation and concrete
mutual plans between different departments could have been
fruitful. In a big basic research project it is difficult to balance
between enforcing big common top-down goals and new creative bottom-up research ideas which typically take the groups
to different directions. In this project all groups proceeded well
in their own goals but all groups did not always work optimally
towards the common big goal. Nevertheless, the collaboration
was more than satisfactory as all the results were utilized in the
demonstrations.
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MIDE VinCo
Innovative business and collaboration in
virtual environments - VinCo
Length: 2008-2011
Budget: 600 000 €
Project management:
Prof. Matti Vartiainen,
PhD Anu Sivunen,
Aalto University’s BIT Research
Centre
{matti.vartiainen, anu.sivunen}
@aalto.fi
Steering group representatives
from Kone Plc, Nokia Plc,
Technology Industries of
Finland Centennial Foundation
and UPM-Kymmene Plc
314
Abstract
This research project studied how collaboration and communication in global distributed teams and in 3D virtual environments
can enhance business and innovation. Here, 3D virtual environments refer to collaborative systems, where multiple participants share the same three-dimensional digital space despite
occupying remote physical locations and can navigate, manipulate objects, and interact with one another via avatars. Avatars
are flexibly transformed self-representations in a graphic, 3D
form (Yee & Bailenson, 2007).
Specifically, in the empirical part of the project, we focused
on the dynamics of communication and innovative, business
collaboration in these virtual settings. When this project started
in 2008, academic research on 3D virtual environments for
work use was still scarce. The research about the affordances
of virtual worlds was also limited. With the small resources
available in this project, we chose the virtual world Second Life
as our primary focus and covered other possibilities of 3D virtual environments through interviews and international collaboration. As the business adoption of virtual worlds was not yet
widespread during this research project, we decided to study
geographically distributed student teams for the communication dynamics research and for the innovative collaboration
research we studied entrepreneurs operating inside Second
Life.
In line with the purpose of MIDE’s strategy our research
project combined the expertise from multiple research disciplines for generating new thinking in this field of technology.
We developed new netnography (ethnography over Internet)
methodologies, collaborated with different educators to generate new thinking in the business education, strengthened our
connections to international research partners in this emerging
research area, and started a whole new research stream for
our research group and Aalto University.
VinCo MIDE
1 Goals and achievements
Our research approach and the goals of this research project
were twofold (Figure 1). On one hand we studied how collaboration and communication in global distributed teams were
enhanced by the affordances and special social characteristics
of virtual worlds. On the other hand we studied the special characteristics of virtual worlds in entrepreneurship and business
networks from the viewpoints of economics, business administration and knowledge management.
In the collaboration and communication research we started
out with a literature review of the current research on group
phenomena in virtual environments and with in-depth study of
a geographically distributed student team collaborating inside
the virtual world Second Life. Our literature review identified four major trends in state-of-the-art research (Sivunen &
Hakonen, 2011):
1. Scholars in the field tend to concentrate on demonstrating that real-life behavioral norms of group work apply also in virtual environments.
2. There is a lack of considering these environments as
potential platform for distributed work teams.
3. The scope on groups in current research has a strong focus on micro-level phenomena, like personal distance or eye gaze.
4. There is a lack of covering (meta) theories of group
processes.
Innovative virtual
collaboration and
communication
Innovative virtual
business
networks
Trends / Models of collaboration and
productivity
in virtual environments (VEs)
Fig. 1. VinCo approach
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MIDE VinCo
Trends 1 and 4 implied that the current research in this field has
not yet matured enough for us to consider and measure productivity in virtual environments. For this reason, our collaboration
research in this research project and in the following projects
focused on the specific qualities of these virtual environments, for example in supporting creativity (Alahuhta, Norbäck,
Sivunen & Surakka, in review), and connecting these specific
qualities to existing meta theories of group processes that were
identified in the review.
Trends 2 and 3 focused our virtual collaboration research
more to work context and to broader group phenomena inside
these environments. The student team we studied in the beginning of this research project had almost all the qualities of a
typical geographically distributed and multidisciplinary project
team of a global company: An outside customer, a concrete
product development task, own budget and timetable, English
as a common language, etc. (see http://pdp.fi/ for more information). This student team allowed us to study group level
interaction and various macro level phenomena, such as leadership (Nordbäck & Sivunen, 2013). However, for the rest of
the project and in upcoming projects we broadened our viewpoint outside the product development use case to consider
benefits of using virtual environments in other collaborative use
cases as well (Bosch-Sijtsema & Sivunen, 2013).
In the business research stream we started out by developing new research methodology needed in the research of
virtual business networks (Surakka, 2009). We collaborated
with an online community in the development of the netography
methodologies used in the collaboration research and with
Stanford University researchers in the development of automated data collection methods used in the business network
research. This methodological development eventually led to a
unique offering to business teachers in the form of Virtual Business Exercise (Surakka & Ahma-aho, 2012) that was carried
out three times in different universities in Finland.
Although Virtual Business Exercise was fairly successful
as a teaching method, it turned out to be too slow research
method for the purposes of this research project. We published the methodological principles as a paper in an international conference (Surakka, 2010) and decided to collect more
data in future projects. We then proceeded to make taxonomy
of business models in Second Life. This data is intended to
result in doctoral dissertation about characteristics of virtual
economy and how contemporary theories of competitive heterogeneity explain the structures of this particular economy.
These two research streams (Collaboration and Business)
were both represented when we strengthened our research
collaboration in U.S. (both Sivunen and Bosch-Sijtsema
were visiting Stanford University in this project) and Europe
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VinCo MIDE
(Haapamäki, Hakonen and Surakka visited prominent research
groups in this field). This research collaboration was further
enhanced by having FiDiPro (Finland Distinguished Professor
Programme) Professor Sirkka Järvenpää in the project steering
group and organizing a visiting professorship for Dr. Renate
Fruchter with other MIDE projects. We also organized two open
seminar for the public in the fall 2010 at Nokia House and in
September 2012 in Dipoli in Finland in which we had many
of our new research contacts visiting us. In the first seminar,
Associate professor Robin Teigland from Stockholm School of
Economics (and from Nordic Virtual Worlds Network (NVWN))
was giving a keynote speech. In the second seminar, Assistant
Professor Alexander Schouten from Tilburg University gave a
keynote speech and participated in a panel with industrial partners. The combination of VinCo’s two research streams also
resulted in a theoretical paper about subgroups (in-world and
real life communities and occupational groups) inside these
virtual environments (Surakka, Hakonen, Ahma-aho, in review).
This subgroup theme, along with productivity, was continued in
the follow-up projects mentioned in the next chapter.
So, in line with the purpose of MIDE’s strategy, our research
project combined successfully the expertise of various
research disciplines to generating new thinking in this field of
technology. We developed new netnography methodologies,
collaborated with different educators to generate new thinking
in the business education, strengthened our connections to
international research partners in this emerging research area,
and started a whole new research stream for our research
group and Aalto University.
2 Output
The project consisted altogether of 105 man-months during a
time period 1.1.2008–30.6.2011. The list of articles that
credited MIDE program and VinCo project and/or were finalized
with MIDE funding are as follows:
1. Bosch-Sijtsema, P. & Sivunen, A. (2013). Virtual worlds supporting distributed work: Use cases of professional
virtual worlds. IEEE Transactions on Professional
Communication, 56(2), 160–175.
2. Nordbäck, E. & Sivunen, A. (2013). Leadership
behaviors in virtual team meetings taking place in a 3D virtual world. Proceedings of the 46th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, January 7-10, 2013, Wailea, Maui, HI USA. http://www.computer.org/csdl/
proceedings/hicss/2013/4892/00/4892a863.pdf
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3. Sivunen, A., & Hakonen, M. (2011). Review of Virtual
Environment Studies on Social and Group Phenomena: Trends and Agenda for Further Research. Small Group Research, 42(4), 405-457.
4. Surakka, T., Hakonen, M. & Ahma-aho, S. (in review). Life of tribes. Book chapter submitted to Teigland, R. & Power, D. (eds.) Postcards from the Metaverse – Reflections on how the entangling of the virtual with the physical may impact society, politics, and the economy.
5. Surakka, T., & Ahma-aho, S. (2012). Using Second Life to Teach and Research Virtual Economy. In Hinrichs R. & Wankel C. (eds). Engaging the Avatar - New Frontiers in Immersive Education. Charlotte, North Carolina, USA:
Information Age Publishing, Inc.
6. Surakka, T. (2010). Using Virtual Worlds to Study
Knowledge Intensive Value Creation. International
Conference on Organizational Learning, Knowledge and
Capabilities, 3.-6.6.2010, Boston, USA.
7. Ahma-aho, S. (2009). Virtual Environments in Knowledge Management – a Tool for Measuring Productivity?
IV Congress for CyberSociety 2009, 12.–29.11.2009, online conference.
8. Sivunen, A. (2009). Digital Encounters: Constructing Group Identity through Meetings in a Virtual World.
1st Autumn Conference of Interpersonal Communication and Social Interaction Section of ECREA, October 21–23, 2009, Tampere, Finland.
9. Surakka, T. (2009c). Using Social Network Analysis to Study Value Configurations in Virtual Worlds. IV Congress for CyberSociety 2009, 12.–29.11.2009, online conference.
10. Surakka, T. (2009b). Using Social Networks in Virtual Worlds to Study Knowledge Intensive Value Creation. Poster presented at ZEW-KMRC-Workshop 6.-7.11.2009. Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) &
Knowledge Media Research Center (KMRC), Mannheim, Germany.
11. Surakka, T. (2009a). Knowledge Intensive Value Creation in Virtual Worlds. 16th International Conference on
Concurrent Enterprising, 22.-24.6.2009, Leiden,
The Netherlands.
The list of Master’s theses and Doctoral theses that were finalized during the project:
• Hakonen, M. (2010). Identification with virtual teams.
Doctoral dissertation. Helsinki University of Technology, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Doctoral dissertation series 2010/5. Espoo, Finland:
Helsinki University of Technology.
• Nordbäck, E. (2011) Decision-making in virtual teams: Role 318
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of interaction and technology. Aalto University School of Science, Degree Programme in Industrial Engineering and Management.
• Palomäki, E. (2009) Applying 3-D virtual worlds to higher education. Helsinki University of Technology, Faculty of Information and Natural Sciences, Degree Programme in Industrial Engineering and Management.
As already mentioned, this project resulted in several side projects and follow-up projects from different subthemes:
• VIIWE - Virtual Worlds as Innovative Working
Environments. TYKES (currently integrated to TEKES) funded project that was conducted in parallel with the VinCo project and concentrated on the innovation subtheme.
• ProViWo - Professional Collaboration and Productivity
in Virtual Worlds. TEKES funded project that started in parallel with VinCo project and continued the productivity subtheme in work context.
• ColPro - Collaboration Environments in Global Distributed Product Processes. TEKES funded a follow-up project that continues the collaboration subtheme with close
connections to Stanford and Dr. Renate Fruchter, who was a visiting professor in VinCo project.
• MoBiMe – Mobile method for researching distributed and mobile work. Funded by The Finnish Work Environment Fund. This follow-up project is not continuing the themes of VinCo, but is a concrete result from the discussions between different MIDE projects during MIDE program. We also got funding from MIDE program to start this research program.
In addition, we are currently developing follow-up projects with
our international research partners to Academy of Finland on
two topics: Virtual worlds and creativity and Next Generation
Learning. The latter project preparation is funded as a proof-ofconcept project with MIDE funding and the application is targeted to Academy’s TULOS-program.
Combining these outputs, the scientific relevance of VinCo
project can be found in both of our research themes: In collaboration research stream our literature review (Sivunen &
Hakonen, 2011) changed how we viewed virtual environments
and previous research done in these environments. We are
confident that this work has implications to future research
done in these environments in general. In business network
research stream we broke new ground in the way teaching and
research can be combined. In addition, virtual consumption is
an emerging research area and our research group is in the
forefront of this research.
The industry relevance can be found in the comprehen-
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sive analysis on the benefits these environments offer in work
context (Bosch-Sijtsema & Sivunen, 2013) and in the many
projects that built on this foundation. Especially the internationally popular Virtual environment benchmark report (http://
www.vmwork.net/wp-content/uploads//2012/11/Benchmark_
Report_5.pdf) we created in ProViWo project would have been
quite hard to put together without the analysis done in VinCo
project.
Societal relevance can be seen especially through teaching
activities in VinCo project, but also in almost every Second Life
related activity in Aalto University during the duration of this
project. VinCo researchers participated in LabLife3D activities
(https://sites.google.com/site/lablife3d/) and in the making of
the Aalto University Inauguration opening ceremony speech in
Second Life by University President Tuula Teeri (http://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=xn4VI0SoJ7M). As the role of Second
Life has become smaller in the teaching of our university, in
company adaptations, and in our research groups activities,
we see VinCo project as a starting point for a wider societal
impact in the use of different virtual environments. This can be
clearly seen from the invited speeches that the researchers of
this group have given in different forums about the use of virtual environments.
3 Departments, staff, cooperation
Ten people were involved in the project in different roles. All
researchers worked at BIT Research Centre for the duration of
this project. Initially this project combined the expertise of two
quite different research groups at BIT Research Centre, Virtual and Mobile Work Research Unit (vmWork) and Design Collaboration in Product Development (Decode) Research Group.
During this project, all research was moved into the vmWork
Research Unit, resulting in very multidisciplinary research
group with good connections to all schools in Aalto University.
Since BIT Research Centre and vmWork Research Unit are multidisciplinary in the very nature, collaboration between different
departments and schools was not necessary in this particular
project. However, in the follow-up projects we have collaborated
with other departments as the technology is getting more and
more sophisticated in this field. These connections to relevant
departments are made mainly during the MIDE program. Also
MIDE visiting professor Renate Fruchter was pivotal figure in
the combination of different interests and ideas from different
departments and MIDE projects.
Internationally we collaborated from the start of the project
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with Stanford University, USA. First we had close collaboration with the Center for Design Research (CDR) and research
manager Philipp Skogstad. We had researchers on both continents studying technology-mediated collaboration in the Stanford course ME310 (http://www.stanford.edu/group/me310/
me310_2011/). This was a pre-study for VinCo project’s collaboration research on a similar multidisciplinary and geographically distributed student team using virtual environment
as their collaboration platform. After ME310 course, we collaborated with the Department of Communication at Stanford. With
Associate Professor Jeremy Bailenson and his researchers
we collaborated especially in the development of netographic
methodologies and Prefessor Byron Reeves acted as a host
when Anu Sivunen from VinCo project was a visiting scholar
in Stanford. Dr. Sivunen is also currently writing an article with
Prof. Bailenson on users’ self-representation via and identification with their avatars.
In addition to collaboration during the project, we managed
to establish connections to many of the research organizations studying virtual environments. During their stay in Stanford, Sivunen and Bosch-Sijtsema also established connections to research organizations and industry analysts working
on this field, such as Dr. Eilif Trondsen from Strategic Business Insights (SBI). VinCo project researchers also visited
prominent European research groups, such as Serious Games
Institute (SGI) in UK and The Knowledge, Information, and
Networks (KIN) research group in VU University Amsterdam.
Research seminar organized in the end of VinCo project at
Nokia House established connections to Nordic Virtual Worlds
Network (NVWN). These new connections have been central in
the development of follow-up projects to this topic.
VinCo project had an active steering group with industry
representatives from Nokia Oyj, Kone Oyj, UPM-Kymmene Oyj,
and the Federation of Finnish Technology Industries. During
the project we had close connections with Nokia Oyj – Nokia
Oyj being the industry customer in the student project we were
studying in the collaboration research. Nokia Oyj and Kone Oyj
also decided to participate (among other industry partners)
in the TEKES funded side- and follow-up projects mentioned
before. In this way VinCo project established the ground work
for the industry collaboration in the other projects, while VinCo
itself remained ambitious in academic sense.
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4 Experiences from
the project work
Project work in VinCo turned out to be very fruitful with the project members as well as with other MIDE projects, steering
group and international collaborators. As project manager, Dr.
Sivunen worked 12 months as a visiting scholar in the USA
during the project, the team members had to develop distributed working practices and use the studied collaboration technology, Second Life, also in their collaboration. This gave the
project members good insights on the benefits and challenges
of the technology. Also the steering group meetings were held
a few times in virtual environment, which gave a great opportunity for the industrial partners of the project to familiarize themselves with the technology.
As described in previous sections, the project work resulted
also in continuing collaboration with several international partners from Stanford University, VU University Amsterdam and
Stockholm School of Economics, which will be leveraged in
future projects of the vmWork unit. An active international collaboration was one of the key elements that made the project
successful in terms of high-quality academic publications. Also
the fact that we were able to adapt our research plan accordingly when we noted that the Virtual Business Exercise was to
be too slow research method for the purposes of this research
project, made our project stronger. We published the methodological principles for collecting data as a paper in an international conference (Surakka, 2010) and decided to collect more
data in future projects.
References
1. Alahuhta, P., Nordbäck, E., Sivunen, A. & Surakka, T.
(in review). Fostering team creativity in virtual worlds. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research.
2. Yee, N. & Bailenson, J.N. (2007). The Proteus Effect:
Self-transformations in virtual reality. Human
Communication Research, 33, 271-290.
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323
MIDE Evaluation
Multidisciplinary and long-term nature
of MIDE research programme emphasised
in programme evaluation
According to the evaluation of the MIDE
The multidisciplinary and diversified nature
programme, the added value of the
of the programme was seen as a success.
operating model boils down to the multi-
Cooperation has intensified particularly
disciplinary nature of the programme
within Aalto University, but also between
and the opportunity to carry out bold,
researchers and external stakeholder groups
free and long-term research in selected
to some extent.
research areas during a time when
Some projects and their research groups
the short-term benefit expectations of
also participated in significant international
applied research are gaining ground.
activities. The international cooperation of
the OtaSizzle, VinCo and Exergy projects, for
instance, extended from the United States to
Germany and from China to Kenya.
The MIDE postgraduate course Bit Bang
and its operating model received very positive evaluations from participants. Many
students said that it had been the best course
they had taken during their studies. Bit Bang
has also promoted internationalisation at
home as there have been more international
students on the course than on average Aalto
University courses.
The evaluation of the MIDE programme
was performed by Ramboll Management
Consulting in June–September 2013. The
most important sources of information were
the programme’s follow-up documents and
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Evaluation MIDE
follow-up data, 26 interviews and a survey
functioning: it enabled easy and open com-
filled in by 108 people. The interviews and
munication with industry sponsors.
survey were used to determine participants’
According to the evaluation, the pro-
opinions on the usefulness of the programme,
gramme-level follow-up group could have
the added value it offered, the success of the
been used even more efficiently. Communica-
programme and the various forms of networ-
tion decreased to some extent during the pro-
king that took place during the programme.
gramme and stakeholder groups did not feel
that they had received enough information
Open and encouraging operating culture
about the programme and its achievements.
The evaluators associated many qualitative
This was partly due to the fact that the most
attributes characteristic of success with the
intensive cooperation was performed within
MIDE programme. The operating culture and
projects and that there was relatively little
atmosphere of the programme and its pro-
external communication.
jects were found open and encouraging.
The ability to cumulate new research acti-
Other components of the MIDE programme mentioned in the evaluation
vities and further projects was also an impor-
included the light administrative bureauc-
tant indicator of success. The 11 projects
racy which made it possible to concentrate
carried out during the MIDE programme
resources on actual research. The flip side of
resulted in 56 further or parallel projects,
the light bureaucracy was that the follow-up
which can be viewed as a rather good result
data was not very extensive or systematic,
for programme-form research.
but mainly consisted of traditional academic
The societal impact of the MIDE programme was examined by assessing the
indicators (degrees, dissertations, academic
publications).
added value gained by contributors, among
other approaches. The results of the programme and their use were discussed in a
programme-level follow-up group and pro-
The evaluation report has been published in Aalto
University CROSSOVER series, and is available in
https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi
ject-specific follow-up groups. According to
the evaluation, participants found this well-
325
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91011
Aalto-yliopiston MIDE-tutkimusohjelma
keskittyi pitkäjänteiseen perustutkimukseen
digitalisoitumisen ja energiakysymysten aloilla.
Ohjelman tavoitteena oli huipputason osaamisen
luominen, opetuksen vahvistaminen ja suomalaisen
elinkeinoelämän kilpailukyvyn lisääminen.
MIDE-ohjelmassa (Multidisciplinary Institute
of Digitalisation and Energy) oli kaikkiaan 11 eri
tutkimus­projektia ja kolme opiskelijaprojektia.
Tutkimusprojektit olivat monitieteisiä ja yhteen
projektiin osallistui tyypillisesti useita eri laitoksia.
The Aalto University MIDE (Multidisciplinary
Institute of Digitalisation and Energy) research
programme focused on long-term basic research
in the fields of digitalisation and energy technology.
The goal of the programme was to create top-level
expertise, strengthen education and increase
the competitiveness of Finnish trade and industry.
The MIDE programme included 11 separate
research projects and three student projects.
The research projects were multidisciplinary and
one project typically involved several departments.
ISBN 978-952-60-3643-4