Project consortium

The AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Austria's largest non-university research institute, takes a leading position in the Austrian innovation system in the areas of Energy, Mobility, Health & Environment as well as Safety & Security in Austria and a key role in Europe as the RTO focusing on the key infrastructure topics of the future. The Energy Department favours a holistic approach to the environmentally friendly electricity supply, heating and climate control of the buildings and cities of tomorrow. Using sophisticated measurement technology and innovative simulation tools, interdisciplinary research teams combine decentralised energy producers, efficient distribution networks and smart buildings with efficient heating and cooling technologies to form a single, sustainable energy system. The specialists' considerable expertise ranges from the development and optimisation of individual components and the integration of innovative technologies and control strategies at system level to the creation of holistic energy concepts for buildings and regions. The department's main priority is to encourage innovation in the energy sector through targeted research and development, thereby helping to shape the energy system of tomorrow.

Siemens AG Österreich (SAGÖ) takes a leading position as research and development center in the Austrian scope as well as within the world wide Siemens group. Siemens is divided into four Sectors: Industry, Healthcare, Energy and Infrastructure and Cities. The topics handled in BProfEM are covered by the horizontal Corporate Technology (CT) of Siemens. The experts from CT are working closely together with Siemens Sector Infrastructure and Cities (esp. Divisions Building Technologies and Smart Grids) in various research projects. CT is the most research intensive department in Siemens.

The Automation Systems Group (ASG) at Institute of Computer Aided Automation focuses on research in various topics related to distributed automation systems and computer engineering. Particular focus is put on home and building automation. In addition, knowledge engineering, formal methods for control systems, and automation network security/safety are investigated. The group is led by Prof. Wolfgang Kastner who, over the past 10 years, has established the Home and Building Automation Research Cluster which is internationally recognized in the scientific community as well as by renowned industrial partners. Current research topics at the group range from the comprehensive integration of heterogeneous building automation systems to smart home environments and smart grids. The work revolves around topics concerning the analysis and use of open standards such as BACnet, KNX, LonWorks and IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee, Wireless-MBus. Apart from a multitude of publications at international scientific conferences, several projects within the scope of distributed automation were and are successfully conducted at the group.