Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems - KK-stiftelsen

Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems
the clear need to set research strategies and aiming at being among the best
worldwide at least in some key areas, by providing increased resources to
such areas and increasing teamwork around them and across the research
groups.
2. Research environment
Overall, the research environment is quite friendly and provides a relaxed
atmosphere, lab space and equipment, which together motivate the research
work of faculty, post-docs and students.
2.1 Personnel and structure
The three groups composing AASS seem to be quite dependent of their
coordinators. The recent growth of post-docs was certainly a positive factor,
and helped reducing the supervision load per faculty. Nevertheless, the
threat that if one of the key faculty members leaves Örebro University, the
performance of his group may be temporarily seriously impaired for some
time. An increase in the number of faculty would be desirable, to create a
more stable situation concerning this aspect and to increase the groups’
critical mass.
The reduced number of students, especially undergraduates, is also
potentially problematic. Despite the efforts made to attract more students,
the risk of not having enough MSc students to do some development work
and of potential future reduction in the number of PhD students must not be
overviewed. The group should strive to attract more international students.
It should also consider whether the “Autonomous Systems” designation,
which is rather comprehensive (and may bring benefits because of that),
should be rather replaced by “Robotics”, depending on the attractiveness
each of the terms provokes on potential students. Efforts on strongly
campaigning to illustrate the pervasiveness of autonomous systems in
modern buildings and everyday life, and the potential for future
developments, e.g., in urban spaces, should be considered.
2.2 Management
The Research Director has described quite clearly the centre characteristics
and structure, the research produced and its organization across groups. The
group presentations were quite well organized and denoted an effort to
provide a coherent image. One arguably weaker aspect is an apparent focus
on funding-driven research “strategy”. AASS should make the best of its
efforts to set its strategy first and look for funding afterwards, not the
opposite.
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