Dr. Panos Patros, Lecturer in the Software Engineering Department of the University of Waikato is part of a team awarded $12.5M to Decarbonize the Industrial Sector of Aotearoa NZ via Self-Adaptive Software. The funding is over a seven-year period as part of the Strategic Science Investment Fund, and will invest in a team of researchers from the University of Waikato, the University of Auckland and Massey University.
The funding will be used to build a new technology platform called Ahuora, to help reengineer the way we use, convert, supply and store renewable energy for industrial process heating. The Ahuora platform will be underpinned by novel adaptive digital twin technology, providing a virtual model of a physical environment, with real-time data shared between the physical and virtual domains. The program is an important step towards zero net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050, a goal set under the Government’s Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Act 2019.
Panos’ special focus within the larger project will be to discover and evaluate how adaptive digital twins should be engineered, particularly to satisfy five key Self-* attributes: Self-Learning, Self-Optimizing, Self-Evolving, Self-Healing and Self-Protecting. Furthermore, leveraging these attributes, Panos’ research will focus on materializing two of the three research aims of the project: RA1) To minimize the specific energy demand on the industrial site and RA3) To provision local and grid-based renewable energy with smart “factory-edge” energy integration.
The new platform’s name, Ahuora, combines two Māori words: ‘ahu’ meaning ‘to fashion’ and ‘ora’ meaning ‘healthy’, to represent sustainable industry; and was gifted by Associate Professor Te Taka Keegan.
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