Projects

This project studies new dependently typed systems suitable for the development and mechanization of programming language semantics. Particular emphasis is given to languages supporting concurrency and non-determinism, such as transition systems and process calculi. Popular proof assistants based on dependent type theory, such as Agda and Coq, are inadequate for the formal verification of the denotational semantics of such languages because of their insufficiently expressive type systems. We address this issue by extending modern type-theoretic frameworks, such as homotopy type theory, with a new class of coinductive types coming from final coalgebras of accessible functors. In denotational semantics, these types are necessary for handling the non-deterministic and continuously-interactive behavior of processes. The resulting more expressive type systems will prove themselves capable of encoding the formal semantics of various languages with concurrency and non-determinism.

The WaveTwin project aims to further develop a digital twin for estimating the wave state in the Baltic Sea from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data. Previous methods for SAR data are not successful enough for enclosed water bodies where steep wind waves are dominating. It is apparent that the Baltic Sea also cannot be covered fully with wave buoys to measure the energy spectrum, i.e. the distribution of wave energy by frequency. The use of SAR data allows us to effectively evaluate the wave spectrum over the entire Baltic Sea, skipping the high costs of installing and operating wave buoys. To achieve this goal, the team will use their expertise in the application of deep learning techniques to estimate wave spectra based on SAR images. Environmental protection and navigation at sea (e.g. for the construction and maintenance of wind farms) are two of the most important application areas. A growing interest in such problems is also evident in the field of situational awareness systems.

Implementation of the IT Academy programme ICT research support project according to three strategic objectives: 1. Increasing the innovation capacity of the Estonian economy and society at large through the smarter use of ICT; 2. Increasing the ICT R&D capacity of universities in priority research areas; 3. Linking R&D with teaching activities at all levels of higher education.

The central research focus of the technology and economics of trust in software theme will be certified software. Topics of research include: • methods and tools for certification of software; program analysis, transformation, generation; in particular for big data, cloud and IoT; • static analysis (model checkers, theorem provers), verification, systematic testing; • contract languages, languages with powerful type systems (refinement types, dependent types); domain-specific languages; • program synthesis and program learning, program understanding; • repositories of certified software, evolution of certified software; • trust in closed-source software, gradual trust-building; • trading trust, pricing of trust, game theory of trust.