Projects

The project builds on the results and novel technology developed in BioStyrene project (ER30) and focuses on extending these results

This project is a side project of the superior research project that has been supported by the Estonian Research Council under grant PSG453, "Digital twin for propulsion drive of an autonomous electric vehicle". It is conducted by the TalTech Mechatronics and Autonomous Systems Research Group. So far, the vehicle's drive but not the wheels' properties have been considered for the development of the digital twin. The task of this sub-project is the development of a test bench for wheels with the associated simulation. The influence of the different properties of wheels on the entire vehicle should be simulated as realistically as possible. Additionally, this project includes knowledge exchange and laboratory visits both in Germany and Estonia. The aim is to popularize knowledge among young people, introducing digital twins to aspiring engineers.

In 2016 serious concerns on the achievement of the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2020 targets, due to the continuing loss of biodiversity and degradation of aquatic habitats, led to the urgent adoption of a new Resolution for implementing ecosystem restoration measures. Moreover, on December 2018 the EU raised to 32% the binding renewable energy target for 2030, bringing further input to hydropower development. Meeting these targets sets challenging issues for mitigating the impacts of man-made structures in rivers that fragment habitats and prevent movement and migration of aquatic organisms. The proposed ETN will train 15 ESRs in the interdisciplinary field of Ecohydraulics to find innovative solutions for freshwater fish protection and river continuity restoration in anthropogenically altered rivers. The 15 ESRs will carry out an innovative and integrated research programme within a multidisciplinary and intersectoral Network, including 8 leading European Universities, consultancy companies, public agencies and hydropower industry, encompassing experts in fish biology, river ecology, environmental fluid mechanics and hydraulic engineering. The 15 ESRs will have access to a number of laboratory and field facilities, modelling techniques, experimental practices and instrumental technologies, to expand current understanding of key fundamental fish bio-mechanical, behavioural and physiological processes, and to promote development of novel tools and management solutions in the area of freshwater fish protection. ESRs will be enrolled in specific PhD training programmes according to the rules of 6 host countries and will undertake a Network-wide training programme inclusive of research activities in at least 2 EU countries, short courses at 5 Network Schools, and a series of dissemination and public outreach actions, with the fundamental goal of forming a group of young scientists and practitioners who will play a key role in the water sector at the European scale.

The aim of the centre is to translate the rapid progress in the field of genomics and other “-omics” technologies into improved understanding of molecular and evolutionary mechanisms of disease as well as improved prevention, diagnosis and clinical care. The Centre integrates 12 research units from University of Tartu, Estonian Biocentre and Tallinn University of Technology.

We want to pilot the possible approaches of using telepresence robots in teaching. We are investigating whether the use of telepresence robots to bring teachers and students into a common physical learning space in cases where their participation would be prevented due to disability, health condition, location, etc., offers them a greater experience of presence, closer to contact learning, compared to the solutions used so far. Among other things, this is a prerequisite for high-quality implementation of problem and project based learning in a contact learning situation, encouraging the integration of active learning methods (group work, discussions, etc.) into various activities and offering more versatile opportunities for participation in learning. Social isolation and the resulting mental problems have been pointed out in various research articles covering higher education studies during the COVID-19 era. Presence mediated by a telepresence robot gives the robot user more versatile freedom to act in physical space, for example, moving around independently, establishing contact and eye contact with fellow students (including changing one's relative height - sitting vs. standing companion), controlling objects in the physical environment using voice commands, additional manipulators, movement, etc.

DIH-World aims to accelerate the uptake of advanced digital technologies by European manufacturing SMEs in all sectors and support them in building sustainable competitve advantages and reaching global markets strengthening the capacities of regional DIHs, particularly in underepresented regions across Europe. As intermediaries of successful local SME digital transformation, DIH World, aims at providing DIHs, acces to harmonised tools, well proven technologies, effective methodologies, sound knwoledge, smart investment sources, rich training assets and overall a vibrant innovation environment. The final aim is to accelerate the matureness of DIHs and the development of their collaboration capabilities, and avoid a DIH divide due to lack of access to technologies, skills, networks, investment and infrastructures with special enfasis in underrepresented regions; so they can capitalise and leverage on the European DIHs Networks their resources and facilities for the benefit of their local SMEs. This will be achieved thanks to the: DIH-World platform, that will provide a full coverage of the services needed by the DIHs and the SMEs willing to identify the right DIH for them, the DIH-Academy that will provide the tools to train DIHs and bring them to the next level, Open calls for experiments, that will provide sufficient technological support to SMEs and midcaps. As well as with a broad geographical coverage, with more than 26 countries to be covered in Europe including specific activities to involve regional and national actors in the DIH network.

Goal of the CoE in ICT, EXCITE, is to bring together the Estonian research competences in the areas of modern robotics, Internet of things, and cyberphysical systems; securiy and dependability; software engineering and foundations of computing; and biomedical application areas. The alignment of research areas strengthens the mutual collaboration and cross the field joint activities, allows to create the capacity and critical mass of next generation ICT researchers. Linking the hardware (robotics, systems design, internet of things, biomedical devices), software and services, developing the security and dependability, working with massive data, and applying these competences to biomedical applications among others, will create a significant impact on society and economy.

"EXCITE brings together the topranked ICT research groups Estonia to work jointly on a focussed, yet broad and extendable, research programme. It will capitalize on the existing expertise to create synergies on the rich but fragmented landscape of the Estonian ICT research. The consortium will advance foundational theories of model verification and data analysis. On this groundwork, it will develop methods and tools for sound practices of designing and analyzing reliable and secure ICT systems processing large data volumes, as demanded by applications to domains of high socioeconomic relevance (cyberphysical and robotic systems, ehealth and biomedical systems). We will start with 10 cooperation themes with clearly defined objectives, methodology and expected results. These themes will be refined and redefined after 3 years. EXCITE will support research sustainability and provide a development opportunity for young researchers by financing 20-30 PhD students and postdocs.

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.

The aim of the project is to develop new types of energy materials: (1) MNC type electrode catalysts for carbon dioxide reduction; (2) new calcium-based electrolytes for calcium and related batteries; (3) testing of these materials in equipment devices; (4) Optimized devices (specifically, multi-layer filters) for large-scale reversible applications in metal recuperation, incl. selective adsorbents, electrochemical methods and absorbers for the separation of rare-earth metals and for the treatment of the residual water.

The aim of this study is to determine the physico-chemical parameters and the content of selected bioactive substances of bee bread samples collected from different counties of Estonia.

The project “An innovative platform for Estonia-Norway research-based teaching in bioinformatics and gene editing” will develop tools for teaching two cutting-edge technologies needed in almost all fields of Life Sciences. The project will be coordinated by TalTech and will have as partner NMBU. Group leaders are plant scientist experts in one of these technologies with teaching experience at universities. During the project, material for lectures and practical work in the laboratories will be developed. These tools will be tested in two 10 days long intensive courses for MSc and PhD students. During the courses, students will benefit from interaction with another culture in a different educational atmosphere. The tools developed will be presented at the end of the project in a seminar in TalTech with PhD students presenting their work. A special emphasis will be given to gene editing technologies, including science policy, since this topic is of interest to different stakeholders.