Research activities – Engineering Faculty
The research activities conducted by the professors and researchers of the Engineering Faculty focused on the different scientific sectors of the Civil, Computer Science and Management areas.
As regards the access to public funds, it is to note the success of the Civil-Architecture area, in the PRIN 2012 Call, which presently sees the involvement of the research unit of the International Telematic University UNINETTUNO in the activities of thematic relevance in the Jewish Ghetto of Rome.
A particularly remarkable point is the funding that UNINETTUNO’s Engineering Faculty received for the LIMADOU-CSES Project of the ASI - Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (Italian Space Agency). It is one of the very few “ASI rewards scheme projects” funded by MIUR (Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research). UNINETTUNO, jointly with the INFN, the University of Trento and the INAF-IASP, is responsible for the design, construction and testing of the HEPD and EFD experiments that will be set up on board of the Chinese-Italian satellite CSES (China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite) that will be launched within 2016, aimed at studying seismic precursors. In this framework, UNINETTUNO’s professors and researchers are responsible for various important hardware and software components for data acquisition on board of the LIMADOU-CSES satellite. In addition, in cooperation with their Chinese colleagues, they are developing data analytics programs through regular conference-calls or by participating in specific meetings in China and in Italy.
UNINETTUNO takes part in the development of the JEM-EUSO space telescope to be installed on board of the International Space Station. To this end several pathfinder experiments for the final telescope were carried on. In 2014, from the station of Timmins (Canada), the international stratospheric EUSO-Balloon having on board ultraviolet and infrared rays trackers for the study of high-energy cosmic rays interacting with the Earth’s atmosphere was successfully launched. UNINETTUNO’s researchers took part in the coordination of the whole project and in the development and realization of the EUSO-Balloon experiments. In particular, they developed most of the software package for acquiring and managing flight data.
In 2016 this cooperation, which sees UNINETTUNO’s participation, will launch a second balloon from France and a third long-lasting one – 50 days – from New Zealand in cooperation with the NASA. Additionally, UNINETTUNO’s staff is developing some software packages and is carrying on calibrating tests for the EUSO-TA experiment in the Utah (U.S.) desert at the Cosmic Ray Center of Delta and the Mini-EUSO experiment aimed at setting it up on board of the International Space Station in 2017.
As regards the scientific publication activities, the level can be considered very satisfactory, on the whole (as proved by the publications list annexed to the present report). The latest strengthening of the Faculty thanks to the agreement entered with CNR (Italian National Council of Research) and the scientific agreements with INFN and RIKEN (Japan) and with the awarding of Faculty tenures to the international-level major scientists, together with the possibility of jointly benefitting of the prestigious laboratories of CNR to conduct experimental research work, will assure a further development of the research activities in the forthcoming years.
A special work to access the main funds, such as those of the Horizon 2020 European program, of the European Research Foundation (ERC) and of the main national programs such as SIR, PRIN, FIRB and others started up. Also local initiatives, such as the Calls of the Latium Region, even if approached with and interdisciplinary method by the various University’s Faculties, may involve the Engineering Faculty’s competences.
Based on what said above, below the report on the research activities is structured on the separate presentation of the research results obtained in the main scientific-disciplinary sectors related to the Engineering Faculty. It is to be noted that, as in the best traditions of the Italian Engineering Faculties, these activities range from the sector of basic scientific research (physics, chemistry, mathematics) to typically engineering sectors (mechanics, electronics, computer science, structural mechanics) to come to more “tertiary” sectors such as those of project management, quality and management at industry level.