Politecnico di Torino

www.polito.it

Brief Description

The Politecnico di Torino (www.polito.it ), founded in 1906 from the roots of the Technical School for Engineers created in 1859, has a long-standing tradition of leadership of polytechnic culture. It is one of the most important universities in Europe for engineering and architecture studies, strongly committed to collaboration with industry. The Politecnico offers excellence in technology and promotes the ability to carry out theoretical or applied research and also the capacity to achieve concrete and reliable productive processes or organise services and facilities. The range of studies is broad and ever-widening it spans space, environment and land, telecommunications, information, energy, mechanics, electronics, chemistry, automation, industrial design, architecture and building, … very different subjects requiring different study methods as well as inventiveness.
The vast Corso Duca degli Abruzzi campus (area: 122,000 square metres), dedicated mainly to engineering, was opened in November 1958. The project for the expansion of the Politecnico, to create a new Campus, in a central position in the city, is part of the global process of major urban change favoured by relocation of large industrial areas. The “Cittadella Politecnica” is being developed on a 170,000 sq.m. area behind the present premises. The project is intended to make the Politecnico a place not only for academic learning and research, but also an attractor of major investments by multinationals, a place for technology transfer, community services, social and student meeting points and urban regeneration. In fact, Politecnico is a research university always relied on close ties with both government and industry: each year it draw up about 800 contracts with industries, government funded institutions, local organizations. The Politecnico is interested in developing permanent partnerships in research and education with industries that want to take advantage of university collaboration for innovation, and development. The Politecnico Business Research Centre, within the Campus, is the place dedicated to cooperation between the Politecnico and industries.
The Politecnico has close relationships with international institutions, companies, local government and other types of association and takes social and economic consideration into account. With more than 150 bilateral international agreements and 40 double degree agreements, Politecnico has links with the most prestigious Universities in Europe. Moreover, Politecnico is part of some of the major European interuniversity networks, such as CESAER, CLUSTER, E.C.I.U, EUA, CMU. These contacts will allow to spread and disseminate information and project results to a wider number of institutions. The participation to many international projects allows Politecnico to count on a great experience: in the FP7 Politecnico has more than 230 approved projects with a total EU contribution of 66 million Euro, ranking among the top 200 entities participating in Framework Programme. In H2020 Politecnico has already 99 approved projects with a total EU contribution of 36.3 million Euro. It has a strong experience in project coordination too: the Research Division has been involved in the management of EU RTD projects since 1995. Three Departments will be involved in the project: the Department of Energy (DENERG) the Department of Environment, Land and Infrastructure Engineering (DIATI) and the Department of Automation (DAUIN).
The Department of Energy– DENERG is the leading structure in the fields of power and energy and sustainable development. The main goal is to improve the existing technologies in the energy sector, to promote the innovation and to contribute to the rational and aware use of different energy resources. The Energy Department – DENERG has a leading role in the field of production, transport, distribution, conversion and use of energy, with the aim of improving the existing technology and promoting the innovative technology in the field. The Energy Department – DENERG promotes, organizes and manages the basic and applied research, the technology transfer and business services in the field of energy resources and related conversion technologies, distribution and final use in the industrial, civil, transport and service sectors environments. The Energy Department – DENERG is member of the DHC+ platform and Energy Efficiency Buildings Associations.

The DIATI is in the areas of knowledge that study the technologies which deal with safeguarding, protecting and managing the environment and land, the sustainable use of resources, as well as the optimal and eco-compatible development of infrastructures and transport systems. DIATI promotes, coordinates and manages basic and applied research, training, technology transfer and services to the local community in the field of engineering applications within land sciences, natural sciences and economic and management sciences. Within this context, relevant research activities of the Department are related to transport system modelling and analysis including technological innovation and telematics for transport (i.e. ITS, Intelligent Transport Systems)..
DAUIN aims to promote, coordinate and manage basic and applied research, training, technology transfer and services in the areas of systems and control engineering, computer science, computer engineering and operation research. It is the point of reference for the area of ICT, studying the methodologies and technologies used for the management, processing and transmission of information. POLITO will contribute to the development of the simulation tools and to the definition of business models

Main tasks and responsibilities within the project

DENERG activities will be mainly related to the design and the realization of the Turin Hub use case loking at the electric energy management inside and outside the hub itself. The design of the small DC/DC power converter will be the main technical task on the Power electronic viewpoint while the tramway distribution DC-grid management is the major task on the grid aspects viewpoint. Thus, POLITO will be the coordinator of the Turin hub demonstration, leading Task 8.2.
DIATI activities will be mainly related to transport system analysis and users characterization, including mobility patterns and parking habits, based on surveys and floating car data available for the case study in Turin. also a contribution will be provided in modelling mobility and road network to describe user choices for the related DSS module. Therefore, POLITO will be involve mainly in WP8 and 9, leading task 9.6