Hello Jonas Fredriksson, Theme leader of theme 1, system studies and methods and Professor of Mechatronics at Chalmers.
What does researchers within system studies and methods focus on during 2020? Is there a hot topic?
Energy management in different aspects is the main focus of the research in systems studies and methods. From development of methods for how to use the onboard stored energy in the best possible manner for vehicle propulsion, estimating electric range, to understanding which and much energy different vehicle components consume. Numerical optimization is one of the methods which has been shown to be successful in addressing the energy management problem, a lot of attention is focused on this kind of methods, like how to use them and how to make them suitable for the problem addressed etc.
How has theme 1 been tackling collaboration in times of a pandemic?
It has been difficult times, as the collaborations have been forced to be online. Events, workshops and meetings have been either online or postponed due to the current situation. Also, several partners have from time to time been on full or partial layoffs, which has affected the collaboration possibilities. The pandemic situation has not only affected our industrial partners, our academic partners has been forced to change and adapt their teaching to fit the online format, a time-consuming process. Unfortunately, this has resulted in fewer new collaborations then anticipated when starting up SEC’s phase IV.
Do you see possible collaborations within SEC that are not happening today? Who should collaborate more?
I believe that we should interact more between the thematic areas. As an example, theme 1 is developing methods and tools based on mathematical models and physical insight, and thematic area 2 and 3 have a lot of component knowledge which is useful for researchers in the systems area. As vehicle system researchers in theme 1 use the components, designed and developed by theme 2 and 3, as part of a system and can thereby feedback their insights on how the components are used to theme 2 and 3. Similar ideas can be used together with theme 4 and 5.