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Maintaining aircraft fleets smarter and more efficiently using AI? With a major study of several European universities and industries (ReMAP) with TU Delft as project leader, a step has been taken in the modernization of aircraft maintenance using Artificial Intelligence.

Our society is digitising itself more and more. That offers opportunities, such as more efficient working, but it also raises many ethical questions – the sort of questions now being addressed by TU Delft’s new Digital Ethics Centre. Together with government agencies and companies, the centre’s researchers are looking at the ethical side of AI and digitalisation, such as fairness, safety and transparency, and seeking to develop the best solutions and applications.

The universities of Delft, Leiden and Rotterdam are working together to show their students what artificial intelligence (AI) means for their own field. Three AI minors will start in the 2022 – 2023 academic year, and will answer questions such as, "How do you best use AI for your research discipline?", and "What are the legal and ethical consequences of AI?”.

The ministry of Education, Culture and Science has awarded a Zwaartekracht funding of 20.8 million euro to the IMAGINE! consortium, of which TU Delft researchers Elizabeth Carroll, Sjoerd Stallinga (both ImPhys) and Carlas Smith (3ME) are a part of.

The new ICAI Lab 'AI for Energy Grids' was launched on 20 April, in order to research the application of AI to distribution networks. It will combine Alliander's considerable industrial capabilities with the academic strength of TU Delft, Twente University, Radboud University and the HAN University of Applied Sciences. The lab represents an excellent fit with TU Delft's ambitions to accelerate the energy transition.

If it is up to the European Commission, all the energy used will come from renewable sources by 2050. Achieving this goal will require the large-scale use of floating wind turbines, says Axelle Viré, wind expert at TU Delft. ‘Although the technology is still in its infancy, it has enormous potential,’ she explains. ‘To capitalise on this potential, TU Delft is launching the Floating Renewables Lab: a lab facility that will tie together all the elements of the development chain for floating wind turbines and other offshore renewables with the help of numerical models and AI.’

Javier Alonso-Mora at the Department of Cognitive Robotics (CoR) has been awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant, while Daniel Tam at the Department of Process and Energy (P&E) has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant.

Together with Renault, Delft robot engineers developed the Proactive Eco Mode, a new system that enables drivers to reach the desired speed faster, based on predictions of the future, while maintaining the eco fuel benefits. They have successfully demonstrated the system on French roads.

TU Delft will work in two of the five ELSA Labs that have been awarded in the NWA call 'Human AI for an inclusive society - towards an ecosystem of trust'. In these two ELSA Labs ('Ethical, Legal and Societal Aspects') researchers, the government and businesses are working on knowledge about the development and application of reliable, human-centred AI in the fields of Defence and Public Safety respectively.

Meteorites are samples from space that can be found as stone-like material on the surface of the Earth. Once recovered, meteorites provide crucial information on the formation and evolution of our Solar System. Which in turn is important for research into the origins of our planet, and of life on Earth. The scientists’ new calculations suggest that more than 300,000 meteorites are still present, with enormous scientific potential, but until now they have been difficult to find.