The month of February was marked by the visit of several committees of companies operating in sectors associated with Engineering, which came to visit and learn about some of the Research Centres of the School of Engineering, its laboratories and resources.
The most recent visit was from the Portuguese group Três60, linked to the sectors of Engineering, Telecommunications and Gas, which was presented the activity of the ALGORITMI Center of the School of Engineering of UMinho and projects developed in the area of artificial intelligence, by Professor Paulo Novais, followed by visits to the laboratories of the Power and Energy Electronics Group and Secure IoT, stimulated, respectively, by Professors Vítor Monteiro, Gabriel Pinto and Henrique Santos. New initiatives are also planned in other areas of interest of the Três60 Group, namely in Telecommunications.
A delegation from Preh, an electronic components multinational for the automotive sector, was also in the Azurém campus, last February 23rd. The program included visits to the Power and Energy Electronics and Embedded Systems labs of the ALGORITMI Center, to the Micro Fabrication and Systems Integration Lab of the Electromechanical Microsystems Research Center, to the Fluids Lab of the METRICS Research Center, to the Materials Characterization Services Lab of the School of Sciences, and to the Processing Lab of the Institute for Polymers and Composites, where power electronics prototypes for power quality applications, renewable energies and electric mobility, new sensors for the automotive sector, embedded systems projects, multifunctional components and surfaces, innovative polymeric materials, as well as simulations of flow and thermal processes in various environments and tests of thermal, mechanical and metallurgical characterization of materials were presented. Presentations were also made about the Micronanofabrication Laboratory, the Center for Mechanical Engineering and Resource Sustainability, the Physics Center, and about projects developed in the areas of quality and smart manufacturing.
Also in February, on the 10th, there were delegates from the companies Proef and DSTelecom (the latter already has a €2M project underway with ALGORITMI) who had the opportunity to attend presentations by professors and researchers at the School of Engineering, Alexandre Santos, Henrique Santos, Adriano Moreira, José António Oliveira, Elisabete Sá and Paulo Afonso, regarding ongoing projects related to the development of sustainable telecommunications networks, neutral hosting, telecommunications network monitoring systems, energy and mobility, sustainable business models in the area of 5G, design and optimization of FTTx networks, smart cities and Internet of Things. The program also included a visit to the Secure IoT Lab and the Centre for Innovation in Polymer Engineering (PIEP).
All these visits were aimed at evaluating possible partnerships in the scope of strategic projects with high interest for the development of the region and the country.
