about incas3

Company profile

Is it safe to drink this water? Why do elderly fall and can I prevent that? Can I grow potatoes on this land? Is this nuclear power reactor running safely? It is the aim of INCAS³ to answer these type of questions by performing multidisciplinary frontier research.

Science meets industry

Within the international scientific community exists a tremendous amount of knowledge on sensor systems. This knowledge primarily originates from mono disciplinary research. The challenges within society and industry mostly require knowledge from a broad range of disciplines and thus cannot directly be solved by one academic group. It is INCAS³ ambition to connect the available scientific knowledge to industry challenges by performing multidisciplinary research.

Partnerships

Building international academic and industrial partnerships is a key success factor within the INCAS³ approach. The INCAS³ scientists and engineers are strongly encouraged to build international networks to be able to truly excel in their research. Through participation in international projects and research programs the INCAS³ knowledge base will be strengthened and shared with the collaborators.

Challenges

Sensor systems have become an integral part of our society producing a vast amount of data. All these data has to be transported, processed and interpreted into information. This is one of the biggest challenges created by the sensor developments. With the introduction of sensor systems in our primary life – whether it is health care, security or environmental monitoring – the need for precision and reliability will be obvious. Furthermore, these are environments where typically layman will handle these systems.

Research

INCAS³ organized its research in four groups working in an environment that is strongly interdisciplinary and self-driven, allowing the researchers and engineers to develop original solutions to open problems in the field. The Cognitive Systems and Systems & Controls group perform basic research, including maintaining and developing collaborations with external academic groups, and dissemination of results through publications. Within these groups the sensor systems foundation is laid down. Cognitive Systems is all about turning data into information and the design of methods and systems that are able to learn, are aware of their situation and can be handled by layman. Reliability, reduction of energy usage and applicability in open environments is being researched with Systems & Controls. The scientists within the Industrial Research group perform application oriented research in which the INCAS³ expertise is brought into practice. They solve industrial challenges by combining the expertise and solutions coming from our basic research groups to the prototyping capability of the Engineering Group. The latter consist of highly trained embedded software en hardware engineers capable of translating novel scientific ideas into industry applicable solutions.

About

INCAS³ was formed in 2008 on the initiative of the Province of Drenthe, the Municipality of Assen and Sensor Universe, to create a bridge between the fundamental knowledge and the practical applicability of sensor systems. INCAS³ is an independent, non-profit research institute which responds quickly and flexibly to questions concerning sensor technology from science and industry. The research is carried out at its premises in Assen by doctoral students and postdocs in combination with a team of excellent engineers. INCAS³ is co-funded by the Province of Drenthe, the Municipality of Assen, the European Fund for Regional Development and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Peaks in the Delta.