PDEng on Designing an automated installation system for modular solar roofs

The Smart Buildings & Cities PDEng program wants to contribute to the transition towards smart, intelligent and sustainable cities where quality of life is high. This transition requires new solutions which can only be created through multiscale and transdisciplinary (design) approaches. This requires technical designers who are able to work in a multidisciplinary environment and know how to communicate with different disciplines and stake holders. This PDEng program educates trainees to become those technical designers! Please note that this program is about technological design, i.e., the process of solving problems by means of a technological design, this in contrast to (PhD) research, which is the process of understanding problems.

After the two year program our trainees become technical designers with a broad technological understanding of the disciplines relevant to the above mentioned smart cities themes (architecture, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, building physics and services and ICT), who excel in their own discipline and who are able to work in multidisciplinary design teams, contribute to design issues outside their own core disciplines, integrate different technologies into new products and concepts, and who understand the commercial aspects of these innovative products and concepts.

Job description

The Department of the Built Environment of the Eindhoven University of Technology offers you a trainee position to follow a two-year post-master technological designer program, which leads to the degree of 'Professional Doctorate in Engineering' (PDEng). The program consists of two main parts running in parallel:

• Half of the program consists of post-master level education in the form of generic design projects and courses about design methods, entrepreneurship and professional skills. Furthermore, it includes several technical courses about topics relevant to SB&C. This part of the program also offers ample opportunity to develop professional skills.
• The other half of the program is dedicated to an individual design project in collaboration with a company. It is the trainee's main responsibility to manage and execute the project. Each trainee is supported by an advisor from the company and an advisor from the university. A business plan for implementation or marketing of the designed product or process is part of the final deliverables.
• Your position will be embedded in unit Structural Engineering and Design, where you work in collaboration with researchers on Robotics and 3D concrete printing.

TU/e is partner in a multi-actor innovation project targeting the development and upscaling of industrially manufactured energy-producing roofs made of high-quality synthetic materials. The goal of this PDEng position is to design and validate proof-of-concepts for the automated installation of such roof systems. This includes surveying and assessing the suitability of digital techniques such as AR/VR, robotics, drones, etc. to facilitate automated placement with minimized manual labour. The automated installation system should match the workflow for the industrial production of the modular solar roofs and have potential to be upscaled to replace dozens of roofs per day. For questions about the project contact dr.ir. R.J.M. (Rob) Wolfs.