PERSEUS - PhD Candidate in the area of Industry 4.0 Digital Twin for Offshore Wind Farms

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At the Department of ICT and Natural Sciences, we have a vacancy for a Ph.D. candidate in the area of industry 4.0 digital twin for offshore wind farms.

The term digital twin refers to a digital representation of a physical asset sufficient to meet the requirements of targeted use cases. Digital twins can be used during the conceptualization, design, and engineering phases of a new asset and during the operation and maintenance phases of an asset (e.g. for energy production optimization, predictive maintenance, simulation, quality management). Security, system integration, interoperability, and connectivity are fundamental aspects for assets aiming to leverage the concept of digital twin. This presupposes the standardization of interfaces and data formats, information-modelling, communication, and established open standardized architectures in the industry. Various associations supported by numerous industrial enterprises are collaborating towards the establishment and maturation of standards for digitalization in the industry.

A main challenge in asset-heavy industrial companies is not the lack of digital representations of facilities and equipment; there are huge amounts of data around. The challenge is that the asset data (i.e. various pieces of the digital twin) is partly locked into several different data systems/applications where the data is defined purely for the application purpose using their own language, information models, interfaces, and access regimes - with limited standardization. Among the different standardization and interoperability initiatives, Asset Administration Shell (AAS), a key concept of Plattform Industrie 4.0 and adopted by the Industrial Digital Twin Association (IDTA), proposes a standardized electronic representation of industrial assets enabling digital twins and interoperability between automated industrial systems and Cyber Physical System (CPS).

The idea of this project is to leverage the use of AAS for digital twin development of offshore wind farms. The PhD student will investigate current applications of AAS in other industries that could be relevant for wind farms, possibility to transfer AAS learning and solutions from other industries. In general, this task should look at the opportunities of using the AAS framework in the offshore wind industry and highlight possible challenges for implementation, which include architecture design, data requirements, predictive analytics, information modeling, and simulation and visualization solutions for asset management and predictive maintenance. Furthermore, the PhD student will be expected to implement prototypes of simulation and visualization solutions based on Digital twin (AAS-based).

This PhD project is a part of the PERSEUS doctoral programme : A collaboration between NTNU- Norway’s largest university, 11 top-level academic partners in 8 European countries, and 8 industrial partners within sectors of high societal relevance.

Within PERSEUS we will recruit 40 PhD candidates who want to contribute to a smart, safe and sustainable future. We are looking for highly skilled PhD candidates motivated to approach societal challenges within one of the following thematic areas:

• Big data and AI
• Digital Twins
• Internet of Things
• Extended Reality
• Information and Cyber Security

All participants in the PERSEUS network bring unique and important qualities with them into the doctoral programme. The PERSEUS PhD candidates will have the opportunity to collaborate with researchers in the partner institutions and in other project consortia, and benefit from these collaborative research and education activities.

As part of the PERSEUS team you will work alongside other highly motivated and talented PhD candidates and researchers. You will also have access to the knowledge base, state-of-the-art research infrastructure, and impact orientation of the partners in the team.

In addition to your education and development within the thematic research area, you will gain transferable skills within project development and management, science communication, research ethics, innovation and entrepreneurial thinking, as well as basic university didactics.

As a PERSEUS PhD candidate, you will be employed by NTNU. During your stay, you will do a 2-3 month international stay in Germany, and a 1-2 month national stay with Equinor, one of the PERSEUS partners. This will allow you to extend your network within academia and industry, and to learn about your research area from an academic, innovation, and societal perspective.

The duration of the PhD employment is 36 months

Starting gross salary is 491 200 NOK/year (equal to approx. 50.133 EUR/year by the exchange rate of May 2021)

We are looking for PhD candidates from all nationalities, who want to contribute to our quest to create knowledge for a better world. PERSEUS recruits candidates according to the EU’s mobility rule, i.e. applicants cannot have spent more than 12 months in Norway during the last 3 years.

We believe in fair and open processes. All applications will be considered through a transparent evaluation procedure, with independent observers involved.

You will report to Professor Agus Hasan as the main scientific supervisor of the research.

The position's working place is NTNU campus in Ålesund.

We look forward to welcome you to the PERSEUS team.