TEMPO is an international PhD program for highly motivated young scientists, where state-of-the-art research is combined with a comprehensive training program. The network is funded by the European Community’s Seventh Framework program. The European Commission wants to make research careers more attractive to young people and therefore offers early-stage researchers (ESRs) a PhD program the opportunity to improve their research skills, join established research teams and enhance their career prospects via the Marie Curie Initial Training Networks (ITN) in the area of Embedded Predictive Control and Optimization.
TEMPO addresses the needs of European companies and society for embedded control technology, through training on cutting edge research in the rapidly emerging inter-disciplinary field of embedded predictive control and optimization.
The knowledge platform of TEMPO is driven by cutting edge research that will firmly establish the rapidly emerging field of embedded MPC and optimization as the technology of choice in advanced embedded control systems in European industry. In particular, TEMPO will make significant contributions to enabling technology for innovative and challenging industrial application in different sectors where MPC is usually not used today. More specifically, the following technical and scientific breakthroughs are expected
order-of-magnitude increased reliability and scalability of optimization-based and explicit MPC targeting fast embedded control systems with enhanced functionality and performance, and reduced cost;
order-of-magnitude reductions in computation times, enabling optimization with microsecond update rates with strict real-time requirements in new application areas;
order-of magnitude reductions in software footprint for low cost industrial embedded controllers, such as FPGAs, micro-controllers and PLCs;
theories and tools for theoretical verifiable performance in terms of real-time requirements and sub-optimality;
a technology platform available through robust plug-and-play software tools to support automated design, implementation, and validation.
To achieve the objectives listed above, the main tasks of TEMPO are:
to attract and train 14 Early Stage Researchers in embedded MPC and optimization via a joint academic/industrial program of cutting edge training-by-research, high quality supervision, complementary and transferable skills training, inter-network secondments, and workshops;
to create a closely connected group of leading European scientists that are highly sought after by European industry, and ready to push forward embedded MPC and optimization into new innovative products, industries and services;
to build a solid foundation for long-term European excellence in this field by disseminating the research and training outcomes and best practice of TEMPO into the doctoral schools of the partners, and by fostering long-term partnerships and collaboration mechanisms that will outlast the ITN;
to disseminate the know-how of the participants to each other and to external groups via networking activities, intersectoral exposure, secondments, workshops, demonstrations, sharing of learning material, public engagement and outreach activities, and open source public domain software outcomes.