Divert the trajectory of an asteroid on a collision
course with the Earth, by means of a controlled impact at full speed with a
space probe. This was the challenge of the DART mission (Double Asteroid
Redirection Test) by NASA, successfully completed on 26 September 2022, in
which Politecnico was directly involved as part of the scientific team (read the news here).
The first scientific results on the DART Mission have been published in the
authoritative journal Nature in three different articles, co-authored by the
researcher Fabio Ferrari from the Department of Aerospace Science and
Technology at the Politecnico di Milano.
“DART is a historic moment for space exploration: it is not only the first planetary
defence test, but it is also the first time we visit a binary asteroid (a system where
two asteroids orbit around a common centre of gravity) and where we have the
opportunity to observe how an asteroid can react to an external stress,” explains
Fabio Ferrari, co-author of the scientific studies on DART. This has allowed us
– and will allow us again in the coming months – to study the structure and
evolutionary history of these celestial bodies, so close to us but still barely known.
The Politecnico di Milano is part of the scientific team of the DART mission and
has contributed to studying the evolutionary dynamics of the Didymos binary
system. These include the motion and stability of the binary system, as well as
the internal structure of the two asteroids Didymos and Dimorphos. The
Politecnico has also played a decisive role in the characterization of the motion of
the fragments ejected following the impact, and their morphology observed
through orbital and Earth-based telescopes ".
The article describes the successful test of kinetic impact technology on the asteroid
Dimorphos. The DART mission was the first to test this technology at full
scale, demonstrating that it is an effective technique for planetary defence
against possible asteroid threats.
The study describes the observations made using the Hubble Space Telescope on the
material ejected by the impact of DART with the asteroid Dimorphos. The
observations showed a complex morphology of the ejecta, conditioned by the
gravitational interaction between the asteroid and the dust under the
influence of solar radiation pressure.
L’articolo – di cui è coautrice anche la professoressa di Meccanica del Volo del Politecnico Michèle Lavagna – contiene la dimostrazione dell’efficacia dell’impatto cinetico di un satellite nell’evitare una potenziale collisione con la Terra. Nell’articolo viene quantificato l’effetto di deflessione prodotto dall’impatto ad alta velocità sull’orbita del sistema binario Didymos, mostrando come l’espulsione dei frammenti generati a seguito dell’impatto abbia contribuito ad aumentare l’efficienza dello scambio di energia tra la sonda e l’asteroide.
“It is the first time that an attempt has been made to divert a celestial body from
its natural orbital path in a perceptible and significant way and to measure its
effectiveness,” adds Michele Lavagna. And it is above all the first time that the
impact has been witnessed by an extremely small satellite, LICIACube, the first
European probe to travel in deep space. It played a fundamental role in acquiring
images during and after the DART impact: images that helped us to understand
the composition and structure of Dimorphos and the dynamics of the binary
asteroid system, having recorded the sequence of formation of the fragments post
impact and their expansion into the surrounding space in the minutes following
the collision by DART. The Politecnico di Milano, together with the Italian
National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF), contributed to the design and guidance
of this small scientific satellite and is actively involved in the scientific analysis of
the images acquired to reconstruct the evolution of the motion of the fragments
generated ”.
1863: a date that doesn’t mean much to most people, but which our community is particularly familiar with. It is actually engraved on the façade of the rectorate, the famous building in Piazza Leonardo da Vinci which, as the historical seat of our University, has seen many students and professors pass back and forth to attend lessons, exams and graduation sessions.
160 years have (almost) passed since that legendary date of 1863: what better way to 'celebrate' this anniversary (actually falling on 29 November) than to see where we started from and where we are now, after all these years?
We want to show you using words and numbers: let's get started!
STUDENTS
The first rector, Francesco Brioschi, immediately became famous for his severity and for the strict rigidity with which he led the University, which was then called 'Regio Istituto Tecnico Superiore' and had just about thirty students, all engineers and all men.
The first female students would only appear over 20 years later: the first woman enrolled at the university was Tatiana Wedenison in 1888, but the first woman to graduate, Gaetanina Calvi, a civil engineer, only did so in 1913; a few years later, in 1918, the first female Italian electrical engineer, Maria Artini, graduated with a degree in Industrial Engineering.
In 1928 the first women to graduate in Architecture were Carla Maria Bassi and Elvira Morassi. In the years that followed, women maintained a constant, albeit numerically small presence at Politecnico di Milano: by the mid-1940s, about 100 out of around 9,500 graduates were women.
Nell’anno accademico 2021/2022 invece la popolazione studentesca iscritta al Politecnico è nell’ordine delle migliaia: si contano 47.170 studenti iscritti (a.a. 2021/2022, aggiornamento: febbraio 2022), di cui
7,231 Architecture students
4.294 Design students
35,645 Engineering students
Of these, about one third are women (36.8% in 2021 for master's degrees compared to 31.8% for bachelor's degrees). There is then a substantial gap between the numbers of female engineering students compared to those studying Architecture and Design:
"the data of the engineering enrolments at POLIMI - as the 2022 Gender Report states - is in line with the national average, which accounts for 27.2% of female students in the Engineering and Technology sector in 2021 (a figure practically unchanged compared to that of the previous year, 27.1%). Architecture and Design courses witness a predominantly female student population in both the Bachelor's and the Master's degrees. Furthermore, in all areas the proportion of female students increases in the transition from Bachelor's degree to Master's degree".
Initially limited to three-year courses and to the two paths of Civil or Industrial Engineering, on the initiative of Camillo Boito and through co-operation with the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, the School for Architects was added to the Institute in 1865 and in 1875 it was completed with the two-year Preparatory School.
Today Politecnico di Milano stands out as an excellence among universities within Italy and globally: in the QS 2023 ranking of June 2022, the University was ranked 1st in Italy and 139th in the world, featuring in the top 10% of excellent universities. The employment statistics of our graduates are also very positive: 98% of master graduates are already working one year after graduating, with almost total employment among engineering graduates (99%), but also among architecture and design graduates (97% and 94%, respectively) and 99% find a job 5 years after graduation (2022 data).
The first seat was located in the Collegio Elvetico in via Senato in Milan; two years later, in 1865, it moved to Palazzo della Canonica in Piazza Cavour. In the following decades, the expansion of the University (which came to occupy 10,000 square meters) led the State, the Municipality and the Milan Chamber of Commerce to decide that the Politecnico should be moved away from the centre and merge in a single location: the chosen site was the peripheral area of the Cascine Doppie - 'in Lambrate's expanse of lawn', as described by Alumnus Carlo Emilio Gadda. The seat, which would later become the historic headquarters in Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, was officially inaugurated in 1927.
Credits: Stefano Topuntoli
But Politecnico di Milano soon became more than 'mere' Piazza Leonardo. In the following years the seat for the Architecture faculty was built, which was then expanded in the 1980s into via Ampère, with a building designed by Vittoriano Viganò and the construction of buildings for the Departments of Mathematics and Mechanics, which then became known by the names 'Nave' and 'Trifoglio' (ie 'ship' and 'clover').
In 1987 the University began to spread into other areas forming "Politecnico Rete", which led to the opening of the regional campuses of Como (1987, active until 2018) and Lecco (1989) and of the campuses of Cremona (1991), Mantua (1994) and Piacenza (1997), with the aim of establishing a more direct relationship with students and interacting with communities and with local manufacturing.
Furthermore, in the Milano Bovisa area, where some disused warehouses and old gasometres were, a university campus was built starting in 1989 with the new Faculties of Civil Architecture, Design and Industrial Engineering and a series of laboratories among the most advanced and innovative in Europe: the Wind Tunnel, for the development of research in the fluid dynamics field; the Transport Safety Laboratory, with its spectacular crash tests; the Design Laboratories.
In 2021, the new Architecture campus designed by Renzo Piano in the via Bonardi area was inaugurated in Milan Leonardo, which led to an increase in open spaces and studying areas available to students and an improvement in environmental quality through the creation of large green spaces.
RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
Over the years, the University has distinguished itself as a point of reference in national and international research.
Politecnico di Milano has the highest number of Horizon Europe projects in Italy and the seventh-highest in Europe.
281 EU-funded projects (FP7) (2007-2013)
Since 2021 it has achieved the outstanding result of being awarded 126 projects, 17 of which are ERC, with a total value of over 64 million euros (read here)
Politecnico di Milano also oversees technology transfer: through the TTO and Polihub, it manages the initial phases/analysis of how research may be utilised, contacts with inventors, the patenting process and the start-up of company spin-offs, to then support the new operations by offering young entrepreneurs and researchers the services they need to start the first phase of their companies.
spin-off: 105 companies established and accredited from 2000 to today, 82 of which are still operating [updated: 12/31/2022]
Among organisations eligible for the tax donation, the University was the highest benefitting university in 2022, with 985,530 euros donated, and the 6th highest of all research institutions (read here).
The University has invested these funds in high-impact social research projects, supplementing them with a part of co-funding allocated by the departments themselves or by public bodies and sponsors, according to the Politecnico’s vision of sustainable development that promotes the engagement of private and public sectors, civil society, researchers and financial institutions.
The global challenges of the environment, energy, health, urban regeneration, support for vulnerable populations and regions (but the list could go on) affect everyone and raise questions that scientific research is called upon to answer. It is a commitment that Politecnico di Milano has in its very DNA.
Snam e Politecnico di Milano, anche attraverso la propria Fondazione, hanno rinnovato oggi l’accordo di collaborazione su attività congiunte di ricerca dedicate al ruolo del sistema gas per la sicurezza e la transizione energetica del Paese, con un focus specifico sulle potenzialità delle molecole verdi, come idrogeno e biometano, e sull’innovazione.
The framework agreement will focus primarily on the development of studies and projects in multiple areas: from infrastructures security, starting from monitoring and maintenance of assets, to green gases (hydrogen and biomethane) and to technologies for decarbonisation, such as CCS, i.e. Carbon Capture and Storage.
“A key agreement in a context, that of the energy transition, which is central to the needs of companies, fundamental for the development of new skills, open to unexplored potential on the research front. A theme at the centre of every redevelopment policy in the country“.
comments Donatella Sciuto, rector of the Politecnico di Milano.
"Sustainability is one of the priorities of our university, at the forefront of green issues and technologies for decarbonization. The sharing of strategies, goals, and resources with a large leading company in the sector such as Snam traces a clear path of growth“.
The collaboration also includes joint research on innovative models for the development of biomethane, which will accelerate its large-scale production, and energy efficiency measures for the public administration, residential, tertiary, and industrial sectors.
On the hydrogen front, feasibility studies will be carried out on the technologies that can be used in the various phases of the value chain (production, transport, storage and use), in-depth studies on the impact of hydrogen and natural gas mixtures on the existing network, and market analysis on the potential uses of the clean energy carrier in the industrial, residential and mobility sectors.
The agreement also includes research initiatives on digitalization applied to gas infrastructures (radar and optical satellite data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive algorithms and robotic devices for inspections and monitoring), sustainable finance, staff training and talent attraction.
“The agreement with Snam aims to reiterate the need to address the issues of energy transition in a synergistic way with a view to sustainability and innovation“
underlines Andrea Sianesi, President of the Politecnico di Milano Foundation.
“A partnership that aims to strengthen lasting relationships for the realization of cutting-edge research. The collaboration stems from the constant dialogue between business and university, a partnership that is becoming a consolidated practice for the Politecnico di Milano and its Foundation and that shares needs, strategies and visions with the companies involved“.
One year after the start of the war in Ukraine, researchers Maria Cristina Rulli of the Politecnico di Milano, Jampel Dell'Angelo of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Paul D'Odorico of the University of California at Berkeley, publish in the prestigious Science journal an analysis the potential impact of the invasion on agriculture and rural livelihoods in developing countries.
“After 2008, in the aftermath of the global financial and food crisis, there was a notable increase in land investments with large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs)",
explains Maria Cristina Rulli, Professor of Hydrology at the Politecnico di Milano.
In previous global food supply crises, spikes in food and energy prices were followed by new waves of transnational land investment and land grabbing. The authors provide a detailed analysis of the factors that have been identified as drivers or precursors of the “land races” occurred in the 21st century - such as the food supply crisis in periods of increased demand for agricultural products, the demand for renewable energy or the need for diversification of financial investments – to draw a parallel with current conditions.
The war in Ukraine could stimulate a new global land race that could affect the world's agricultural system. Our previous studies on this topic have shown that large-scale land acquisitions often target forest land that is subsequently "developed" through logging, leading to habitat destruction, increased greenhouse gas emissions and loss of access to ancestral land by local people who historically relied on these forests for firewood, food or shelter.”,
Rulli continues. We argue that the shortage of food supplies from the Black Sea region will have a major impact on rural development. Based on the trends seen since the recent food crises, we expect a new wave of large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) resulting in the dispossession of rural communities. These changes will occur through complex and interdependent interactions that will have cascading and long-lasting effects on multiple dimensions of rural development, said Jampel Dell'Angelo.
“Sosteniamo che la carenza di approvvigionamento alimentare dalla regione del Mar Nero avrà un impatto importante sullo sviluppo rurale. Sulla base delle tendenze osservate dopo le recenti crisi alimentari, prevediamo di vedere una nuova ondata di acquisizioni di terra su larga scala (LSLA) con la conseguente espropriazione delle comunità rurali. Questi cambiamenti avverranno attraverso interazioni complesse e interdipendenti che avranno effetti a cascata e duraturi su molteplici dimensioni dello sviluppo rurale”, ha affermato Jampel Dell’Angelo.
Paolo D’Odorico spiega come “questo studio identifica alcune delle possibili risposte alla crisi indotta dalla guerra e l’impatto di esse sul sistema agrario globale, quali, ad esempio, l’espansione della produzione agricola verso i terreni incolti che potrebbe avvenire a scapito dei programmi di conservazione del suolo e/o delle riserve naturali ; intensificazione agricola in terreni che sono già stati acquisiti da investitori agroalimentari nel post 2008 che potrebbe esacerbare condizioni di scarsità idrica e di degrado del suolo; e una nuova ondata di investimenti fondiari”.
L’analisi riflette sulle implicazioni politiche della transizione agraria associata a questa nuova ondata di acquisizioni di terra, ricordandoci che i quadri politici attualmente in vigore sono stati storicamente inefficaci nel prevenire la precedente corsa alla terra e i suoi impatti dannosi sui mezzi di sussistenza e sull’ambiente.
Per celebrare la giornata internazionale delle donne e delle ragazze nella scienza, vogliamo raccontarvi di 7 donne politecniche che hanno fatto la storia dei loro settori professionali nel mondo dell’ingegneria, dell’architettura e del design. Sette politecniche che hanno cambiato la visione delle professioni che hanno scelto.
A partire dal 1913, con la prima laureata Gaetanina Calvi, tutte le Alumnae del Politecnico sono diventate parte fondamentale di quella trasformazione culturale che ha visto le donne prendersi meritatamente (e, a volte, faticosamente) il loro spazio, tra i banchi del Poli e non solo.
Nomi che probabilmente avrete già sentito, alcuni famosi e altri meno, ma comunque importanti per aver sfidato le regole della società.
GAETANINA CALVI - CIVIL ENGINEERING ALUMNA
In 1913 she was the first female student to graduate from the Politecnico: the civil engineer Gaetanina Calvi was the only woman in her class. There were 156 graduates that year (149 of whom were engineers). Half a century had passed since the Politecnico di Milano was founded in 1863.
Her professional achievements include the design of the new wing of the Institute for the Blind in Milan, originally intended as a retirement home in 1925, in which she was involved personally, working with the architect Faravelli. In the following years, she taught mathematics and science at this same institute, which only began to give her monetary compensation in 1928 (source).
After the trailblazer Gaetanina Calvi, Maria Artini,the first female Italian electrotechnician, graduated from the Politecnico in 1918, while in 1928, Carla Maria Bassi and Elvira Morassi Bernardis were the first women to graduate in architecture (we discuss this in the book ALUMNAE - Engineers and Technologies).
Born in 1937, in 1962 she was the first woman in Italy to graduate - with full marks - in Aeronautical Engineering. In this regard, she says:
"I was one of the first girls in Italy to attend scientific high school, which was then a predominantly male environment. In my class, there were only five girls out of a total of 52 students. Then, when it came time to enrol at university, my parents wanted me to become a mathematician, but I preferred aeronautical engineering. What really interested me was understanding how things work in reality".
After her studies, Ercoli-Finzi stayed on at the Politecnico as a lecturer (she taught rational mechanics and aerospace mechanics to many Alumni who will read this page) and ricercatrice. Her discoveries and experiments made her a name for herself in the international aeronautical sector. She collaborates with NASA and with the Italian (ASI) and European (ESA) space agencies.
Her most famous initiatives include coordinating and participating in several space missions, most notably the Rosetta space mission, which began in 2004 and ended in 2016 and had the aim of closely studying the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet. Read more (Read more).
Having always been active in promoting and supporting women in what are considered “male” environments, in a recent interview with Sky she defends the importance of encouraging more women to pursue scientific research:
"I really realised," she said, "that for many women I was a source of inspiration, the girls who are studying now thought that the satisfaction I transmitted for my work was a valid reason to copy and do what I do. It is a great responsibility, even our words and attitudes convey the passion for the values we have upheld. [...] In my day women like me were stars, isolated stars, Sirius rather than Aldebaran, now there are constellations. They represent constellations because they manage to form a mass; there is still much to do but we will get there.”
CINI BOERI - ARCHITECTURE ALUMNA
Cini Boeri graduated from the Politecnico in 1951, with a two-month-old baby in a pram and a job offer from Gio Ponti in her pocket. After several collaborations, in 1963 she opened a studio and her career took off with projects, teaching and research, her focus on houses, private flats and the design of everyday objects that were not "owned but used".
Credits: Maria Mulas
"When I design a house for a married couple, for example, I always suggest adding an extra room. They always ask me: "for guests?". But no! Not for guests. Because if one evening one of you has a cold they can go and sleep in another room, for example. One should be able to choose, to know that one can go to sleep with one's partner, but that one can also decide not to do so, without affecting life as a couple. I think it would be very educational to teach young people that when they get together as a couple it is not obligatory to share a bed, it is a choice. It’s much nicer.”
She is known for her democratic approach to architecture and design:
«È il Politecnico che ci ha abituati così. Abbiamo avuto un insegnamento molto aperto, non so se oggi sia ancora così!»
Gae Aulenti graduated in 1953 and began her career as a designer at a time of profound evolution in the Italian architectural culture. After leaving the Politecnico, she approached two of the period’s main leaders in theoretical elaboration of architecture: the magazine Casabella Continuità, directed by Ernesto Nathan Rogers, with whom she worked between 1955 and 1965, and the IUAV – Istituto Universitario di Architettura of Venezia, where she worked from 1960 as assistant to Giuseppe Samonà.
For Gae Aulenti architecture is always a collective, never individual gesture,, something to be shared with a community. This is why many of her most famous works are public spaces: among many others, the Museum of Modern Art and the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, the Institute of Italian Culture in Tokyo, the renovation of Palazzo Grassi in Venice, the former papal stables at the Quirinale and Piazza Cadorna in Milan.
Ghettoisation in general makes me furious. And I get particularly angry when I ear people say: I needed an architect and I chose a female one.”
For Aulenti, architecture looks ahead, beyond the gender conditions from which it must free itself and towards a new destiny to be designed and built with knowledge. She rejects the idea of the "woman architect", which she finds ghettoising. She sees talking about architecture and design in terms of gender as reinforcement of the idea that these two specialities for women are something that limits them to surfaces and decoration, while the heart and skeleton of the project are reserved for male designers.
Anna Castelli Ferrieri began studying architecture at the Politecnico in 1938 and was immediately attracted by the avantgarde and Bauhaus. Over the years she studied under Franco Albini, from whom she learned the rationalist approach. She then worked in his studio where she came into contact with architects Piero Bottoni and Ernesto Nathan Rogers, who were involved in the reconstruction of Milan.
In 1942, she graduated in architecture and left Milan because of the German occupation, only to return in 1946, when she became editor-in-chief of the architecture magazine Casabella and founded her own studio.
In 1966, together with her husband Giulio Castelli and his company Kartell, she became the first woman to devote herself to to industrial design and the production of everyday objects and furniture made of plastic: some of the most famous are the 4870 stackable chair (winner of the Compasso d'Oro) and the 4970/84 furniture, modular storage solutions for the home, designed according to her principle that everyday objects should have functional person-centric design.
"If a product is unsuccessful, it is because the architect made a mistake, not because the public doesn't understand. The architect must only—but always—answer two questions: "What is needed?" and "What is missing?".
LILIANA GRASSI – ALUMNA ARCHITETTURA
''Architecture gives me a sense of being, it is a synonym of freedom, a freedom that must be constantly monitored and protected through the study of history, through an accurate research, through the loneliness of imagination, through disinterested reflection... "
Alumna in architecture in 1947, Liliana Grassi graduated together with Ambrogio Annoni and assisted the latter for several years, both at university and on the building site. Years later she started teaching Restoration of monuments. Eminent figure in the Lombard and Italian cultural landscape, Liliana Grassi held various prestigious institutional positions, gaining recognition above all for her great practical and theoretical contribution in the field of restoration. Her most important achievement is the restoration in the name of philological rigour, love and respect for the artistic object of the ancient Ospedale Maggiore di Milanodestroyed by bombings in 1943 and then adapted to house one of the seats of the Università degli Studi.
Credits: Sara Calabrò (a cura di) “Dal Politecnico di Milano protagonisti e grandi progetti”
Source: “Dal Politecnico di Milano protagonisti e grandi progetti”
FRANCA HELG
"Details are essential for the definition of the whole, a detail can determine a project and for sure characterize it. The overall result of the work is connected to details, in terms of design and quality. Details affect the spatial and volumetric values of what is built"
After graduation in 1945 she associated with , Franca Helg , with whom she collaborated until his death. In her designing work, Franca Helg has always shown meticulous attention to details, fusing modernity and classicism, rationality and creativity, giving life to works characterized by elegance and simplicity, unlinked to the cultural trends of the moment. And we must not forget industrial design: Helg created vases, handles, chairs, suspension lamps, desk lamps, floor lamps and the Primavera armchair in cane and wicker.
Credits: Sara Calabrò (a cura di) “Dal Politecnico di Milano protagonisti e grandi progetti”
The teaching of Architectural Composition represented an important part of her life: earlier at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia (IUAV), then at the Politecnico di Milano, where she became full professor in 1984.
By supporting the GIRLS @ POLIMI project you can contribute together with other donors to create scholarships to support girls enrolling in engineering degree courses with low female attendance. Donate now .
Among the professional positions most sought after by companies are those belonging to the large range of technical IT figures. The search for these professionals, in just a few years, has grown to such an extent that graduates are not enough to cover all the open positions. According to estimates, the number of graduates would be about 100,000 less than those needed to cover the Italian cybersecurity market alone. At the Politecnico, around 400 students graduate with a Laurea Magistrale (equivalent to Master of Science) degree in IT each year and 97% of them already have a stable employment contract within 12 months of graduation, and over 70%, within a month.
But which are the most specialised and hard-to-find positions? The Rector Prof. Donatella Sciuto discusses it in an interview with Il Sole 24 Ore: "In the world of cybersecurity, for example, there is a need for positions such as penetration testers, whose job is to try to attack systems to test their resilience. In the field of training there is a national project, the Cyber Challenge, a programme for young people aged 16 to 24, which aims to identify and attract the next generation of cybersecurity professionals, also in collaboration with universities. As the Politecnico di Milano we take part by selecting the best young people to join the national cybersecurity team. And the mHackeroni, Italy's national team of ethical hackers, placed fifth in Las Vegas at the cybersecurity world championships”.
Credits: Sole24ore
Fundamental at this point is the relationship between universities and businesses, a key relationship for building skills:
"Companies demand ready-made profiles. In the cybersecurity field, it is very difficult to complete classroom and lab training; therefore, we need to structure partnerships with companies to train individuals".
Then there is the issue of the relationship between professions and artificial intelligence, a topic that is increasingly topical and less immediate than one might think. Rector Sciuto states, “the role of a data analyst requires a lot of statistical and IT skills and application expertise. They are in great demand and will continue to be in great demand as they help assess AI and machine learning systems themselves. That is, we need to check that the data is not biased, but, instead, is representative”.
Questa è la storia di due ingegneri e Alumni del Politecnico di Milano che sono diventati prima ricercatori e poi imprenditori. Camilla Conti ha studiato ingegneria energetica, Lorenzo Agostini ingegneria meccanica. Le loro strade si sono incrociate durante un semestre di scambio in Canada. Rientrati in Italia, si sono laureati e hanno scelto percorsi diversi: lei ha proseguito al Poli dopo un breve periodo in una multinazionale, prima con un dottorato in ing. energetica ed aerospaziale e adesso come ricercatrice post-doc, lui ha lavorato in azienda due anni prima di proseguire con un dottorato in emerging digital technologies alla scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa; successivamente è diventato ricercatore (Assistant Professor) all’Università di Bologna, dove ha svolto l’attività di ricerca su trasduttori elettro-meccanici basati sul fenomeno fisico dell’elettrostaticità nel contesto del laboratorio SAIMA (Sensori e Attuatori Innovativi per il Manifatturiero Avanzato) congiunto con l’Istituto STIIMA del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche.
From this research, a new technology to produce adaptive mechatronic devices was born. In May 2022, Agostini and Conti, together with prof. Rocco Vertechy (UniBo), supervisor di post-doc di Agostini, hanno fondato una startup: Adaptronics, nata ufficialmente dopo un anno di lavoro sul business model, e basata sulle competenze maturate in quasi 10 anni di ricerca combinati.
(credits: Adaptronics)
FROM A BALLOON TO TECHNOLOGY…
Their invention makes use of the well-known principle of electro-adhesion: the same as when you rub a balloon on your hair and it sticks to it. “During my PhD,” Agostini explains, “I worked with a research group that dealt with the development of elastomer-based electro-mechanical transducers, i.e., systems that can be deformed like rubbers and which, when stimulated with electricity, produce a mechanical action. This technology can be used to create an artificial muscle that is as soft as a natural one but stiffens when stimulated electrically, for example”.
Adaptronics' innovation lies in having been able to evolve this technological basis to develop a special film made of polymeric materials, which allows an electro-adhesive effect to be controlled and obtained: the result is a film less than 0.5 mm thick, which becomes adhesive when activated electrically. It is capable of lifting up to 50 kg with two patches the size of credit cards (of course, the greater the size, the greater the force exerted), without having to use magnetic or pneumatic effects, and with a power consumption in the range of a few watts.
credits: Adaptronics
A kind of "electronic sensor fingertip, therefore, capable of detecting contact with any target object and moving it without exerting any pressure on it that could potentially damage it: it could become an enabling technology for many applications, the founders explain, from space to industrial logistics, goods transport and agriculture (imagine picking a raspberry without having to squeeze it...).
…AND FROM THE LAB TO THE START-UP
"I always wanted to be an entrepreneur," Agostini says, "and found my own company. I chose to study engineering and do my PhD because I wanted to be one of the first in the world to work with an emerging technology”. My dreams came true, and certainly not by rubbing a magic lamp. To validate this technology, the founders and their research team worked in the lab for several years. Once they had demonstrated how it worked and verified its industrial potential, the long process of technology transfer began (if you want to find out how to becomes an 'inventor', we talked about it on MAP 10).
"Before arriving at the final form of Adaptronics, we also presented other ideas that had similar core businesses and were based on the same technology. We participated in several start-up idea competitions, (we also won several, including the StartCup, the National Innovation Award in the Industrial category, the Talentis of Confindustria Young Entrepreneurs and the EIT Jumpstarter, Ed.) These experiences also offered training courses that were useful in helping us to identify the market segment on which to focus”.
Today, Adaptronics is a start-up in its early days, consisting of five partners: Conti, Agostini, the Università di Bologna (of which it is a spin-off), Prof. Rocco Vertechy (UniBo), Agostini's post-doc supervisor, and engr. Gavino Boringhieri, a long-time manager and start-up mentor. It addresses the market for automated robotic systems for efficient and sustainable logistics: industrial automation, last-mile delivery with autonomous robots, automated fruit picking, space debris removal and in-orbit services to satellites.
credits: Adaptronics
ADAPTRONICS: ALWAYS LOOKING FOR THE NEXT STEP
The two polytechnic entrepreneurs now focus on the internationalisation strategy to access new markets and also future funding rounds. "Now is the time to invest in training an operational team of mechanical, electronic and automation engineers to support us in product development. We are looking at Europe but also at the United States: both for the greater accessibility of investment capital and for the proximity to major space programmes. For us, that is a very important market since we are also involved in the aerospace sector, which currently has enormous growth potential and great interest from investors. We can be an 'enabling technology' for on-orbit operations, which is why we are incubated in Turin by the European Space Agency's Business Incubation Centre,” Agostini concludes.
"We want to become competitive in the world and we want to make a tool that can be a standard for the industrial automation of gripping and moving objects: if we focused only on Italy, we would soon be surpassed by any Asian or American company that can develop the same product whilst borrowing money from all over the world. Our plan, however, is to keep research and development in Italy, where there is certainly no scarcity of brains and excellence, and it just has to be given an opportunity to grow."
VisionAnchor is a project - and a product - developed by CEFRIEL, the centre for digital innovation at the Politecnico, with a SeaVision, a Slovenian start-up. It uses artificial intelligence and deep learning to collect data on the seabed using ship anchors: the “electronic eyes” consist of a set of buoys that are able to take photographs of the seabed during anchoring operations and communicate with the algorithm developed by CEFRIEL, which is capable of recognising the most appropriate seabed to anchor by automatically classifying the images according to certain morphological characteristics.
Its immediate commercial application, developed by SeaVision, transforms the Smart Anchoring System into a "smart anchor" capable of analysing the seabed and identifying the best place to anchor, whilst avoiding vulnerable ecosystems such as coral reefs or other points of interest. The data is transmitted to the seamen via an application that can be downloaded onto any mobile phone. The prototype has been developed with the involvement of two students from the Politecnico di Milano and the Università di Milano-Bicocca, as part of the work supported by EIT Digital, a European web community that brings together the best in digital innovation.
This technology also has other interesting potential for development, offering itself as a tool for mapping the ocean floor, of which we still know less than 20%.
"The analysis and comparison of large amounts of images is one of the opportunities offered by the application of artificial intelligence. In this particular case, the algorithm could have multiple applications related to environmental sustainability, such as the identification and mapping of wrecks or the reporting of any debris on the seabed, perhaps with the aim of improving the health of certain areas of the sea"
explains Alfonso Fuggetta, CEO and scientific director of CEFRIEL.
Develop data science models that apply AI to management and industrial processes so that they can contribute to the achievement of sustainability goals and have a positive impact on society. This is the core of the strategy of the newly appointed scientific director of Datrix (a group of tech companies specializing in augmented analytics and machine learning) Enrico Zio, professor of reliability, safety and risk analysis at the Politecnico di Milano and Rector’s delegate for Alumni. "In the current context characterised by multiple transitions," says Enrico Zio, "the industrial sector must base its technological development on efficient, safe and sustainable solutions and put people's well-being and the environment at the centre of the raising idea of Industry 5.0."
Datrix, a company listed on the Euronext Growth Milan specialising in the development of augmented analytics solutions and services based on artificial intelligence and machine learning models, announced the appointment of prof. Enrico Zio as the group's new Scientific Director. Zio is a leading figure on the international academic scene and has already acquired valuable experience as president and scientific director of research and development in Aramis. He is author of numerous scientific texts and more than 500 articles published in international journals; he is also chairman and vice-chairman of several international conferences, as well as associate editor and reference person of various international journals. In 2020 he received the Humboldt Research Award, one of the most prestigious international research prizes in the scientific field, and has for years been included in the World's Top 2% Scientists list compiled by Stanford University based on quantitative, qualitative and impact indicators of the scientific work produced.
“I am honoured to be appointed as Scientic Director of Gruppo Datrix; this new challenge motivates me and gives me a vantage point to foster research and innovation in the industrial world. The efforts of Gruppo Datrix and Aramix, are aimed at developing solutions and sharing expertise to make data, images, and text 'talk', so as to extract knowledge and information upon which the decision-makers in the industrial sector can leverage to enhance the efficiency and safety of design, operational, maintenance, and organisational choices.”
Corbetta raises his head to look up at his father who watches over him, in the framed photo on the wall of the Harp Pub, at number 20 Piazza Leonardo da Vinci. The pub opened in 1976 and the atmosphere inside has remained the same.
“The customers here are always of the same age,” says Angelo, “ranging from eighteen year-old freshmen to twenty-five year-old graduates. One cycle ends and another begins.” There is an imaginary boundary between the tables and the bar. At the tables, there are students, the bar is the territory of the sixty year-olds: former students, professors.
Luigi Dadda - an engineer to whom we owe the arrival of information technology in Italy - was best man at Corbetta and Pina’s wedding. And the names and memories of those who frequented this place overlap: luminaries with their heads in the clouds who, after eating their sandwich, would ask: “Have I already eaten my sandwich?”, or the guy with the most beautiful eyes in Città Studi, according to his wife Pina.
“Once, there was a curtain dividing the space between the pub and the room below,” says Corbetta. “One day, I saw some students who tiptoed past and slipped behind the curtain. Then I discovered that Professor Vittoriano Viganò had assigned them the task of renovating the pub.”
The project awards were naturally organized at the pub; some of the students had thought of transforming it into a large steel block divided over two floors. But instead, since then, nothing has changed.
“And nothing must change,” explains Corbetta who adds, “Every now and then someone comes in, looks around and says: 'It’s exactly the same.’ Yesterday, for example, a former student stopped by; he hadn't been back here for forty years. I recognized him, he was moved and called his wife to tell her: 'They recognized me in the pub!'
Someone else comes in and, like in a Back to the Future, orders sandwiches that have been off the menu for twenty years: the Cosscco, Vecchia Vienna, which had the secret ingredient of a slice of orange, the Gourmandise, which disappeared when this French cheese became unobtainable. Today, it’s Corbetta's two sons, Riccardo and Francesco, who make sandwiches in the kitchen and stand behind the bar to pour beer and mix cocktails. Corbetta, instead, sits by the cash register, in shirt and bow tie, eyeglasses resting on his white hair, and says: “I am still here. But I never graduate.”
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