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Haute Ecole Louvain en Hainaut, HELHa

Hub Information

Hub Name
Haute Ecole Louvain en Hainaut, HELHa
Local Name
Centre de recherche de la catégorie technique de la HELHA, CERISIC
Evolutionary Stage
In preparation
Geographical Scope
Regional

Description

Founded in Mons on 5 October 1984 and intimately connected with the technical category of the Haute Ecole Louvain en Hainaut (HELHa), the CERISIC’s main object means is to lead or collaborate on studies or applied research projects and offer tailor-made training in the fields of science and technology. CERISIC conducts different kinds of project, which enabled it to generate in 2015 a turnover just above €1 million. CERISIC consists of three research poles: chemistry and biotechnology; electro-mechanical and thermal industries; and, lastly, electronics and electricity. If you wish to develop a new idea, study a new product or improve your company’s competitiveness thanks to a project of applied research, you may also count on the expertise of the electricity and electronics division in the field of design, implementation and testing of numerically controlled controls as well as in the field of test design. Both main research axes concern electrical engineering: developing innovative tools (control and power electronics, intelligent maintenance, active management, etc.) for engine benches of different yields aimed at developing applications in wind turbines, space, industry, etc.) and electronics: developing telecommunication components, optical sensors or personal assistance sensors based on FPGA and Foxboard platforms, a project which embodies the fruit of active cooperation with the HELHa’s paramedical division (standardization of medical knowledge of professional physiotherapists and of the technical competencies of our own team).

Le Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches de l’Institut Supérieur Industriel Catholique du Hainaut, en abrégé le CERISIC, a été créé à Mons le 5 octobre 1984. Il a pour objet d’effectuer et de collaborer à des projets d’études ou de recherches appliquées réalisés au profit de personnes, de sociétés ou d’organismes dans les différents domaines de la science, de la technologie, de la gestion et de la formation. Le CERISIC bénéficie pleinement de l’expertise des enseignants de la catégorie technique de la Haute Ecole Louvain en Hainaut (HELHa). Forte d’un personnel enseignant composé de 80 docteurs et ingénieurs, la catégorie technique forme sur son site montois quelque 1.500 étudiants et diplôme en moyenne chaque année 80 Masters en sciences de l’ingénieur industriel et 120 Bacheliers. Si vous souhaitez développer une idée nouvelle, étudier un nouveau produit ou améliorer la compétitivité de votre entreprise grâce à un projet de recherche appliquée, vous pourrez compter sur l’expérience du pôle électricité-électronique dans le domaine de la conception, la mise en œuvre et le test des commandes à contrôle numérique ainsi que dans le domaine de la conception de tests. Nos deux axes de recherche sont le génie électrique (développement de bancs de tests de diverses puissances visant des applications dans l’éolien, le spatial, la maintenance prédictive, etc.) et l’électronique : développement de composants de télécommunication, de capteurs optiques ou d’aide à la personne basés sur des plates-formes embarquées low cost, ce dernier projet faisant l’objet d’une collaboration active avec la section paramédicale de la HELHa (unification des connaissances médicales de kinésithérapeutes professionnels et des compétences techniques de notre équipe).

Contact Data

Coordinator
CERISIC
Year Established
1984
Location
Chaussée de Binche 159, 7000, Mons (Belgium)
Website
https://www.cerisic.be/
Social Media
Contact information
Dr Nicolas Velings, director
contact@cerisic.be
00 32 (0) 65 40

Organisation

Organizational form
(part of) Public organization (part of RTO, or university)
Turnover
250.000-500.000
Number of employees
10-25

Technologies

  • Sensory systems
  • Robotics
  • Internet of things
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Mobility & Location based technologies
  • Interaction technologies
  • Virtual, augmented and extended reality
  • Simulation, modelling and digital twins

The activities of the hub are well aligned with the Belgian national initiative for digitising industry, MADE DIFFERENT – Factories of the future.

Market and Services

Sectors

  • Energy and utilities
  • Tourism (incl. restaurants and hospitality)
  • Transport and logistics
  • Education
  • Life sciences & healthcare
  • Community, social and personal service activities

TRL Focus

  • TRL1 - Basic principles observed and reported
  • TRL2 - Technology concept and/or application formulated
  • TRL3 - Analytical and experimental critical function and/or characteristic proof of concept
  • TRL4 - Component and/or breadboard validation in laboratory environment
  • TRL5 - Component and/or breadboard validation in relevant environment

Services provided

  • Collaborative Research
  • Concept validation and prototyping
  • Testing and validation

Service Examples

i) Short description (what need was solved)?
The objective was to develop a reconfigurable software platform designed to control a multiservice Radio Frequency (RF) repeater in confined environments such as tunnels, subways or buildings. Such RF communication systems are widely used by public safety operators (police, firefighters, ambulances and emergency services).

This involved implementing a software layer associated with a reconfigurable digital radio repeater that can be monitored remotely by an alarm monitoring and management software, and automating design, configuration and maintenance processes to allow complete re-design of the RF system architecture and a redeployment on the ground, in order to reduce on-site interventions as well as production and maintenance costs.

ii) What service(s) provided (different from example 1 and 3)?
The validation and testing service have been used to ensure that deployed platform and the resulting services meet customer expectations and comply with specifications.
We have simulated the operation of a RF system by a simulator that has been designed and developed for that specific purpose. In fact, in an ordinary RF communication system, alarms and system failures are rather rare.
The simulation process allowed us to characterize the system by studying its behavior and measuring its performances, in particular by triggering alarms in different contexts of use and even much faster than in reality, and also to determine the limits of the provided solution.

iii) The relation with digitization?
Initially the design, configuration and maintenance processes of RF systems was mainly performed separately and manually, resulting in a system that is difficult to adapt, both on its topology and on its parameters. Our objective was to automate those processes to allow complete and remote re-design of the system architecture and redeployment of configuration parameters.

iv) Name customer, contact details
SEE Telecom, Avenue du Commerce, 18  BE-1420 Braine-l’Alleud, Belgium
www.see.be

i) Short description (what need was solved)?
In “classical” predictive maintenance, vibration sensors are placed on customer’s engines and they acquire vibrations of the latter. The acquired vibrations waveforms are then analyzed by a condition monitoring expert and a report is sent to the customer. This report contains information about the health condition of the engine and also on the wear parts that need to be replaced.

In the new context of “Industry 4.0”, all sensors installed on a customer’s site acquire a lot of data. All these data need to be processed. And due to the amount of data, it is not possible for a condition monitoring expert to analyze every single one of them. Therefore it is needed to be able to process these data automatically.
The goal of the project was to develop a tool to process this vibration data and automatically diagnose defects present on the engines. To achieve this objective, it was necessary to extract features from these data, and validate them on historical data. Then train a machine learning algorithm to classify these data according to the diagnosis.

ii) What service(s) provided (different from example 2 and 3)?
Research and development activities

The first service provided to the industrial partner of the project was to explore the feasibility of automatic diagnosis in condition monitoring. This is why we have selected a subset of industrial engines (in our case HVAC engines only), and a reduced number of defects.
The second service provided was to help the industrial partner, because at the time he had no experience in machine learning.

iii) The relation with digitization?
This project was developed to meet the needs of “Industry 4.0” and “BigData” to analyze a large amount of data. This was done using machine learning algorithm, for a certain types of engines and a reduced number of defects. It can be easily extend to a larger number of defects and also to other types of engines.
iv) Name customer, contact details
I-care
Rue René Descartes, 18
7000 Mons (Belgium)
www.icareweb.com
Thomas Di Pietro, Research and Development Director.
Email: thomas.dipietro@icareweb.com

i) Short description (what need was solved)?
The need that has been solved is the lack of a low-cost and non-intrusive system that collects and analyses ergonomic data. The main goal of developing such an environment is giving to ergonomists and prevention advisers a guide and a tool that help them diagnose repetitive strain injury that affects musculoskeletal and nervous system. This environment had to be flexible and adaptable to different scenarios, like a supermarket cashier, a secretary …  

ii) What service(s) provided (different from example 1 and 2)?
Concept validation and prototyping is the service that Cerisic provided. The concept that needed to be validated is the use of Kinect 3D cameras to track body movements, then calculate the kinematic indicators of those movements, and compare them to the observations of an experimented physiotherapist. Based on this validation, we prototyped a system that tracks body joints and calculates kinematic indicators based on the cords of those joints, and then delivers an automatic analysis of the indicators and the dangerousness of the repetitive strain injury.

iii) The relation with digitization?
TRACKTMS was developed to digitize and automate the procedure of detecting either the presence or not of the repetitive strain injury and its severity. Those analysis are done thanks to human observation, which brings errors and imprecision. By the use of our tool, we gain in precision, and thus in the quality of the analysis.

iv) Name customer, contact details.
Modyva
Venelle le Phare, 10
1400 Nivelles (Belgique)
067 84 44 54
philippe.brux@modyva.be

Funding

  • Regional funding

Customers

Number of customers annually
6-10
Type of customers
  • Start-up companies
  • SMEs (<250 employees)
  • Large companies, multi-nationals

    • Partners

    • SEE Telecom
    • Modyva
    • Thales Alenia Space
    • Icare
    • DGO6
    • Région Wallonne
    • Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB)
      University
      https://www.ulb.be/
    • Université de Mons (UMons)
    • DGO4
    • Odometric
    • Université catholique de Mons
    • Mecatech
    • Haute Ecole Louvain en Hainaut
    Last updated: 01/09/18 13:56