Head: prof. zw. dr hab. inż. Ryszard Tadeusiewicz

DA&BE www site

The Department of Automatics and Biomedical Engineering (DA&BE) belongs to the biggest scientific and didactic units at AGH-UST. It laid bases for all modern technologies and study lines, which originated from system and computer sciences. Gradually, as the teams at the Department were developing, new units were created, increasing and strengthening the "Electrical Faculty". At present 88 persons are employed at the Department, occupying space in 4 university buildings. Apart from didactics, the Department staff carries out research works on automatics, robotics, biocybernetics, bioengineering, applied computer science and system sciences. This Department is responsible for two study lines, i.e. Automatics and Robotics, and Biomedical Engineering, and also two postgraduate studies. The scientific achievements of the DA&BE staff cover theoretical and application studies in: computer control systems, photovoltaics, computer science for medicine, biomedical engineering, vision systems for image recognition and processing, computer science for production processes control and management. About 300 publications are issued by the DA&BE scientists each year.

A number of Polish and foreign research programs are realized at the Department, i.e. TEMPUS, COST, ERASMUS, ESPRIT II, ATLANTIS, KIC. Besides, a close cooperation is maintained with other universities in Poland and abroad, e.g. in France, Denmark, Belgium, Greece, Portugal, Czech Republic, Germany, Bulgaria, Turkey, Sweden, Russia, Ukraine and U.S.A.

The DA&BE staff creates teams of specialists; there are 17 independent academicians (in that 10 full professors), 36 PhD adjuncts and 22 assistants. They are members of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland, Central Committee for Scientific Degrees and Titles, Central Council of Higher Education and many international organizations (e.g. IEEE, IASTED, ACM, SPIE).

The Department owns 24 laboratories housing unique research setups of: distilling process, magnetic bearings, reversible pendulum, robots, large-area cells and photovoltaic towers, neural networks, image recognition systems, biomedical devices and informatic systems.

The research topics realized at the DA&BE cover:

• Advanced methodologies of process control: optimization methods, stabilization of dynamic processes, modelling, observation and identification of dynamic systems, algorithms of distributed digital control, stability and optimal control with non-linear systems, mathematic theory of control for abstract systems, programming of microprocessors and embedded systems, for real-time applications, methods of movement and transport systems control.

• Biocybernetics and biomedical engineering: representation of information in neural networks, software and hardware analysis and digital image processing and implementation in FPGA systems, automatic recognition and intelligent understanding of medical images, processing and recognition of speech, techniques aiding medical diagnostics, methods of signal compression and coding, cryptography methods.

• Industrial computer science: informatic systems for management, informatic management tools (SAP), mathematical discrete models and algorithms of solving management problems at operating level, implementation of management systems, data warehouses and their use in CRM modules.

• Apparatuses: apparatuses for automatics and robotics, dedicated robot controllers employing dSpace and RTW WinTarget, photovoltaic systems, managing energy from renewable sources.

• Operational and System Research: modelling and optimization of NP-difficult discrete tasks, optimization of discrete problems with nature-inspired methods, operational research, service systems and queuing networks modelling, industrial marketing, reliability and quality theory, decision aiding methods and storing of knowledge, multicriteria optimization.