Smart Buildings & Cities PDEng program

The Smart Buildings & Cities (SB&C) PDEng program wants to contribute to the transition towards smart, intelligent and sustainable cities where quality of life is high. This transition requires new solutions which can only be created through multiscale and transdisciplinary (design) approaches. This requires technical designers who are able to work in a multidisciplinary environment and know how to communicate with different disciplines and stakeholders. This PDEng program educates trainees to become those technical designers! Please note that this program is about technological design, i.e., the process of solving problems by means of a technological design, this in contrast to (PhD) research, which is the process of understanding problems.

After the two year program, our trainees become technical designers with a broad technological understanding of the disciplines relevant to the above mentioned smart cities themes (architecture, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, building physics and services and ICT), who excel in their own discipline and who are able to work in multidisciplinary design teams, contribute to design issues outside their own core disciplines, integrate different technologies into new products and concepts, and who understand the commercial aspects of these innovative products and concepts.

For more information on the SB&C PDEng program, please check our website: www.tue.nl/sbc



Job description

The Department of the Built Environment of the Eindhoven University of Technology offers you a trainee position to follow a two-year post-master technological designer program, which leads to the degree of 'Professional Doctorate in Engineering' (PDEng). The program consists of two main parts running in parallel:

- Half of the program consists of post-master level education in the form of generic design projects and courses about design methods, entrepreneurship and professional skills. Furthermore, it includes several technical courses about topics relevant to SB&C. This part of the program also offers ample opportunity to develop professional skills.

- The other half of the program is dedicated to an individual design project in collaboration with a company. It is the trainee's main responsibility to manage and execute the project. Each trainee is supported by an advisor from the company and an advisor from the university. A business plan for implementation or marketing of the designed product or process is part of the final deliverables.



The company design project related to this traineeship is described below.



Municipalities increasingly invest in energy-efficient lighting such as LED, achieving energy reductions of ~22%. These technologies alone are insufficient to reach the cities' targets on energy efficiency and CO2 emissions. This has led to small scale pilots with intelligent lighting systems that adjust lighting intensity to the actual needs, allowing as much as 60% reduction in energy consumption. However, only by addressing the unique and diverse requirements of municipalities, who are largely focussed on the citizens and their perspectives, we can make the move towards large-scale uptake of high energy-saving innovations. In the Interreg Smart Spaces project, municipalities and key innovation stakeholders (research institutes, SMEs, enterprises and associations) from NL, BE, FR and IE jointly: 

• Develop and implement an interoperable smart lighting platform technology
• Monitor and evaluate the smart lighting implementations
• Foster long-term and large-scale roll-out.

Goal

The goal of this PDEng project is to design, develop and test a method to monitor and evaluate the impact of the implementation of the smart lighting platform (using interoperable smart lighting controls on new and existing lighting poles) on public lighting energy reduction, public space safety and liveability.



Activities

The evaluation of the smart sensor platform and its implementation with a focus on the social aspects of the light solutions:

• Define assessment parameters in line with the use cases
• Design an evaluation model
• Conduct a baseline measurement

Impact assessment of the smart lighting solutions:

• Compare the interim and final results of the implementation on the specified set of parameters to baseline level to establish the impact of the implementation per pilot and overall.

Monitoring and evaluating the implementation process:

• Identify additional obstacles and barriers for the implementation. Asses value and develop a sustainable business model by analyzing the solution with respect to energy reductions and their added value for users in different contexts; Integration of the outcomes of all municipalities to establish lessons learned on implementation process.

The PDEng trainee will be embedded in the Building Lighting group of the Department of the Built Environment - https://www.tue.nl/en/research/research-groups/building-lighting/  ,and will work closely together in a team with 2 other PDEng's, responsible for other aspects of the project.

Who can apply?

We are looking for:

• An excellent and highly motivated candidate with an MSc degree in Construction Management and Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Industrial Design, Building Physics or equivalent, and experience with setting up User Evaluation studies. A strong interest in user and system aspects of smart lighting and smart cities is essential.

• An interest in developing models for the implementation and evaluation of new technologies and applications for the built environment.

• An academic attitude in order to develop new methods and perform applied research with an integral view on what is needed for the future urban space in cities.

• An excellent command of the English language, both in speaking and writing. Speaking or understanding Dutch will be considered as an added value.

 

What do we provide?

We offer a fulltime traineeship of two years. The traineeship is a formal employment at the Eindhoven University of Technology according to the Collective Labour Agreement Dutch Universities (CAO-NU). Trainees receive a financial compensation according to this standard. Gross salary: € 1913.



Trainees are provided with their own work place in the building of the Department of the Built Environment. The university provides all general modern facilities belonging to first class universities; mediation in housing, excellent sports facilities, language courses, modern digital library facilities etc. For more information, please visit http://www.tue.nl/en/.