SZTAKI had a very successful year in 2017, too!

2017 brought to our Institute numerous high-profile professional programmes, scientific cooperation opportunities and industrial innovations. Besides our best-of-breed activities in basic research our staff concentrated intensively on developing solutions for the private sector as well as defining new services to the benefit of the community and society.

This year, too, researchers and developers of SZTAKI were active to publish papers in the world’s most prestigious scientific periodicals. They had membership in the most outstanding scientific gremia and forums, and they were invited as lecturers or full-time professors by universities of high international reputation.

The following summary is a brief presentation of the most relevant facts of our success.

Achievements of 2017, relevant from domestic or international aspect:

• After being awarded as a 2nd place winner of the H2020 Teaming Call, the project EPIC – ‘Centre of Excellence in Production Informatics and Control’ was launched the aim of which is to establish a Centre of Excellence able to produce considerable results in the field of the cyber-physical production and logistic systems;
• Our Institute has been granted membership in EIT Digital, one of the European elite knowledge centres;
• The Industry 4.0 National Technology Platform founded in 2016 under SZTAKI’s leadership has assumed the legal entity form of an Association;
• The task of developing the prototype of a UAV-UUV hybrid drone has started in the frame of the GINOP-2.2.1-15-2016-00028 R&D programme;
• The IKOMP R&D project involving the automotive industry, electronics, production of individual machinery and processing of plastics has been closed successfully;
• International Researchers of Technical Diagnostics in the organisation of IMEKO – International Measurement Confederation held their conference in Budapest;
• The project VKSZ_14-1-2015-0125 aiming the ‘Design of partially automated vehicle platforms for the support of safe and dependable driving performance’ has also terminated with positive results;
• The 5G Coalition in Hungary has been formed with the participation of our Institute;
• A patent application for the combination of the fluorescent microscopy and digital holographic microscopy has been filed;
• Within the scope of the project ‘Industry 4.0 Research and Innovation Centre of Excellence’ our new research laboratory incorporating the mini demonstration manufacturing and logistic system of the Institute of Vehicle Technologies of the Széchenyi István University has been inaugurated at SZTAKI’s premises in the city of Győr;
• The competition for the title ’Factory of the Year 2017’ was launched by SZTAKI;
• We delivered a presentation on Industry 4.0 at the II. Opel Scientific Conference;
• SZTAKI held a live Lidaros presentation at the Frankfurt Motor Show;
• The 2017 Workshop on Technics Philosophy was co-organised in Budapest by SZTAKI;
• The product developed by the eLearning Department of SZTAKI was awarded the ‘Best practice eLearning Quality Prize’;
• We organised for the first time the INDIGO Industrial Digitisation Day which proved to be a great professional success;
• SZTAKI participated successfully at AUTOMOTIVE HUNGARY and the 5th International Exhibition of Automotive Supplier Firms as well as at the event ‘The Days of Industry 2017’;
• SZTAKI was present with its own stand at the Exhibition of Vehicle Industry and Logistics;
• The results of SZTAKI’s developments related to virtual reality were presented with success at the Websummit;
• We had negotiations with Audi Hungaria on the challenges the automotive industry is facing and also on future cooperation opportunities;
• A unique 3D development project has been started at Pécs with SZTAKI as consortium member;
• SZTAKI has developed an optical waste separation device;
• We started the development of the control mechanism of unmanned underwater vehicles produced by 3D printers from polymers dissolvable in salty water;
• A senior research fellow of SZTAKI has won the 2017 Technical Award of the Japan Society for Precision Engineering (JSPE);
• This year two people from SZTAKI were inaugurated as members (one full and one corresponding) of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences;
• We celebrated the 10th year anniversary of the fruitful cooperation with HITACHI Yokohama Research Institute;
• GUIDE@HAND, the new generation mobile application family was substantially enhanced.

Our initiatives in 2017 with respect to corporate social responsibility and societal value creation:

• We developed a number of mobile phone applications which are downloadable free of charge, among them the first Hungarian application on film-tourism GUIDE@HAND Film Destination Budapest and the healthcare service D+ Sport;
• SZTAKI supported several national cultural and social programs by developing special smart phone applications, e.g. for the Fall Festival of the Hungarian Museums, the Museums’ Night, the National Nature Reserve of the Fossils at Ipolytarnóc or for the Week of Communities and the fans of the Dunaferr Football Club;
• SZTAKI contributed as co-organiser to the Budapest Open Knowledge Meetup addressing the topic of the publicly accessible building data and their data formats;
• Our lecturers / coaches and students obtained outstanding results at the Students’ Scientific Competition TDK and OTDK;
• The winners of the National Talent Programme were receive by SZTAKI at an interactive VR demo event;
• We presented our development projects to about 400 interested visitors at the event ‘Researchers’ Night’, for the first time at our premises both in Budapest and Győr;
• The Digital Thematic Week 2017 was supported by our exhibition guides;
• We published on web and VR platforms interactive ball panorama camera shots to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the birth of the Hungarian poet Mihály Tompa;
• We were guest editors of the ERCIM News, October 2017 issue on the topic ‘digital humanities’;
• We showed to the public by ball panorama camera the view seen on the top of the high diving tower built for FINA 2017;
• An outdoor orientation competition and a GPS based walk by smart phone was organised by SZTAKI on the ‘Day of Poetry at Ferencváros (9th district)’ ;
• We celebrated that the internet service in Hungary was launched 26 years ago under the logo and web address of our Institute;
• We held several presentations at the ‘Feast of the Hungarian Science’ event;
• We disseminated to the public the experiences gained with the MTA CLOUD service.

Internal events:

• The Systems and Control Lab received experts from the US arriving to the presentation and technical demonstration of the R&D project ’Sense and Avoid’;
• We presented our Smart Factory robotic demo plant and SZTAKI’s recent achievements in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) at the event of the initiative ‘Asian Diplomats’ Days’organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade;
• We hosted several times the members of our external Advisory Board and the Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences;
• We awarded special prizes to our most successful researchers;
• We hosted Professor Réka Albert from the Pennsylvania State University who delivered a lecture to the SZTAKI staff;
• We organised again the Institute’s Family Day which was a great success;
• In December we received Santa Claus at the Institute to the great fun of the children of our staff.

We shall endeavour to keep you informed on our research and development activity in 2018 at the same high level as before. We thank our friends and partners for their support and wish all of them a Happy and Successful New Year!