Elite researcher funding for safety-critical systems

28-year-old Andreas Engelbredt Dalsgaard from the Department of Computer Science at Aalborg University today receives one of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Higher Education's special travel grants for young elite researchers. He intends to spend the DKK 300,000 on research within modern safety-ctritical systems.

The travel grant enables the PhD student from Aalborg to go on an extended stay of six to eight months' duration at a research group at Twente University in Holland. The group has extensive experience within both the technology and the theoretical and practical perspectives on the field within which Andreas Engelbredt Dalsgaard is working. In addition, he plans to go on trips to collaborators in Germany in connection to the research project.

Andreas Engelbredt Dalsgaard works within embedded systems where the software is well hidden away. He focuses in particular on situations when time is crucial.

- A typical example is ensuring that the an air-bag is released at the right time. This needs to happen with great accuracy in order to save the passenger's life, Andreas Engelbredt Dalsgaard explains.

His interest in the field of research began in connection with his Master's Thesis within computer science which concerned the very topic of finding time limits in embedded systems.

- Along with two other students, I showed that it was possible to use a combination of two computer-science techniques - static program analysis and so-called model checking - in order to determine time limits and ensure that the systems function correctly. By exploring new ways of combining the two techniques, my goal now is to find solutions to the development of the safety-critical systems of the future, which will be larger and more complex than they are today, Andreas Engelbredt Dalsgaard says.

Part of the challenge will be exploring the possibility of creating a schedulable tool that utilises modern hardware. Up until now, this has proven difficult.

Andreas Engelbredt Dalsgaard will be honoured along with the other recipients of EliteResearch awards and EliteResearcher travel grants at a large conference on Thursday afternoon at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen. Among the participants are Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary and Minister of Higher Education Morten Østergaard.

More information:

• Andreas Engelbredt Dalsgaard's research is funded by the transport-focused EU initiative MBAT (Combined Model-based Analysis and Testing of Embedded Systems) and the Danish research collaboration CJ4ES (Certifiable Java for Embedded Systems).

• The EliteResearch programme under the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Higher Education is a framework for initiatives aimed at finding, supporting and nursing some of Denmark's leading and most talented researchers. The EliteResearch travel grant numbers DKK 300,000 and contributes to giving very talented PhD students the chance to go on extensive study visits at the world's leading research environments. See more at eliteforsk.dk.

• PhD student Andreas Engelbredt Dalsgaard, Department of Computer Science, Aalborg University, tel. +45 9940 9859, mobile +45 6011 0868.

• Science journalist Carsten Nielsen, Aalborg University, mobile +45 2340 6554.