Northern lights, engineering research and Automatic Control

Northern lights and a fascination for astronomy steered Dina Shona Laila, Professor and Head of Subject of Automatic Control, to Luleå University of Technology. Now she wants to develop Sweden’s strongest research group in Automatic Control, technology focusing on applied research in instrumentation for control and monitoring.

Dina Shona Laila’s interest in Control Engineering originally stems from an interest in mathematics. While she has a degree in Electrical and Electronic, she has specialized in Control Engineering as an undergraduate in the Institute of Technology Bandung, Indonesia. Her PhD, obtained from the University of Melbourne, Australia, was about nonlinear sampled-data control systems and had a very theoretical approach. The more research she was exposed to, the more she realized that theory without application is not engineering.

– I consider myself to be an engineering researcher. We need to solve engineering problems, which are practical problems. So, bit by bit I have shifted and expanded my research area to control systems applications and instrumentation. Hopefully this also makes my research more useful, says Dina Shona Laila.

The psychologist of technology

Now her research works include various engineering applications, mainly related to vehicles, agriculture, civil structure, and electromechanical systems. Control Engineering exists in almost every field and Dina Shona Laila suggests a comparison between a control engineer and a psychologist:

– We both deal more with the “brain” of the systems, how to influence the systems to make them behave properly and desirably. Psychologists deal with human cognitive and emotional in treating mental health or psychological problems. However, a lot of psychological problems could stem from physical problems a psychologist to some extent needs to understand the physical condition and life circumstances of patients, to be able to treat their psychological problem.

Similarly, a control engineering researcher usually works to make systems function desirably and properly, by designing and implementing suitable controllers. The systems can be anything from a car braking system or engine system to an air conditioning system or a robot.

– Once we understand the system, how it works, what the functions are and in what environment it is used, we can make it function as intended, by choosing, or even designing, the right control method and applying the right strength of the control action. In other words, give the right treatment with the right dosage.

More research

Ahead of her now lies the task of building and growing, in terms of size, solid research group. She also hopes that the group will have more significant and solid contribution to education, particularly in the field of control systems engineering, in the university, and to get more funding for research, more publications and to gain more trust from funders, collaborators, and other stakeholders both internally and externally.

– I want us to be one of the strongest control research groups in Sweden. And I would like to expand the remit of our group to Control and Instrumentation, to focus not only on the theoretical and analytical aspects of control, but also to be strong in research on instrumentation for control and monitoring applications.

Before she applied for the position at Luleå University of Technology, Dina Shona Laila hadn’t even heard of the city and the university in the northernmost part of Europe. But when she realized the university was situated in the land of the northern lights, she was ready to give it a chance.

– The vacancy brochure attached to the email I received from the recruiting company said there are unique possibilities to watch the northern lights in Luleå. It was the first time I heard about Luleå, but as I am very interested in astronomy, I got very excited when reading the information in the brochure. Now, I look forward to working with and learning from others to achieve our group’s visions and goals.