The Autonomous Edge - Intelligence Embedded in Industrial Applications

The Autonomous Edge – Intelligence Embedded in Industrial Applications explores the technological transformation taking place at the intersection of artificial intelligence, edge computing, autonomous systems, and industrial applications. Bringing together contributions from researchers and practitioners across multiple disciplines, the book presents a comprehensive perspective on how intelligence is increasingly moving from centralised cloud infrastructures directly into vehicles, robots, manufacturing systems, smart cities, critical infrastructures, and embedded devices.

The chapters examine how next-generation edge AI systems are being designed to operate under strict constraints involving latency, energy consumption, privacy, safety, reliability, and real-time responsiveness. The book covers a wide spectrum of technologies, including AI-defined vehicles, continual learning, lightweight neural networks, vision transformers, graph neural networks, digital twins, semantic mapping, multimodal perception, and distributed AI pipelines optimised for deployment on edge hardware.

A central theme throughout the book is the transition from isolated edge AI models toward integrated, adaptive, and autonomous edge intelligence architectures. The presented solutions combine advances in hardware acceleration, embedded edge AI optimisation, communication infrastructures, explainable edge AI, and real-time processing to enable practical deployment in demanding industrial environments. Applications range from autonomous systems, mobility and smart manufacturing to cybersecurity, environmental monitoring, urban safety, and hydrogen infrastructure management.

The book addresses broader challenges associated with autonomous systems, including transparency, liability, ethical decision-making, robustness, and trustworthiness. By combining theoretical foundations with implementation experiences and experimental validations, the chapters provide both scientific insight and practical guidance for researchers, engineers, architects, and decision-makers working on the next generation of intelligent industrial systems at the edge.

Positioned at the convergence of edge AI, autonomous systems, and industrial digitalisation, the book offers a forward-looking view of how distributed intelligence is reshaping the physical world and enabling a new generation of adaptive, efficient, and edge autonomous industrial applications.

Dr. Ovidiu Vermesan holds a Ph.D. degree in microelectronics and a Master of International Business (MIB) degree. He is Chief Scientist at SINTEF Digital, Oslo, Norway. His research interests are intelligent systems integration, mixed-signal embedded electronics, analogue neural networks, edge artificial intelligence and cognitive communication systems. Dr. Vermesan received SINTEF’s 2003 award for research excellence for his work on implementing a biometric sensor system. He is currently working on projects addressing nanoelectronics, integrated sensor/actuator systems, communication, cyber-physical systems (CPSs) and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), with applications in green mobility, energy, autonomous systems, and smart cities. He has authored or co-authored over 100 technical articles and conference papers. He is actively involved in the activities of the European partnership for Key Digital Technologies (KDT) Joint Undertaking (JU), now the Chips JU. He has coordinated and managed various national, EU and other international projects related to smart sensor systems, integrated electronics, electromobility and intelligent autonomous systems such as E3Car, POLLUX, CASTOR, IoE, MIRANDELA, IoF2020, AUTOPILOT, AutoDrive, ArchitectECA2030, AI4DI, AI4CSM. Dr. Vermesan actively participates in national, Horizon Europe and other international initiatives by coordinating and managing various projects. He is a member of the Alliance for AI, IoT and Edge Continuum Innovation (AIOTI) board. He is currently the coordinator of the Edge AI Technologies for the Optimised Performance Embedded Processing (EdgeAI) project.

Dr. Fetze Pijlman is a principal scientist in artificial intelligence at Signify Research, bringing over 20 years of experience in translating complex technological challenges into impactful real-world applications. His primary focus lies at the forefront of edge AI and connected IoT systems. He has been deeply involved in the European EdgeAI project, serving as a project leader for initiatives involving computer vision, radar, and RF sensing, while also leading the Dutch consortium on edge AI. His hands-on work includes the exploration and development of distributed AI and autonomous AI-agents tailored for large-scale sensor networks and edge devices. Furthermore, he is a key stakeholder in the NWO FIND project, driving collaborative academic research on foundation models for industry. He has extensive expertise in analysing and forecasting time series of events, successfully applying reinforcement learning, variational Bayes, and statistical modelling to enable self-learning wireless mesh networks for human activity recognition. Holding a Ph.D. in theoretical subatomic physics from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Dr. Pijlman applies this analytical rigor in his dual role as a hands-on algorithm architect and project leader, driving innovation across intelligent, distributed edge ecosystems.