Interview with Alessandro Zanni, PhD‑student from University of Bologna
In May PhD-student Alessandro Zanni from the University of Bologna came to Mid Sweden University for a two month long research visit as a new step of international collaborations between the two universities within the area of communication systems and network.
Alessandro first arrived to Sundsvall and Mid Sweden University on May 14th for a two month long research visit. It was thanks to Alessandro´s professor Antonio Corradi that he got in contact with Prof. Mikael Gidlund at Mid Sweden University. Prof. Corradi and Prof. Gidlund who both work within the same research field wanted to extend the relationship between the two universities with new collaborations and PhD-student Alessandro Zanni´s research visit is also within this perspective.
What do you think of Sundsvall and Sweden so far?
- This is my second visit to Sweden. I have been on a vacation in Stockholm before but Sundsvall is quite different with the forest around the corner. It have been a lot of work this time but it have been a nice experience, says Alessandro.
At his visit Alessandro has worked together with researchers Dr. Stefan Forsström and Dr. Ulf Jennehag at Mid Sweden University. In his work he has focus on fog computing/edge computing and cloud services in the area of distributed systems.
What is your research about?
- I have investigated an intermediate fog computing middleware layer to overcome the limitation of a direct connection between Cloud computing and Internet of Things. The purpose is to build a platform that handles Cloud computing in a correct way and, at the same time, satisfies Internet of Things requirements, such as real-time behavior, devices mobility and interoperability, security, and privacy, and so on. The fog computing infrastructure can be used in a wide range of application, such as in vehicular network for autonomous vehicles management or for smart traffic light systems, but also in industrial application, smart grid or smart building scenarios, Alessandro explains.
What will be the result of your work?
- We have been working a lot during my visit and we are writing a paper on the results of our work that we hope will be published. I will finish my PhD in November after that I hope to continue my career within research, maybe as a postdoc. I really like research, it is challenging you to improve your knowledge and you get in contact with cutting edge technology, Alessandro summarize.
