The Innovation Design Canvas: a management tool to move from innovative research to business

The 21st dmi:Academic Design Research Conference ’Next Wave’ addressed new design knowledge being created, the new forms of practice emerging, and how design research and practice can stimulate and learn from each other

ELECTRIC VEHICLE AND SUSTAINABLE MOBILITY: AN INNOVATIVE INTERFACE

The paper presents a concept of an innovative interaction structure for a digital electric vehicle (EV) dashboard. The structure connects interactions between vehicle, driver and traffic infrastructure, in order to help users driving in a conscious way, informing them about their performances and providing tools able to modify driving behaviour. Through the Systemic Design approach, it is possible to move from a quantitative configuration (set on consumption) to a new one set on resource optimization. The achievement is a new layout for the information visualization system designed for an electric vehicle able to communicate to the driver the environmental impact of its drive style

GreenTeam. A new educative approach to sustainable design

Sustainability, meaning its three pillars, social, economic and environmental, is by now a prerequisite in the design phase and one of the mandatory topics in educational programs, both for future designers and other professions. This happens even more if the project theme concerns mobility or waste management, fields in which daily behaviours impact on the system, the ones adopted by teenagers as well. Is it possible and correct to use an academic teaching methodology, based on participation and learner-teacher mutual exchange, that usually works with adult and motivated people, with a group of high school students? If the actors of the system already adopt sustainable behaviours for contingent reasons and lack of resources rather than the real will and awareness, what are the actions to be taken? The paper answers these questions through the analysis of a direct experience of the authors: GreenTeam

POLITO INNOVATION DESIGN LAB: THE CASE STUDY OF INNOVATION DESIGN FOR FOOD

The Polito Innovation Design Lab is a University laboratory created to research and promotes initiatives that help to reach innovative project and broaden the culture of sustainable innovation. The mission of the lab is to manage, coordinate and carry out research projects about products, services or models able to meet real needs of people with a regards to territorial potential perspectives of technology, environment, economics, culture and social sciences. In this paper is presented the Innovation Design For Food (IDF) case study. The innovation challenges faced in this project aimed to redefine, reshape and produce social, economic and environment impacts and effects with a sustainable perspective in the different district of the city using the food as an enabling factor. The final scope of the project was to train and experiment the ability of sustainable design process to enhance a special context or territory, starting from the resources currently present in it. The paper presented is divided in two sections, the first go through an introduction and an explanation of the methodology and the design process adopted to achieve the results presented in the second section of the paper

Innovation Design for Food

What is the relation between design, food, and Innovation? How these elements influence and interact each other? Finally, what kind of opportunity they offer in our society? The answers to these questions are the challenge of the Innovation Design for Food project developed during the last three years in the Innovation Laboratory. The purpose of the research and the educational path, linked to it, was to understand changes and evolutions, that can take place in the context of the Turin city to develop innovative projects, spreading and enabling social, sustainable and economic value through the food topic. As a source of well- being, a symbolic element of identity and a vehicle for interaction between different cultures, the food topic was the carrier innovation source that has allowed the development of about 27 innovative projects

From Territory Patrimony to Food Innovation Design

Mainly characterized by culture and tradition, the territories change and communities enhance themselves, always requiring more ways of interaction and communication. It is precisely these characteristics that bring new challenges, which can only be answered by enabling a continuous process of innovation and requalification through the collaborative path of research and constant dialogue between the actors involved. Know-how, cultures, and techniques related to innovation, defined as a mix of shapes and disciplines, are the main topics of the Innovation Design Laboratory of the Politecnico di Torino which fix itself the goal to teach and understand changes and evolutions that can take place in the various fields, developing concepts and projects of impact. This is the aim of the Food Innovation Design project, where through the food topic, it was possible to open new design opportunities able to meet the particular contextual need by forecasting and transmitting value with their action enabling sustainable innovation. This paper presents the path of the project with the explanation of the design process adopted within his methodology and three real outcomes. As a case studies, choose among the most critical area of the Turin's neighborhood, they explain how it was possible to transform the endogenous resources in new innovative value able to increase the quality of life of his inhabitant

Insights into the Sensing Mechanism of a Metal-Oxide Solid Solution via Operando Diffuse Reflectance Infrared Fourier Transform Spectroscopy

Recently, the influence of Nb addition in the oxide solid solution of Sn and Ti was investigated with regard to the morphological, structural and electrical properties for the production of chemoresistive gas sensors. (Sn,Ti,Nb)xO2-based sensors showed promising features for ethanol monitoring in commercial or industrial settings characterized by frequent variation in relative humidity. Indeed, the three-metal solid solution highlighted a higher response level vs. ethanol than the most widely used SnO2 and a remarkably low effect of relative humidity on the film resistance. Nevertheless, lack of knowledge still persists on the mechanisms of gas reaction occurring at the surface of these nanostructures. In this work, operando Diffuse Reflectance Infrared Fourier Transform spectroscopy was used on SnO2- and on (Sn,Ti,Nb)xO2-based sensors to combine the investigations on the transduction function, i.e., the read-out of the device activity, with the investigations on the receptor function, i.e., compositional characterization of the active sensing element in real time and under operating conditions. The sensors performance was explained by probing the interaction of H2O and ethanol molecules with the material surface sites. This information is fundamental for fine-tuning of material characteristics for any specific gas sensing applications

Sub-ppm NO2 Detection through Chipless RFID Sensor Functionalized with Reduced SnO2

NO2 is an important environmental pollutant and is harmful to human health even at very low concentrations. In this paper, we propose a novel chipless RFID sensor able to work at room temperature and to detect sub-ppm concentration of NO2 in the environment. The sensor is made of a metallic resonator covered with NO2-sensitive tin oxide and works by monitoring both the frequency and the intensity of the output signal. The experimental measurements show a fast response (a few minutes) but a very slow recovery. The sensor could therefore be used for non-continuous threshold monitoring. However, we also demonstrated that the recovery can be strongly accelerated upon exposure to a UV source. This opens the way to the reuse of the sensor, which can be easily regenerated after prolonged exposure and recycled several times

Fabrication of a Highly NO2-Sensitive Gas Sensor Based on a Defective ZnO Nanofilm and Using Electron Beam Lithography

Hazardous substances produced by anthropic activities threaten human health and the green environment. Gas sensors, especially those based on metal oxides, are widely used to monitor toxic gases with low cost and efficient performance. In this study, electron beam lithography with two-step exposure was used to minimize the geometries of the gas sensor hotplate to a submicron size in order to reduce the power consumption, reaching 100 °C with 0.09 W. The sensing capabilities of the ZnO nanofilm against NO2 were optimized by introducing an enrichment of oxygen vacancies through N2 calcination at 650 °C. The presence of oxygen vacancies was proven using EDX and XPS. It was found that oxygen vacancies did not significantly change the crystallographic structure of ZnO, but they significantly improved the electrical conductivity and sensing behaviors of ZnO film toward 5 ppm of dry air