The Intelligent Systems research group investigates problems of a practical nature that are typically characterised by complex operations reflected by large data sets that should be mined to discover currently unknown relationships inherent to these systems.

In the process of doing research in this field, the group to study the application domain (e.g. transportation, mining, security or pattern recognition), collect the required data sets, extract features from the data, process the data by way of classification or predictive modelling and generate diagnostic reports that can be used for management purposes. In some cases, the group also builds simulation models for the underlying systems in order to perform scenario analysis for cases where physical experiments are too complex or expensive.

The group performs work in the fields of road transportation, cross-border trade corridors, security installations, mining operations, IT security systems, sound and video recognition and others and finance. In all cases practical problems are addressed as identified by industry partners, e.g. more intelligent overload control, improved efficiency in cross-border processes, more accurate security surveillance systems, reconciling conflicting safety and efficiency objectives in mining, recognition of advertisements in broadcasting data and development of financial prediction models.

Partnerships: 

WTO, SANRAL, SAAF, World Bank, N3 Toll Concession, Imperial Logistics, Techsolutions, Crest Advisory, Fidelity, Security, merSETA and others

Achievements:

  • Two World Bank funded projects on Trade and Transport Corridors were completed in 2018 and 2019
  • merSETA funding was awarded in 2020 for a project titled Industry 4.0: Intelligent Value Chains
  • The group leader was selected as part of the SANRAL Research Panel in 2019
  • Over the past 5 years the group published more than
  • Over the past 5 years the group published more than 10 articles in accredited journals and made more than 20 presentations at peer-reviewed international conferences.

Contact details:

For more information on the group’s research contact prof. Alwyn Hoffman at:

Email: Alwyn.Hoffman@nwu.ac.za