Projects

Research projects I have been leading or co-leading at the Distributed Systems Research Laboratory.

Ongoing projects

Horizon Europe HORIZON-CL5-2026-02-D3-19 2027-2030

Role UTCN Project Coordinator

GenAISIS - A Pan-European Generative AI-based Digital Spine for a Software-defined Interoperable Smart Energy System

Designs, implements and validates an EU Generative-AI-powered Energy Digital Spine (EU-EDS), a software-defined digital backbone that integrates energy assets, data and intelligence into a unified Energy Meta-Operating System.

UTCN Research Activity: synthetic data generation and augmentation pipeline; federated learning and edge model compression in decentralized environments; agentic intent-driven orchestration of GenAI services and multi-actor policy-aware governance.

Horizon Europe HORIZON-CL5-2026-03-D3-20 2027-2031

Role UTCN Project Coordinator

SMART-ESS - Smart multi-layer AI-based resilient twin for advanced control of energy storage systems

Develops, validates and demonstrates at grid scale an integrated control framework for storage systems combining degradation-informed hybrid modelling, multi-service market optimisation, real-time hybrid AI control, and a progressively activated digital twin.

UTCN Research Activity: physics-informed AI models construction and operationalization, and system-level agentic digital twins for PHES integration for congestion management.

European Commission (DG ENER) 2026-2029

Role UTCN Project Coordinator

AI.Grids - Pan-European AI foundation model for electricity-grid management and planning

Pan-European initiative under the European Commission's Strategic Roadmap for Digitalisation and AI in Energy, developing sovereign AI foundation models for electricity-grid management and planning.

UTCN Research Activity: building foundational models for smart grids integrating spatio-temporal features, training pipeline and MLOps engineering.

IPCEI / PNRR 2026-2028

Role Responsible for Activity I4

SENTHICOM - SENse THInk COMmunicate

IPCEI project led by NXP Semiconductors Romania on advanced semiconductor and System-on-Chip technologies for connected, intelligent and safer vehicles and communication systems.

UTCN Research Activity: LLM-assisted interpretation of layout masks, AI-based identification of parasitic structures, and LLM-assisted generation and optimization of extraction rules.

PoCIDIF 2025-2029

Role Team leader for Intelligent applications for smart cities and environment

HRIA - Romanian Artificial Intelligence Hub

Develops a national ecosystem of excellence in Artificial Intelligence for research, development and innovation.

UTCN Research Activity: AI models for energy forecasting including multimodalities for better contextual understanding, and AI agents in smart grids with contract-based guardrails.

Horizon Europe HORIZON-CL5-2023-D3-01-15 2023-2027

Role UTCN Project Coordinator

HEDGE-IoT - Holistic Approach towards Empowerment of the DiGitalization of the Energy Ecosystem through adoption of IoT solutions

Deploys a digital framework that enhances resilience and flexibility of energy systems by placing IoT assets across levels, adding intelligence to edge and cloud layers through AI/ML, and bridging the cloud/edge continuum with federated applications.

UTCN Research Activity: computational orchestration of AI pipelines across edge-fog-cloud, federated learning and IoT integration in smart grids, and energy data space orchestration.

Completed projects (Most Relevant in the last 10 years)