THEMATIC SESSION #35
From Soft Sensors to Measuring Systems: Metrological Characterization and Uncertainty Evaluation
ORGANIZED BY
Loredana Cristaldi
Loredana Cristaldi
Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy
Salvatore Graziani
Salvatore Graziani
University of Catania, Italy
Maria Gabriella Xibilia
Maria Gabriella Xibilia
University of Messina, Italy
Luca Martiri
Luca Martiri
Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy
THEMATIC SESSION DESCRIPTION
Industry 4.0 & 5.0 call for continuous monitoring of process variables, parameters, and operating conditions. Measurement systems support supervision and control and are increasingly embedded into digital-twin architectures, where the physical process and its digital representation are continuously aligned through data and models. In this integrated setting, soft sensors (SSs)—data-driven and/or model-based estimators—collaborate with conventional instrumentation to enhance process observability, introduce information redundancy, and facilitate monitoring when direct sensing is challenging, intermittent, or costly.
Recent machine-learning methods have improved SS performance. Still, a key barrier to industrial adoption is rigorous metrological characterization of SS outputs, especially uncertainty evaluation under real operating conditions. This Thematic Session focuses on uncertainty-aware SS design and assessment, including validation and maintenance for time-variant systems, feature/data selection, outliers and drift, interpretability supporting uncertainty assessment, and transfer learning while preserving metrological consistency.
ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS
Loredana Cristaldi (S’91–M’01–SM’06) received the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Catania, Catania, in 1992, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy, in 1995. In 1999, she joined the Dipartimento di Elettrotecnica, Politecnico di Milano as an Assistant Professor of electrical and electronic measurements. She is a Full Professor with the Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano. Her current research interests include the measurement of electric quantities under nonsinusoidal conditions, virtual instruments, and measurement methods for reliability, monitoring, and fault diagnosis. Prof. Cristaldi is a Counsellor of the IEEE Student Branch of the Politecnico di Milano and a member of the TC 315 CEI (WG6) and TC56 CEI.
Salvatore Graziani, received the M.S. degree in electronic engineering and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the UniversitĂ degli Studi di Catania, Italy, in 1990 and 1994, respectively. Since 1990, he has been with the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica, Elettronica e Informatica, UniversitĂ di Catania, where he is a Full Professor of Electric and electronic measurement and instrumentation. His primary research interests lie in the field of sensors, polymeric sensors and actuators. He has co-authored several scientific papers and books.
Maria Gabriella Xibilia, received the M.S. degree in Electronic Engineering and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Catania, Italy, in 1991 and 1995, respectively. Since 1998, she has been with the Department of Engineering, University of Messina, Italy, where she is currently an Associate Professor of Automatic Control. She co-authored more than 140 scientific papers and 5 books. Her current research interests include system identification, soft sensors, process control, nonlinear systems, fractional order systems and machine learning.
Luca Martiri received the M.Sc. degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2023. He is currently a Ph.D. student in the Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria at Politecnico di Milano. His research focuses on fault diagnostics in industrial systems and on modeling and analyzing uncertainty in machine learning predictions to improve their reliability.
