Vinnova, Sweden's innovation agency, has awarded SEK 53 million to DRIVE PR – Data-Driven Product Realisation, a major research initiative on more efficient and reliable ways to develop complex products. The grant comes through Vinnova's Advanced Digitalisation programme and is part of close to SEK 100 million awarded to Chalmers in the same call.
DRIVE PR is led from Chalmers' Department of Mechanical Engineering together with the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Fraunhofer-Chalmers Centre (FCC), with Professor Ola Isaksson as project leader. It brings together four research groups at the Wingquist Laboratory, the research institute RISE, and industrial partners Volvo Group, Scania, Saab, GKN Aerospace, Hitachi Energy, IKEA and Autoliv.
The project tackles inefficiency in product development by integrating digital infrastructure, advanced connectivity (5G/6G), AI and machine learning, and physics-based simulation. A central goal is to cut the costs of uncertainty, variation and risk by 50 percent compared to a 2026 baseline, strengthening the competitiveness of Swedish manufacturing.
For the Systems Engineering Design group, DRIVE PR opens a new wave of activity, building on a 2025 feasibility study and extending the group's work on model-based and systems engineering approaches to early product realisation.