Fredrik Asplund

I am an Associate Professor and Docent in cyber-physical systems (CPS) with a focus on safety practice. My research interests include system safety, system/software engineering, innovation ecosystems, empirical software engineering and engineering education.

Prior to joining academia I worked in the telecommunications industry as a software architect responsible for the porting of software to new embedded platforms. My original focus area and the focus of my dissertation was the safety implications of software tools used for the development of CPS. Since then, my interests have extended to more behaviour-shaping constraints with safety implications affecting engineers developing CPS, i.e., aspects of the sociotechnical system surrounding these engineers that can constrain their ability to perform their work with the required flexibility to ensure safety. Specifically, this has meant that I have studied the impact of (safety-related) standards on engineers, and how to enhance the connection between developers and operators for the benefit of safety (as related to e.g., software/systems engineering methodology, DevOps, and human-centred design).

Currently, the main application domains of the research projects I have been involved in are the automotive and maritime domains. In these projects the focus has often been on autonomous, highly automated and connected vehicles, and their implications in extreme situations – e.g., for ensuring resilience or (when accidents are unavoidable) mitigating injury.