The Systems Engineering Laboratory is one of the eight laboratories of the Department of Process Engineering at the Faculty of Technology at University of Oulu. The staff consists of two professors, laboratory manager, three senior assistants, two assistants, one lecturer and two part-time teachers. They all receive their salaries from the University and have duties in education and laboratory management as well as in research. In addition, there are a number of full-time researchers who are working in basic or applied research, financed by other recources.

The laboratory is responsible for teaching basic systems engineering to students in the Departments of Process Engineering, Electrical Engineering (Line of Computer Science) and Mechanical Engineering (Line of Computer Science). The laboratory gives also education on advanced control theory, digital control theory and the technique of digital automation. Currently the number of students is about 350 in basic courses, and about 30 in advanced courses per year. Moreover, there are a number of postgraduate courses for students, who are working for the degrees of Licentiate and Doctor of Technology. The research activities of Systems Engineering Laboratory are closely related to the long-term research on power plant control as well as the groups working with the mixers, pump-valve systems, and fieldbus technology.

The Systems Engineering Laboratory participates in the Infotech Oulu, with special focus on advanced control methods. Infotech Oulu is a research centre founded at the University of Oulu for the purpose of promoting long term research in information technology.

The Systems Engineering Laboratory is also participating in the COSY (Control of Complex Systems) programme of the ESF (European Science Foundation). The COSY Programme aims to promote a multi-disciplinary activity which will enable basic theory to be furthered on control science and systems modelling and integration. More precisely, we are with the COSY-Theme-3 on Learning Control Systems. The interests of COSY-Theme-3 are focused on multi-input learning systems, variable structure learning systems, learning laws for real-time learning, and the incorporation of a priori and symbolic knowledge. Also intelligent estimation theory, probability of learning systems, learning system performance, and development of hybrid networks (e.g. neuro-fuzzy algorithms) are in the scope of COSY-Theme-3.

Systems Engineering Laboratory is running several projects, both national and international. Some of the most important are EC financed Defitra (Development of Fieldbus Training), the project that we are coordinating, and ChaCo (The Characterization of Flotation Froth Structure and Colour by Machine Vision). The projects "Advanced Methods in Processes Associated with Problems in Observability and Supervision" and "Advanced Modelling and Control of Industrial Processes" are financed by the Academy of Finland. Furthermore, we run continually several research projects in cooperation with our industrial partners.