Dr. ir. Dirk Bekke (lector)

Dirk Bekke was born on October 3, 1977 in De Lutte, Overijssel. After high school he started studying Applied Physics at the University of Groningen in 1996. As part of his studies, he did a research internship at the University of Oxford and at Thales. After graduating in 2002, Dirk started working as an acoustics expert at Adviesbureau De Haan. After a year, Dirk switched to the Antea Group Netherlands, as a consultant in the field of industrial sound. In May 2006, Dirk started as a senior researcher at Apollo Vredestein in the Apollo Tires Global R&D department. In that capacity, he is founder of the tire-road consortium, an open innovation center from which new (patented) technologies for tires, roads and startups have emerged. His own research concerned the human perception of tire noise and its optimization by human and physical model. Dirk Bekke obtained his PhD on this subject from the University of Twente in 2014.

Dirk has been working as a professor in Mechatronics and Systems Engineering at Saxion University of Applied Sciences since March 2016. He is co-founder of the Smart Industry Field Lab TValley, in which there is structural collaboration on research together with industry. Project-based research is initiated from a jointly defined Research, Development and Engineering Roadmap and is therefore by definition demand-driven and impactful. He is currently following a Master of Business Administration and focuses on knowledge valorisation to innovations in business.

The Mechatronics research group focuses on the development of new mechatronic technologies and wants to make them available in a modular way, such as the Lego building blocks. Mechatronics is the synergy of the engineering disciplines electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, measurement and control technology and control technology. The Mechatronics lectorate is involved in the broad application of mechatronics and robotics techniques within the domains of smart industry, precision agriculture, safety & security and inspection and maintenance of sustainable energy systems. It focuses on the development of robotic and mechatronic technologies, while also examining the effectiveness of the associated systems engineering design methodology.