2005

Funding: European Commission (FP6 IST NMP2-016680)

Duration: 1 November 2005 – 31 August 2008.

Partners: EICAS Automazione S.p.A., Italy; ACCENT srl, Italy; COMAU S.p.A., Italy; Jozef Stefan Institute, Slovenia (24); Fraunhofer IPK-FHG, Germany; ZHAW IMS Institute of Mechatronic Systems, Switzerland (183); University of Antwerp, Belgium (164); Actuation and Control Technologies S.r.l., Italy.

Description: The ARFLEX basic idea is to get a significant improvement of accuracy, flexibility and adaptability of the current industrial manipulators by providing the industrial robot field with new technologies, such as advanced control theory, new sensor devices and electronic embedded systems.

URL: http://www.arflexproject.eu

Funding: European Commission (FP6 IST-045254)

Duration: 2005 –

Partners: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V, Germany; University of Warwick, United Kingdom; Dublin City University, Ireland; Cardiff University, United Kingdom; University of Newcastle, United Kingdom; Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Etienne, France; Fatronik, Spain; Sakarya University, Spain; University of Naples Federico II, Italy.

Description: IWARD targets mainly hospitals and healthcare centres to overcome the shortages of healthcare staff – a major issue in European healthcare. Our aging society and economic pressure increase the patients-to-medics’ ratio, having an adverse effect on healthcare quality and performance. Not being able to attend all patients at the right time and not keeping the hospitals clean enough (e.g. MRSA Transmission) also increases recovery time and cost. To improve the quality of healthcare, these focal issues emerge: fast identification and location of patients needing immediate attention; reduction of human errors; effective cleaning in hospitals; wider reach of specialist medics, possibly attending patients remotely. To achieve this, IWARD presents a robot swarm delivering support to oversee activities in healthcare environments, providing a multipurpose, cost-effective and scalable solution to enhance quality of healthcare. Four major tasks are: attendance, recognition, communication and support (assisting/cleaning). Attendance means to monitor hospital wards by robots acting as a dynamic swarm. Recognition points out, that the swarm is able to recognize patients or objects needing attention, providing immediate information about the location and needs of the concerned patients. The robots can be equipped with different adaptable hardware components for floor cleaning and delivery of food, linen, medicine etc. All mobile robots are capable of providing patients and visitors with guidance and information. It provides easy to use but high tech interaction interfaces like voice control through mobile and fix-mounted robots.

URL: http://www.iward.eu

Funding: European Commission (FP6 NMP-2003-3.4.3.1-1)

Duration: 1 March 2005 – 28 February 2008.

Partners: Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Germany; ABB AB, Sweden; Lunds Universitet, Sweden; KUKA Roboter GmbH, Germany; Pro Support B.V., the Netherlands; Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy; Castings Technology International, United Kingdom; Visual Components OY, Finland; Rinas APS, Denmark; Guedel AG, Switzerland; Comau S.P.A., Italy; Associação para o Desenvolvimento do Departamento de Física - University of Coimbra, Portugal; Prospektiv - Gesellschaft fuer Betriebliche Zukunftsgestaltungen MBH, Germany; Reis GmbH & Co KG Maschinenfabrik, Germany; Gesellschaft für Produktionssysteme GmbH, Germany; Smeeig EESV, the Netherlands; Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Germany.

Description: More than 228 000 manufacturing SMEs in the EU are a crucial factor in Europe‘s competitiveness, wealth creation, quality of life and employment. To enable the EU to become the most competitive region in the world, the Commission has emphasized research efforts aimed at strengthening knowledge-based manufacturing in SMEs as agreed at the Lisbon Summit and as pointed out at MANUFUTURE-2003. However, existing automation technologies have been developed for capital-intensive large-volume manufacturing, resulting in costly and complex systems, which typically cannot be used in an SME context. Therefore, manufacturing SMEs are today caught in an ‘automation trap’: they must either opt for current and inappropriate automation solutions or compete on the basis of lowest wages. A new paradigm of affordable and flexible robot automation technology, which meets the requirements of SMEs, is called for.

This initiative is intended to exploit the potentials of industrial robots, because they constitute the most flexible existing automation technology. The consortium is set to create a radically new type of robot system - a whole family of SME-suitable robots.

The SMErobot initiative offers an escape out of the automation trap through:

1. Technology development of SME robot systems adaptable to varying degrees of automation, at a third of today‘s automation life-cycle costs;
2. New business models creating options for financing and operating robot automation given uncertainties in product volumes and life-times and to varying workforce qualification.
3. Empowering the supply chain of robot automation by focusing on the needs and culture of SME manufacturing with regard to planning, operation and maintenance.

URL: http://www.smerobot.org

Funding: European Commission (FP6 NMP-16565)

Duration: 1 May 2005 – 30 April 2008.

Partners: Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania.

Description: The objective is to increase the capacity, quality and scope of research at Product Design and Robotics Department (PDR) of Transylvania University of Brasov by establishing strong and sustainable research cooperation schemes with centres of excellence in Europe and major industrial partners in the regional and European industry based on a competitive research infrastructure.

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