BETP

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Company info:

Name: Kalmia d.o.o.
Date founded: 2016
Number of employees: 15
Location: Škofja Loka, Slovenia

Team of experienced software brewers gathered together with an aim to build innovative web and mobile apps for our awesome clients: choose the best technologies, build a product, design software architecture and great user experience.

https://kalmia.si/

Partners:

Innovation Management Partner:

BETP: Blockchain Enabled Traceability Platform

Challenge

As automotive industry is moving towards digitalization various vendors and their suppliers are looking for new ways to manipulate existing processes. New digitalization approaches will influence development and manufacturing of new vehicles in many areas including traceability.

Kalmia aims to prepare a model of standalone API driven blockchain platform that is ready to integrate with future third-party business applications within various industries providing a functionality of storing, manipulating and evaluating data on the blockchain in order to provide traceability

Solution

Most of current blockchain based solutions request extensive knowledge of distributed ledger technologies by the developers and integrators to deploy applications on the top of them.

Kalmia is developing a platform that hide all the blockchain complexity and is to be blockchain agnostic. Kalmia goal is to offer solution on the top of the state-of-the-art technology and bring it closer to the industry..

FED4SAE Support

Through fruitful and constructive exchanges, AVL and fortiss brought technical support and expertise regarding:

  • IODP platform features and industrial customer needs (AVL)
  • The added value BETP will bring to AVL IODP platform (AVL & fortiss)
  • The technical aspect of the BETP, (AVL & fortiss)
  • Detailed discussion of BETP architecture (fortiss)
  • Contact with potential customers in Bavaria (fortiss)

Blumorpho supported Kalmia broader business model around BETP.

FED4SAE ecosystem has helped to evaluate the true value of BETP solution, offered the opportunity of BETP product first public presentation and will continue helping with further development.

Impact

Strong impact on Kalmia future development is based by providing a stand-alone solution viable for the market. The cooperation with AVL (an industrial platform provider) has accelerated the product development and (especially) business development by providing better understanding and access to the automotive market.
This will work as a strong reference for gaining new customers inside other industries and will result in increasing our revenues and global customer base. Our blockchain and industrial digitalisation expertise is planned to provide 30% year-to-year revenue growth in next 5 years.

GHOST

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Company info:

Name: Ghost Labs AB
Date founded: 2018
Number of employees: 7
Location: Stockholm

www.ghostnodes.com

Partners:

Innovation Management Partner:

Edge Computing made Simple

Challenge

With the emergence of Industry 4.0, the benefits of the IoT technologies are being exploited by Manufacturing industries to connect and control infrastructure. However, integration has become more difficult to handle. It has also become a capability that drives huge costs. When Industry extend business globally, adds new applications and more computing paradigms, e.g. B2B growth, cloud adaptation (SaaS), social, mobile, and IoT/IIoT, just to name a few. The old integration standards are not fit for purpose anymore. So the challenge is how can you connect all of these existing legacy plant, manufacturing tools and infrastructure to enable these rich insights and control.

Solution

The Ghostnodes integration platform is fully distributed and also has proven capabilities as the key component in high frequency data collection and aggregation. It also ensures that logic can be pushed back out to an operating node (e.g. edge computing). This is typical for IoT/IIoT integration scenarios.

By providing a lightweight agent which can be deployed at the edge and interface with manufacturing tools (CNC Machines), sensors or device manufacturers API to enable legacy machines to become “smart and connected”.

The Ghostnodes solution also provides a customisable rules based engine that enables the nodes to act on processed data. The Ghost Nodes platform will also have an integration with the Siemens Polarion Platform.

Support from FED4SAE

The support from FED4SAE can be summarized in three categories:

  • Hardware: Intel has provided relevant insights in large hardware corporations strategies for smart manufacturing and their positioning in the smart manufacturing value chain.
  • Documented Industry Standards: KTH and Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) has supported with specifications for OSLC standards for large-scale and easily maintainable integrations in heterogeneous environments.
  • Business Development and Networking: Bluemorpho and KTH has connected Ghostnodes with companies and start-ups across Europe for highly valuable collaborations.

Impact

Being part of the FED4SAE project have supported the company and enabled GhostLabs to develop its business in a number of different ways:

  • The Ghost Nodes software platform is now available on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.
  • New business relationships have been established or strengthen with a number of major international clients within the domain of smart-manufacturing, transportation and Healthcare. To name a few; SANDVIK Coromant, SODEXO and TransDev.
  • GhostLabs have developed a robust business model and business plan allowing for strategic discussions with potential partners and investors.
  • GhostLabs have expanded its pan-European network significantly thanks to outreach activities organised by the project.

Video

https://youtu.be/Vr0MT06-fVs

HyperCook

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Company info:

Name: GreenTropism
Date founded: 2014
Number of employees: 12
Location: Paris, France

Greentropism provides application-driven tools and expertise for deployment of smart spectroscopy for industrials and/or consumers.

http://www.greentropism.com/

Partners:

Innovation Management Partner:

HyperCook: AI multispectral imaging for smart online monitoring of baking process

Challenge & Solution

The baking industry is one of Europe’s earliest industries however modern baking industry faces challenges of achieving increasing efficiency, reducing waste while ensuring a high quality product is delivered in a timely, consistent matter to their customers.

HyperCook aims to bring the insights provided by exploiting CSEM’s Hyperspectal camera along with their domain expertise in Hyperspectral imaging systems to the industrial baking process to gain additional insights into the cooking process and enable smarter industrial baking ovens to consistently produce the perfect high quality product.

By combining multispectral imaging with relevant and robust algorithms, Hypercook will be able to monitor the biscuit baking process in a static or moving scene configuration. The solution may be later fully integrated and offer communication with the oven assuring a complete autonomous functioning as part of an integrated bakery management system.

A main challenge to address is the products variability, even within one type as biscuits (relief, shape, impact of the recipe, marking, etc), and also user-experience driven quality experience (visual, taste, texture). Well adapted data treatment and machine learning tools developed by GreenTropism are key to address these challenges and provide a data driven decision-making system.

Solution

Greentropism aim to develop a prototype that combines hardware, software and hyperspectral imaging components along with their domain knowledge expertise, to provide an integrated system to monitor and control the cooking process. Such a system may be installed inline in the baking process and enable real-time feedback control of the cooking process. The system will provide information at different levels : from the user perspective, it will automate the determination of cooking stage by applying embedded machine learning algorithms ; later on, for an even smarter integration, it can be further interconnected with industrial ovens, in order to adapt the protocol (time, temperature, humidity, speed of the conveyor belt etc.) as part of the perfect recipe.

FED4SAE Support

Greentropism is specialized in spectroscopy data analysis and machine learning’s which neatly compliments CSEM’s capacities and expertise in multispectral imaging and product integration. Intel provides the Compute platforms (IPC) to enable the secure integration of the various components as part of an integrated baking or manufacturing process. Insights in innovation management were contributed by Blumorpho which is important for product development as well as to consider the right business models and market approaches.

Impact

Machine learning applied to multispectral camera offers a wide range of potential applications in food & beverage as well as in health, cosmetics, agriculture etc. For example, after developing its expertise on biscuit baking levels, Greentropism will be able to extend applications to pastry, rotisserie, precooked frozen food processing etc. Developing those CPS is beneficial to the market as it allows a more dynamic, cost reducing and homogeneous production. Hypercook is leading the way in ensuring quality and consistently of our food while delivering a greener industry with reduced waste and energy consumption.

INCOMING

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Company info:

Name: Zannini S.p.A.
Date founded: 1963
Number of employees: 150
Location: Castelfidardo (AN), Italy

Zannini is specialized in the production of high precision machined components for automotive applications.

www.zannini.com

Partners:

Innovation Management Partner:

INCOMING: smart Interface for COnnected MachinING operation

Challenge

Even in highly automated factories, gathering data from the many machines in order to be able to analyze and optimize the production process is not straightforward. Also, automating individual processes is one thing, but making systems interact and play together like a well-tuned orchestra is another challenge. Processes and equipment are diverse, so integration must be highly individualized. Conventional programming approaches are often too time consuming. Legacy equipment may not even have digital networking capabilities.

Solution

The INCOMING system is a new solution to integrate industrial manufacturing equipment of all kinds and generations for data acquisition and high-level control. It is designed to be easily set-up, scaled and modified, thanks to its open architecture. INCOMING allows machine operators and production managers to monitor and control status and parameter data from machines and bridges islands of automation to make production more efficient. The platform does not require high investments up-front and can grow with the needs of the customer.

Achievements

A device for integrating machines into the INCOMING system (DACB: Data Acquisition and Control Box) has been developed that is installed in or close to the machine, communicating with it and with retrofit sensors via industry-standard discrete signals or OPC UA.

Following open Internet of Things communication protocols, the DACBs exchange data with the INCOMING central server that hosts the operational data dashboards for the machines and provides a connection with other manufacturing IT systems

For validation, the system was deployed to three turning machines with three different generations of machine control technologies in Zannini’s Castelfidardo plant. Collecting status data and interlinking the machines with a smart material handling system, it has enabled a significant increase of their overall equipment efficiency (OEE).

FED4SAE Support

The cost-efficient DACB design prototype is based on the STM32MP1 hardware platform and OpenSTLinux operating system, for which STMicroelectronics provided technical support. The DACB’s application logic is built on the IEC 61499 compliant Eclipse 4diac platform for distributed industrial automation and control software, which fortiss ported to the STMicroelectronics runtime target and extended to meet the scenario’s requirements. Blumorpho provided business innovation related coaching.

Impact

Following the successful first deployment, the rollout of the INCOMING system will be continued at Zannini’s domestic and international sites wherever it can improve the efficiency of manufacturing processes and help gather valuable data faster. In addition, it forms the basis for a potential future product to be offered to external customers and supported through Zannini’s spin-off Z4tec, enabling them to monitor and optimize their own manufacturing processes.

Video

https://youtu.be/S6bDKRcytRc

RobRad

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Company info:

Name: ASINCO GmbH
Date founded: 2012
Number of employees: 25
Location: Duisburg, Germany

www.asinco.de
www.radarmesstechnik.de

Partners:

Innovation Management Partner:

Robustification of radar sensors for application in harsh industrial environments

Challenge

Due to the adverse environmental conditions in metal production, essential measurement technologies, e.g. optical and laser-based, reach their physical limits in various fields of application. Thus, observation of relevant process parameters stays fragmented over the whole process-chain.Radar-based measurement is insensitive to the adverse conditions (e.g. high temperature, dust, air humidity, mist from rolling emulsion or oil) and recording necessary measurement variables with sufficient precision. Due to advancement in innovative signal processing algorithms this is achieved without any discernible disadvantages compared to existing measurement technologies.

Solution

For improving the technological readiness level, well-structured and competently performed experiments and functionality tests are of core importance. Within the metal industry environmental conditions as high temperatures, dust, varying humidity and corrosive gases typically occur within the areas where sensors are located. This hinders many common sensors (optical, laser-based) from reaching their specified functionality.

The objectives within the application experiments in this project can be summarized as follows:

  • Testing and improving sensor performance in terms of real-time capabilities for digital signal processing (sampling time: up to 1 kHz)
  • Testing and improving sensor protection (housing) against harsh environment conditions with long-term continuous load tests against corrosive gases
  • Testing and improving sensor protection (electronic) against harsh environment conditions with long-term continuous load tests with temperatures up to 100°C and variable humidity

FED4SAE Support

The increasing use of sensor intelligence and data preprocessing capabilities has been successfully tackled as well with the use of the industrialized STM. By transferring main raw data processing onto a decentral embedded system included in the sensor, core requirements are provided for effectively implementing the sensing units as self-aware CPS in industrial environments.

The simulation of real process environments by exploiting the functionalities of the advanced platforms of the corrosive gases testbed perfectly rounds of the improvement of the technological readiness level of the radar sensors. ASINCO is already closely interconnected within the pan-European community of radar sensors and additionally within the steel producing community. These cross-border collaborations can and will be further enhanced.

Impact

In close compliance with the targeted objectives of the call, this project tackles the development of further enhancing an already novel and smart solution of a technologically specialized SME. Thereby, it becomes possible to expand ASINCO’s leading position in the target market of providing robust measurement solutions for the metal producing industry.

The initiation and further pursuit of the robustification and market readiness development of radar-based sensors is the main interest for ASINCO. Numerous preliminary talks and discussions with various stakeholders from universities over research institutes to clients, clearly shows that the systems currently available on the market obviously do not meet industrial requirements.

There is currently great interest in testing radar measurement technology for applications such as product tracking, geometry and speed measurement and control on hot wide strip mills. The radar-based system technology to be further developed and especially robustified for the industrial application also has the potential to be used in almost every process stage of metal processing, from continuous casting (slabs) and hot rolling (hot strip, heavy plate) to cold rolling and finishing, as well as in long product plants. In a comparison of today’s optically- or laser-based measuring systems, a previously unattained field of application, namely much closer to the process, can be opened up.

With the entry of this new measuring technology, possibilities for process improvement with associated energy savings are attained at many points in the metal production process. There is also potential in the use of other materials such as plastics, glass, wood and paper.

WeaRTLS

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Company info:

Name: OMTLAB Ltd. Date founded: 2014 Number of employees: 10 Location: Budapest, Hungary Real-time indoor positioning platform for industry4.0 applications and advanced analytics. www.sunstone-rtls.com

Partners:

Innovation Management Partner:

Integration of wearable sensors and a real-time localization system for Industry4.0 applications

Challenge

We at SUNSTONE-RTLS have developed our unique indoor positioning platform. We focus on the manufacturing and logistics industry. Based on the feedback of our customers we foresee a huge market potential in wearable sensors combined with a high accuracy indoor positioning system. Though personnel tracking is not welcome in general, in case of safety and security oriented applications it has a great potential. These use cases range from work in hazardous environments to disabled operators in logistics or manufacturing and human-machine cooperation.

Solution

In the frame of this proposed experiment we intend to develop our RTLS-enabled wearable devices based on the WeSu platform. We will incorporate the platform’s kinetic sensors to enhance tracking accuracy and to provide fall detection. We will integrate customized environmental sensors (e.g. gas, temperature and radiation) to the WeSu platform so that we can provide safety wearable sensors in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry.

FED4SAE Support

We heard about FED4SAE from BME, the Hungarian advanced technology and networking partner. We have been consulting with them during the preparation of the proposal. We think that the support is a big opportunity for our company to cooperate with ST in order to extend our sensor solutions. We are looking forward to technical support from them in order to optimize our wearable product.

Achievements

In the frame of the application experiment we were able to create a new prototype hardware: the wearable Sunstone Tag. This new device equipped with cheap sensors and the new software features of Sunstone RTLS is helping us to develop new solutions based on personnel tracking.

In addition, during business case identification we have found that activity classification is a wide spread need in the field of intralogistics planning and operations. This and the new era of COVID secure manufacturing and logistics validates our personnel tracking solution.

As key results, we can highlight:

  1. Prototype wearable tag with the following features:
    1. High sample rate acceleration detection
    2. Pressure sensor for altitude measurement
    3. Humidity sensor
    4. Precise temperature sensor
    5. Bluetooth LE hub for integrating 3rd party sensors
    6. Compact form factor, ideal for placement on safety helmet
  2. Sunstone RTLS software features for handling high sample rate time series sensor data
  3. Fall detection algorithm implementation in tag firmware
  4. Activity characterization algorithm development and implementation in tag firmware
  5. Evaluation of algorithms in a metal manufacturing plant

In the future, we plan to enhance the activity classification feature of the tag with on-board machine learning hardware and algorithm teaching features of the Sunstone software suite.

Impact

Human tracking will be used only for safety and security applications, for example in case of collision avoidance, panic signaling, work in hazardous environment or the support of disabled operators.

Target customers are factories, warehouses and logistics centers carrying a wide range of applications under one roof from small automated trolley carts to heavy duty forklifts. Their business model focuses on resource and time efficient and reliable manufacturing and warehousing processes. These companies can benefit from:

  • Production efficiency: precise and reliable position tracking of personnel and machines is the basis of collision avoidance that enhance human-machine cooperation on the shop floor and in warehouses
  • Safety issues:
    • human-machine coexistence
    • fall detection, panic button and other alerts based on wearable kinetic sensors
    • improved response time to emergencies
    • automated keep-out zone detection and alarm signaling for operators
    • improved control of mass site evacuation.

Video