Tracing partner contributions in distributed developments

According to Deloitte report from 2018 for the automotive industry there is significant interest in blockchain at the C-suite level, with global investment exceeding $1.7 billion in the last three years. The same report also cites Gartner report on Blockchain Business Value estimating blockchain’s business value-add will grow to $176 billion by 2025. The report outlined a number of use cases in the automotive sector that are classified inside three groups. One of them is also a Verification and process improvements group with a purpose to improve vehicle information and usage data across the industry.

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. BETP provided a platform, that will hide all the blockchain complexity and will be blockchain agnostic. BETP goal was to offer a solution on the top of the state-of-the-art technology and bring it closer to the industry.

Blockchain for trusted traceability

Traceability is the ability to trace all processes from development, to production, consumption and final disposal. It is highly important for any manufacturer, as it provides the ability to quickly recall products, track production and match replacement parts.

It is very important to establish an environment where all the development activities are tracked in time order and where every dataset is uniquely represented and transparently shared via the network (some latest scandals inside automotive industry only confirm this). That kind of environment will bring trust to all the participants so that everybody is certain that data once written could not be changed anytime in the future.

BETP proposed the development of a blockchain-based traceability platform that would be loosely coupled to AVL’s IODP and would provide:

• Trust into the system (a faster, safer way to verify key information and establish trust),
• Traceability of transactions (track the execution of various operations within the process),
• Transparency to B2B ecosystem by offering a solution that could be trusted by everyone involved.

BETP (commercial name AuthTrail) provides users with an immutable and verifiable history of all their application data changes.

BETP is Blockchain driven but also highly scalable and costly effective. The platform will be deployed as a cloud service (SaaS) and will provide a secure layer between customer applications and blockchain. Additional service dashboard will be delivered in order to get instant access to data drilling tools and data verification statistics.

Authtrail as transparent partner communication platform

BETP have exposed three main security considerations:

• How to protect platform’s interfaces (data access security).
• How to protect integrity of the application data (data integrity).
• How to protect application data stored inside of the platform (data privacy).

On data access level all the Service and User APIs must be protected via appropriate encryption. All endpoints must have installed valid TLS certificate issued by the renowned authority. Additionally, we must support an option for establishing a secure private connection with the service. On-premise installation should also be considered.

Data integrity stands for the property of the platform that assures complete data immutability. In other words, once data is written to the platform it cannot be changed anytime in the future. We need to provide measures to provide complete data integrity.

Data privacy is about securing raw data for being exposed to another people. The platform must provide a way of encrypting all the raw data before storing it to the journal.

FED4SAE support and opportunity

Through FED4SAE, BETP was able not only to access the leading edge industrial platforms but also the technical expertise provided by the partners.

By working with AVL and fortiss during this project, BETP had access to expertise on system architectures for blockchain across various industries and European ecosystem.

Creating the ideal energy metering gateway device

Energy saving on the rental apartment sector not only represents a considerable cost reduction to apartment landlords, but follows the trend of several environmentally responsible solutions, helping to achieve a greener and more sustainable world.

Following this trend, CheckBnB and EnergyCcM wanted to create a new solution to measure and display holiday rental apartment’s real-time power consumption, aiming at educating both guests and owners to control and reduce the energy waste during holidays. In order to do so, diverse warnings and alarms showing deviations from historical averages have been used.

From a hardware perspective, the challenge was to create a small sized and flexible device able to acquire power consumption data and send it to the cloud using NB-IoT technology. Besides, from a software perspective, the objective was to develop a multi-platform mobile application not only acting as energy budget display, but also supporting check-in procedures and value-added services for both visitors and owners.

Product development and FED4SAE support

Even though the concepts were there they were still in an early stage, with the need to find commercial and financial support to be able to take those ideas to the next level.

Therefore, Monsol and EnergyCcM, through its CheckBnB subsidiary, answered the Horizon 2020 FED4SAE open application for midcap by submitting a proposal not only looking for that support, but also seeking international impact to bring their software and hardware developments to a global market.

APP CheckBnB project was one of the companies selected to receive up to Euro 60,000 in funding from the Horizon 2020 FED4SAE project, and they were able to benefit from all the support and skills coming from the project partners in terms of technical, commercial, financial and marketing expertise to bring their ideas to reality.

By using STMicroelectronics technology and support, EnergyCcM has been able to create a functional device, known as CcMaster, fulfilling all the requirements. This prototype has been certified by Telefonica, one of their partners, and is currently being commercialized in a different context as a monitoring system for energy systems.

On the other hand, CheckBnB has developed an integrated mobile application to deliver their green “energy budget” vision to the holiday rental market, including additional functionality to help P2P accommodation and deliver real-time location-based context information to guests, taking advantage of the Smart City and IoT domain know-how from University of Cantabria.

Last but not least, the commercial and marketing skills acquired through the close collaboration with Blumorpho have helped them to bring their solution to the market and increase the odds to attract new investors.

Fighting COVID19 massive impact on tourism industry

During 2020’s 2nd quarter, when the product was going to start its piloting stage in the city of Santander using IoT data obtained through their smart city platform, COVID19 pandemic impact on tourism sector prevented CheckBnB to fully complete the project and APP CheckBnB mobile application development needed to be postponed.

Still, the CcMaster hardware created in the context of FED4SAE supported application experiment has been reused by EnergyCcM on a completely different domain. In this sense, they have pivoted its original use on rental apartments towards solar energy and public lightning sectors, becoming partners of big companies such as Riello, Steca and Iberdrola.

How to scale at the edge

A fundamental core capability for realizing Industry 4.0 applications based on iIoT is a robust and scalable framework for system integration. Enterprises cannot create scalable and secure end to end solutions without it. Secondly, the frameworks also need to have good standardized interfaces towards other software platforms. Further, data security and central device management of distributed systems landscapes are fundamental.

Sandvik Coromant has been a pioneer in the industrial digital journey and “industry 4.0” era looking for a reliable integration platform along with other integration technology solutions during their development of a novel digital service platform. Key requirements were ability for different IT/OT/IoT systems to collaborate and integrate regardless of location, and ability to distribute software components for edge intelligence. Security, encryption, footprint were also demands since Sandvik Coromant focus on analytics services and corrective action functions that can predict & protect from anomalies on machines and operations processes before they happen.

Intel with its hardware expertise and KTH being one of the partners behind the OSLC standard made the FED4SAE project a strategic initiative to join.

Time to deliver more productivity

Sandvik Coromant is the world leader in precision metal-cutting tools for CNC machines and delivers customer value based on productivity promises. Amid the fierce competition and continuously raised bar to deliver more productivity, Sandvik Coromant has developed a digital service platform using GHOST unique, hybrid integration capabilities combined with Microsoft Azure strength in analytics services.

GHOST was selected by Sandvik Coromant since it was the only hybrid integration platform solution on the market that met their combined requirements of capabilities such as footprint, graphical user interface, integration flexibility, edge intelligence computing, remote device management, scalability, security, and central management/control. Sandvik Coromant now implement advanced digital services, such as real-time monitoring of tool performance and prediction/protection against anomalies in customers shop floor and IT/OT operations, in less than 10 minutes at their customers production premises based on the GHOST distributed infrastructure. Sandvik Coromant has also reduced infrastructure complexity and operations cost in their digital service platform since GHOST is a truly hybrid integration platform that spans over several integration technologies and can manage all types of integrations.

Proven on the shop floor

The Ghost Application Experiment have managed to proof that their integration platform performs well in an industry 4.0 context:

• A proven service that works on the edge (30+ machines connected at the Sandvik Shop floor in Gimo, Sweden).
• A pluggable, scalable architecture that is efficient and easy to manage.
• Secure deployment on a component level.
• Tested in complex industry networks capable of traversing any number of firewalls in a secure manner.
• Security audits of the solution have been carried out together with Microsoft.

FED4SAE support and opportunity

Based on technical hardware specifications provided by Sandvik Coromant, the Application Experiment evaluated different hardware setups based on feedback from Intel.

A number of training sessions have been conducted together with KTH to introduce the Ghost team to the OSLC standard. In-dept sessions have also been performed to support the Application Experiment in developing software components that could be used in future cases.

Blumorpho have had a number of sessions and workshops with the Ghost team to help and support them in defining a new Business Plan.

Better data, less machine downtime

Advanced tool machines are valuable assets that must be kept in production with as little downtime as possible in order for a factory like Zannini’s to work efficiently.

Digital solutions can contribute significantly to keeping expensive equipment running well. They can provide remote notifications to operators to help them recognize and fix unexpected machine stops earlier. They can link islands of automation in order to make support processes more efficient, for example by dispatching a material transport automatically when a container is full. And not least, they can make better information about the machine utilization and performance available faster, helping to improve work scheduling and condition monitoring.

However, processes and equipment are diverse, so integration must be highly individualized. Conventional programming approaches are often time consuming. Legacy equipment is not able to provide information through a computer network. Commercial solutions did not fit Zannini’s need for a system that could scale dynamically under their own control as their requirements and experience developed.

A truly open system

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.

It provides remote equipment status notifications to any web browser, such as an operator’s smartphone; it collects information about equipment usage and performance, such as a machine’s actual in-production time and average cycle time per day, and makes it available to explore for managers through the spreadsheets that they are familiar with; and it links sensors, controllers and manufacturing IT together with custom automatic sequences.
The system consists of machine add-on units (INCOMING DACB – Data Acquisition and Control Box) and a central server, which communicate over MQTT, a widely used open protocol standard for the Internet of Things. The DACBs connect to the machines using wide-spread industrial communication standards: 24 V discrete digital signals and OPC UA.

Zannini’s DACB proof-of-concept is based on the STMicroelectronics STM32MP1 series fast prototype board and X-Nucleo expansion, an industrial platform featured by FED4SAE. The DACB software uses the open-source Eclipse 4diac platform for distributed automation and control, another advanced technology promoted by FED4SAE, which follows the IEC 61499 standards.

The central server is based on an off-the-shelf solution package using popular open-source software components such as Node-RED and Freeboard.

Measurable results

The Zannini team designed a custom rail-mount enclosure for the STM32MP157A-DK1 Discovery Kit and the X-NUCLEO-PLC01A1 extension board for 24 V industrial digital I/O, which was then 3D printed. Together with a DC-DC converter to connect to the machine’s existing 24 V DC power supply, the DACB forms a DIN-rail assembly of devices that an electrician can install easily inside a machine’s electrical panel with only a short machine downtime.

After a series of lab tests and software iterations, Zannini has put the solution to the test on the shop floor. In its first deployment at the Zannini Castelfidardo plant, INCOMING connects to three CNC lathes of different generations and with different control and communication interfaces. Their current status is shown in real time on web-based dashboards, while the central server keeps track of how much time was spent in each state and logs the cycle times. Whenever an ultrasound sensor detects that the container for metal chips is full and needs to be exchanged, the factory IT system is triggered to deploy an AGV (automatic guided vehicle) to the machine. For all three machines, a significant increase in OEE (overall equipment efficiency) up to 4.3% over a 70% baseline was achieved thanks to the automatic interventions taken by the INCOMING system alone; additional decreases in machine downtime were enabled by operators and managers being alerted to degraded performance faster. Having proven its real-world potential and reliable operation, the system now is a permanent part of Zannini’s manufacturing operations, and several future use cases have already been identified.

The rollout of the INCOMING system will be continued at Zannini’s domestic and international sites. In addition, it forms the basis for a 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.

FED4SAE support and opportunity

FED4SAE has enabled Zannini to find better solutions for data acquisition, control, presentation, and analysis. New technologies now make part of Zannini’s knowledge portfolio that embodies different and innovative approaches. Discussions with the partners and other FED4SAE Open Call winners offered valuable technical and business insights.

Both the STM32 platform and 4diac were applied in the application experiment with concrete benefit. Together, they enable an open and low-cost prototype for the machine add-on unit (DACB) of the INCOMING system.

For INCOMING, fortiss has integrated 4diac with the OpenSTLinux distribution provided by STMicroelectronics for the STM32MP1 and has added support for the X-Nucleo-PLC01A1 to the Eclipse 4diac public codebase. STMicroelectronics contributed technical support specific to their platform, and Blumorpho provided focused business innovation coaching and networking opportunities.

Gas sampling based on molecular flow in nano holes

Airborne pollution is one of the major causes of death, especially in metropolitan areas. A first step in the control of air pollution is the monitoring of air quality, in which the detection of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) is one of the key parameters.

A mass spectrometer is a good instrument for the analysis of air quality, but this instrument operates under a high vacuum. The difficulty of the use of this instrument is the sampling of a very small volume of air while guaranteeing that the proportions of VOCs in the sample are equal to the proportions in the air.

NanoTech Analysis has developed an advanced sampling method. The gas sampling uses openings in the order of 100- 300nm in a membrane to sample the air. The openings are controlled by a miniature valve that controls the sampling. The extremely small size of the openings guarantees a very small air flow into the vacuum of the mass spectrometer, while assuring that the air flow is independent of the molecular mass or diameter of the components of the air.

While the principle of the sampling is very elegant, the technological implementation of this sampling method is very challenging. The two main technological issues are:

• Create membranes with openings in the range of 100-300nm.
• Control the airflow through the openings with valves.

Product development

The advanced fabrication technology for this air sampler uses e-beam or stepper patterning to create openings in the membrane and then reduces the size of the openings in a controlled fashion. Scanning Electron Beam and Focussed Ion Beam inspections have shown that openings in the range of 100-300nm could be reproducibly created.
The air flow through the opening can be closed off by a current-carrying beam, placed in a strong magnetic field, which moves driven by the Lorentz force. Two beams through which current can flow and the openings below the beams that appear as small dots.

The entire die is having a 3×3 pattern of two beams each. The die measures 3 x 3 mm2, of which the beams only occupy 1 mm².

The die shown above is mounted on a vacuum flange as shown in the left-hand side, and is connected to electronics boards, shown on the right-hand side, for the actuation of the valves. The gas analysis systems thus realised has shown the feasibility of the sampling methods using small openings. The valves have, however, not demonstrated their ability to control the gas flow.

FED4SAE support and opportunity

Based on the results of the FED4ASE program, NanoTech Analysis has been able to build strong partnerships with two important Italian medical research institutions for the launch of two different programs aimed at detecting markers and signatures of specific diseases.

The final scope is to realize an innovative scientific instrument able to join the compactness, mobility and high sensitivity resulting from the combination of nano and micro devices defined in the context of this program with more standard analytical techniques.