SUSPENS will develop a holistic approach, from bio-sourced and recycled materials to faster and lesser energy demanding processes, to produce sustainable composite structural parts, ensuring their manufacturability from the design conceptualization. This ambition is basically achieved by the R&D of the coupling bio/circular-materials and processes. SUSPENS will develop up to 95% bio-sourced thermoset resins, with formulations allowing fast cured manufacturing processes and properties adapted to high performance lightweight composite applications. To produce the parts, these resins will be combined with sustainable continuous reinforcing fibre such as natural based cellulose fibres, lignin-based CF, recycled CF staple yarn and continuous GF made from recycled GF for producing well engineered sandwich and hollow parts for transport industries. Some of these parts will be functionalised for added value and reduced assembling times. SUSPENS will also develop an innovative approach for sustainable, optimized energy reduced pyrolysis, using waste stream from the carbonization of precursors, reducing environmental impact of carbon fibre production. For the bio-epoxy, a specific solvolysis will be developed to separate the matrix from the fibres. SUSPENS will assess the valorisation of oil and organic components in these two recycling approaches to transform them into by-products. LCA and LCC studies will show that SUSPENS approaches, combining sustainable materials and processes, can reduce the CO2eq emissions at expected levels of about 40-50%. These achievements will be validated by producing three demonstrators with their respective business models: (1) automotive battery pack for electric vehicle, (2) sailing boat hull/deck and (3) aero-structure winglet part. SUSPENS results will pay-back in terms of lesser energy consumption and environmentally friendly products that can be recycled and expects to bring its assets to the market end of 2028.

Large engineering structures like turbines, bridges or industrial machinery are still manufactured by traditional processes such as forging, casting or by machining from solid blocks. These processes do not allow local control of material properties to achieve a specific function like anti-corrosion or hardness. To meet the functional specifications, engineers must operate within a limited range of design options, with high “buy-to-fly” ratios and long lead times. Unlike any other metal AM technology, wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) produces fully dense metallic structures with no porosity. WAAM is also unbeatable in terms of production times, making it uniquely suited for large and functionally demanding engineering structures. In Grade2XL, we will demonstrate the potential of multi-material wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) for large scale structures. The high printing rate of WAAM, combined with the ability to control material properties down to the nanoscale, will allow us to build strong and durable engineering structures. Grade2XL will deliver multi-material products of superior quality and performance, cut lead times by up to 96% and enable massive cost savings for the maritime and energy industry, as well as for industrial machinery. These outputs will rapidly roll out to other sectors with similar key performance indicators and become an attractive investment opportunity for SMEs. This project will strengthen Europe’s capacity to drive manufacturing innovation globally and withstand growing competition from Asia.

RESERVIST aims to establish ‘reservist cells’ that in times of crises can be activated within 48hrs to switch to manufacturing medical products and services that are spiking in demand. Such a ‘reservist cell’ will consist of (i) a backbone network of core companies for manufacturing and testing; (ii) an extended network for further capacities (eg local provision, packaging, distribution, customization,…); (iii) a digital coordination platform and (iv) a pool of experts from the companies of the network. These cells will become operational in case of an emergency/pandemic but to make economic sense, the same approach of rapid flexibility and adaptability will be used to deal with surging demand in ‘normal circumstances’. To realise this concept, we will first work on three levels individually: network level, connected manufacturing/digital manufacturing level and technical level, the latter referring to tweaking manufacturing lines, developing required materials and establishing links with testing/certification. Next, we will demonstrate the repurposing of 5 existing manufacturing lines within 48hrs towards manufacturing of ‘textile PPE’ (surgical and respiratory face masks, medical aprons) and ‘respiratory ventilators’ (invasive and non invasive) that comply with necessary testing and certification and proceed with the embedment of the reservist cells at the partners in the network. We will develop blueprints for further take-up and replication of the concept to other sectors. Within the project we will develop two replication demos: ‘disinfection equipment’ and ‘emergency medical equipement’. To support the Cells we will tap into the worldwide maker community and into relevant OITBs and networks. The consortium is strongly industry-driven, including 4 LE and 7 SMEs coming from 7 EU countries. To maximise impact, we will extend our partner network and our Impact Support Group (18 Support Letters provided at proposal stage).

The VOJEXT project aims at providing a favourable business and technological framework to enable matchmaking and encourage producers and adopters (mainly SMEs including small crafters) of Cognitive autonomous systems for human-robot interaction, specially “cobots”, dynamizing science-driven industry approaches for the European industry. For this purpose VOJEXT will design, develop, validate and demonstrate affordable, market-oriented, agile, multipurpose and easy-to-repurpose, autonomous, mobile and dexterous robotic systems as the main component of a smart, agile and scalable cognitive CPS for industry; under the vision of providing Value Of Joint EXperimenttion (VOJEXT) in digital technologies to manufacturing and construction industry; while having DIHs as drivers of innovation based economic development in Europe. t VOJEXT will demonstrate its value by deploying the solution through a 42-months work plan scaling the project to at least 5 additional different markets; starting with 5 experimental pilots (and 9 SMEs) in the plastic textile, electronics, automotive, construction and creative architecture for urban regeneration, VOJEXT cover traditional and non-traditional areas for AI-robotics and cognitive ICT developments; aiming to extend to 15 experimental pilots, integrating 20 more SMEs through open calls. The open calls will foster scientific and business driven innovation together Digital Innovation Hubs led by UPM-AIR4S (Spain), together with other 3 DIHs – Fortiss (Germany), PIAP (Poland) and EMC2 (France). These Open Calls will gather the most innovative SMEs, that will bring new challenges into project’s pilots and propose alternative scenarios. Moreover, the project will carry out with 2 S+T+ARTS residencies, that will allow artists stimulate the creation of new product in different contexts and support creative craft experimental pilots in Italy. DIHs will create a new niched oriented offering based on VOJEXT technical areas and for crafting sector.

ACROBA project aims to develop and demonstrate a novel concept of cognitive robotic platforms based on a modular approach able to be smoothly adapted to virtually any industrial scenario applying agile manufacturing principles. The novel industrial platform will be based on the concept of plug-and-produce, featuring a modular and scalable architecture which will allow the connection of robotic systems with enhanced cognitive capabilities to deal with cyber physical systems (CPS) in fast-changing production environments. ACROBA Platform will take advantage of artificial intelligence and cognitive modules to meet personalisation requirements and enhance mass product customisation through advanced robotic systems capable of self-adapting to the different production needs. A novel ecosystem will be built as a result of this project, enabling the fast and economic deployment of advanced robotic solutions in agile manufacturing industrial lines, especially industrial SMEs. The characteristics of the ACROBA platform will allow its cost-effective integration and smooth adoption by diverse industrial scenarios to realise their true industrialisation within agile production environments. The platform will depart from the COPRA-AP reference architecture for the design of a novel generic module-based platform easily configurable and adaptable to virtually any manufacturing line. This platform will be provided with a decentralized ROS node-based structure to enhance its modularity. ACROBA Platform will definitely serve as a cost-effective solution for a wide range of Industrial sectors, both inside the consortium as well as additional industrial sectors that will be addressed in the future. The Project approach will be demonstrated by means of five industrial large-scale real pilots, Additionally, the Platform will be tested through twelve dedicated Hackatons and two ACROBA On-Site Labs for technology transfer experiments.