LEO ambitions innovative manufacturing concept & routes towards high performance bendable and low cost OLEDs for general and mood lighting, merging conventional and proven technologies with disruptive approaches (e.g. substrate, architecture, hybrid processing, layouts). R&D activities will be ramped-up from lab scale feasibility to pilot line scale demonstration, delivering show off lighting systems with the help of external lighting manufacturers (Artemide, Technology Luminaires). The project targets the introduction of novel materials combinations (conformable & functionalized metallic substrate, Indium free electrodes and solution-processable organic materials) in large area colour tuneable top emission white OLEDs. Besides dry processing of large area tandem stacks (> 500 cm2), a novel hybrid process flow will be set-up whereby stacks will be wet processed up to the 1st emitting layer prior device completion by dry processing. With common and innovative building blocks (substrate with integrated interconnecting, 80 % transparent top electrode, 1E-6 g/m²/day WVTR scratch resistant thin film encapsulation, 50 % out-coupling efficiency), these two complementary approaches will lead to demonstrations of large area warm/cold white macro-pixels and hybrid full colours RGB OLEDs. LEO will address cost reduction at materials and process levels which represent more than 80% of the total cost of OLED lighting devices, according to a recent study. Leverage will be sought at mostly all layers of the stack with cost impacts at materials, device and system scales. In order to combine necessary and complementary capacities to reach its ambitious goals, LEO has gathered all stakeholders of the OLED lighting device fabrication value chain (except equipment supplier), including substrate and organic materials suppliers (AC&CS, Cynora), an OLED manufacturer (OSRAM OLED) and recognized research centres in the field of OLEDs and life cycle analysis (CEA, CNR, Gaiker).

The Automotive HMI (Human Machine Interface) will soon undergo dramatic changes, with large plastic dashboards moving from the ‘push-buttons’ era to the ‘tactile’ era. User demand for aesthetically pleasing and seamless interfaces is ever increasing, with touch sensitive interfaces now commonplace. However, these touch interfaces come at the cost of haptic feedback, which raises concerns regarding the safety of eyeless interact ion during driving. The HAPPINESS project intends to address these concerns through technological solutions, introducing new capabilities for haptic feedback on these interfaces. The main goal of the HAPPINESS project is to develop a smart conformable surface able to offer different tactile sensations via the development of a Haptic Thin and Organic Large Area Electronic technology (TOLAE), integrating sensing and feedback capabilities, focusing on user requirements and ergonomic designs. To this aim, by gathering all the value chain actors (materials, technology manufacturing, OEM integrator) for application within the automotive market, the HAPPINESS project will offer a new haptic Human-Machine Interface technology, integrating touch sensing and disruptive feedback capabilities directly into an automotive dashboard. Based on the consortium skills, the HAPPINESS project will demonstrate the integration of Electro-Active Polymers (EAP) in a matrix of mechanical actuators on plastic foils. The objectives are to fabricate these actuators with large area and cost effective printing technologies and to integrate them through plastic molding injection into a small-scale dashboard prototype. We will design, implement and evaluate new approaches to Human-Computer Interaction on a fully functional prototype that combines in packaging both sensors and actuator foils, driven by custom electronics, and accessible to end-users via software libraries, allowing for the reproduction of common and accepted sensations such as Roughness, Vibration and Relief.