APRIL project aims at implementing and deploying market oriented, low cost and multipurpose robots that supports semi-automatic tasks in manufacturing production lines that use flexible or deformable materials in industries of any size or domain. APRIL will use fine grasping, innovative computational vision technology, gathering of sensors’ information, as well the development of modular and different middleware layers and interfaces. APRIL will provide innovative sensoring and computational vision supporting detection of slips, estimate weight, dynamic center of mass, or regulating grasping forces while manipulating deformable objects of different types (e.g. paper, chicken breast, shoes’ insoles, viscoelastic textile materials, cables, etc.). A federated approach, wireless communication, usage of multipurpose hands and placement of various sensors, will connect all robots to a cloud based knowledge base that will contain the needed information to perform the different jobs. APRIL system will be deployed in six different demonstration use cases across Europe. Robots integrated in the manufacturing processes will operate on several critical steps that affect production, packing and quality assurance on the different manufacturers involved as pilot sites. On one hand, introduction of APRIL system will produce an expected increase on safety and related health conditions of working environments. On the other hand, APRIL will enable an increase on productivity and quality of the final products; thus leading to a greater competitiveness of European industry. The project will be implemented in 40 months by 15 partners from 8 European countries.

Inspection and Maintenance (I&M) represents a huge economic activity (450 Bn€ market) spanning across sectors such as energy, transport, civil engineering. EU hosts over 50% of I&M robotics offer but there is a bottleneck connecting it to the market and high potential applications. RIMA is a 4-year project aiming to establish a network of 13 Digital Innovation Hubs (DIH) on robotics sharing best practices and providing services to facilitate uptake of I&M technologies. Our challenge is to reinforce this connection and to provide education and training on robotics I&M and to connect the value chain - research, technology companies, service providers, end users and investors- for accelerating economic growth in the field: - RIMA is building upon the network pioneered by SPRINT Robotics extending it to all relevant sectors across the value chain. - The RIMA network encompasses: o leading research organizations supporting one DIH per region aligned with regional policies and industry sectors. o Sectoria

The proposal addresses the establishment, with the support of mobile robotic platforms, of a precursor lunar base with essential capabilities in preparation to commercial exploitation of in-situ resources by assembling an ISRU resource extraction and utilization system will be essential for the establishment of future human settlement. It will in particular include the extraction of oxygen from regolith to serve as oxidizer for fuel and for artificial atmosphere generation within habitats, and 3D printing of relevant structures using regolith (with or without adjuvant, depending on printing strategy) for construction purpose – e.g. tiles for landing pad and roads, panels for berms, elements for shelters. The primary objective of PRO-ACT is to implement and demonstrate multi-robot cooperation capabilities in a moon construction context, relying on, extending and integrating the outcomes of OG1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Accordingly PRO-ACT will: - Review, extend and integrate ESROCOS, ERGO, InFuse, I3DS and SIROM outcomes as part of a comprehensive multi-robot system, in a meaningful moon construction scenario. - Develop robust multi-robot cooperation capabilities allowing joint interventions (including navigation in close vicinity and joint manipulation actions) in mixed structured / unstructured environment. Make the capabilities available within a CREW module, integrated along with ERGO, InFuse and ESROCOS. - Perform the customization of existing mobile robotic platforms and prepare facilities (moon analogue) for performing tests and demonstrations in a selection of relevant, partially representative scenarios of moon construction activities in relation to (1) ISRU capabilities establishment and (2) preparing dust mitigation surfaces (3) assembling and deploying a gantry/3D printer. As a baseline, TRL 4 to 5 is aimed at (depending on scenarios subparts). - Perform needed tests and demonstrations in Lunar analogues to validate the newly developed capabilities.

ALADDIN will study, design, develop, and evaluate, in series of complementary pilots, a counter UAV system as a complete solution to the growing UAV threat problem, building upon a state-of-the-art system and enhancing it by researching on various technologies and functionalities. ALADDIN will follow a holistic and heavily user-centred methodology involving a large number of LEAs and critical infrastructure operators, as well as an expert Advisory Board panel ensuring end-user diversity, as they all face different kinds of threats and work within different regulatory frameworks. This diversity is important to shape EU-wide system specifications and the innovative training curricula and training that will be realised to share the knowledge gained and raise awareness. Furthermore, within the project all regulations, social, ethical and legal elements will be studied thoroughly and continuously with an impact assessment produced and its results monitored during the project’s lifetime. ALADDIN’s sensing arsenal is comprised of a set of custom, innovative, and unique technologies as well as established and standard sensors used for UAV detection and localisation: 1) 2D/3D paired radars; 2) Innovative optro and thermal panoramic imaging; 3) Custom designed acoustic sensors. These will be fused through novel deep learning techniques in order to provide excellent detection accuracy. Further, ALADDIN will study and offer a set of neutralization effectors (jammers, physical and hacking). These sensing and countering capabilities will be operated through an advanced command and control (C2) system. The C2 will achieve great detection and classification accuracy within a large range, by fusing data acquired from all sensors through state-of-the-art deep learning techniques. Operator’s efficiency will be enhanced through a novel mixed reality interface with 3D cartographic and situational elements and will be complemented by support to operations like investigation and trainings

RobotUnion will discover, support and fund 20 European Superstar Scaleups confirmed by top VC investors and global corporates of 4 new market domains for robotics: manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, and civil infrastructure. 40 companies developing research will be selected out of a pan-European deal flow of 300 Scaleups through 2 Open Calls. The top 20 will join an acceleration program that will help them progress from TRL4 to TRL7 onwards. This 2 up to 16-months program will provide them with technical and non-technical support services: • Ph-D in residence type of service (the so-called Technical Mentors and Researchers-in-Residence will provide access to knowledge in abilities such as configurability, adaptability, motion, manipulation, decisional autonomy, dependability, interaction, perception, and cognitive ability) • Entrepreneur-in-residence type of support (provided by a pool of world-class training and high-level business mentoring complemented by fundraising mentors) • A voucher scheme to provide access to facilities and technical services across Europe • Up to €200K of free-equity funding for the best-in-class companies. 8 best-in-class companies will start a fundraising campaign led by the VCs and platforms in the consortium leveraging the €8M of public funding with additional €8M of private investment. To this end RobotUnion counts on 5 premier-class RTOs specialized in Robotics at European Level to provide technical support; 4 corporates enabling access to new markets: MADE in Manufacturing, ARLA food in Agri-food, FENIN in Healthcare and FERROVIAL in Infrastructure; CHRYSALIX and ODENSE S&V, as VCs of references in robotics, to lead the fundraising campaigns. Business support partners are FMWC (dissemination), FBA (open call management), ISDI (business acceleration) and BLM (fundraising and access to corporates). RobotUnion will help demonstrate how Europe can lead disruption around Robotics and turn the EU into the EU of entrepreneurial states