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.

ENRICHME tackles the progressive decline of cognitive capacity in the ageing population proposing an integrated platform for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) with a mobile service robot for long-term human monitoring and interaction, which helps the elderly to remain independent and active for longer. The system will contribute and build on recent advances in mobile service robotics and AAL, exploiting new non-invasive techniques for physiological and activity monitoring, as well as adaptive Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), to provide services in support to mental fitness and social inclusion. The system will enable caregivers and medical staff to identify evolving trends of cognitive impairments and to detect immediate emergencies. ENRICHME will use new qualitative models for rich yet compact representations of daily life activities. It will also identify humans in order to provide personalized services for elderly living with other persons. Novel context-aware HRI will provide tools for cognitive stimulation and social inclusion, which improve over time by learning from and adapting to the state of the user. A professional infrastructure of networked care will widen the social sphere of intervention in support of elderly and caregivers. ENRICHME includes multi-disciplinary research in geriatrics, gerontology and gero-technology, enabling further studies in social sciences and neuropsychology. Thanks to a modular implementation, which limits costs and allows for maximal flexibility, the system will be tested in 2 separate AAL labs and validated for 1 year in 3 different elderly housing facilities across Europe. Significant impact is expected by prolonging the independent living at home of elderly who need constant monitoring. Their quality of life will be improved by dedicated services for cognitive stimulation and social inclusion. Relevant stakeholders in the project will ensure further impact and economic exploitation of the proposed technologies for healthy ageing.

The increased population density in modern animal production systems has made them vulnerable to various transboundary infectious agents & diseases. During the last decades in the developed world, a reduction in the direct burden of livestock diseases has been observed, because of more effective drugs & vaccines. However, the total impact may actually be increasing, because in a highly-interconnected world, the effects of diseases extend far beyond animal sickness & mortality. Therefore, early diagnosis and establishment of reliable countermeasures to infectious disease outbreaks is essential to limit severe biophysical and socio-economic consequences. To date, the time between initial disease outbreak and laboratory confirmation of the etiologic infectious agent can be up to several weeks. Reliable & simple diagnostic testing directly on site would enable rapid local decision making, which is crucial to prevent further spreading of the disease. Silicon-based Photonic Integrated Circuits (PIC) have been demonstrated as a powerful platform for biosensing systems. In combination with integrated monoclonal antibodies, they can provide portable multiplex detection of proteins with sensitivity & specificity previously not realized. SWINOSTICS addresses the sector needs, by developing a novel field diagnostic device, based on advanced, proven, bio-sensing technologies to tackle viruses causing epidemics in swine farms and leading to relevant economic damages, complying to the objectives of the STAR-IDAZ. The diagnostic device will allow threat assessment at the farm level, with the analytical quality of commercial laboratories. The device will be developed for a panel of 6 important swine diseases. The device will be portable & will provide results in 10 minutes for 5 samples simultaneously, making it highly suitable for field use. It is based on 3 lab-verified concepts: a) PIC technology, b) Label-free optical detection, c) patented nano-deposition technology.

The aim of the I-Cuvette project is the development of a portable device based on biosensors capable of analytical quality to assess milk contamination at the first step of the collection logistics chain (farm,) with a favorable market price for the single analysis (comprising six target analytes: 5 different antibiotics in milk including: Beta-lactam, Quinolones, Tetracycline, Sulphonamide, Aminoglycoside; plus Aflatoxins). This will spare the transportation of contaminated milk. The I-Cuvette system may be used also at the delivery point of trucks collecting milk providing almost immediate results (10 minutes) and avoiding the need of laboratory confirmation tests in case of positive results. I-Cuvette will be developed by: - ISS BioSense (ISS) a new high-tech SME located in Naples, Italy created in 2008 whose mission is the use and the manipulation of molecules of biological origin to develop highly specific and sensitive sensors. - Kontor46 (K46) is an Italian private company established in Turin in 2012 and specialized in high-tech hardware and software developments, as well as in R&D services for the industry. In the dairy industry, milk contamination can happen at any stage of the production chain from the farm to the shelf. The conventional methods of analysis used for milk allow a thorough analysis with very sensitive Limits of Detection, but with the main disadvantages of requiring specialized staff, being time-consuming and expensive, finally, they need to be performed in a lab structure. The analytical performance of I-Cuvette, thanks to the use of biosensors, is better than the conventional methods used in the milk sector, with greater operational potential due to sensitivity, selectivity, reliability, portability, no sample pre-treatment, short time to results and low cost. In short, I-Cuvette combines analytical quality with short response time and cost similar to strips or other disposable fast tests.