The Process Industries require a high degree of automation, monitoring, and advanced simulation and control for their often complex manufacturing processes and operations. Emphasis is on continuous or batch production, mixing, reaction and separation of materials of higher value. Indeed, increased globalisation and competition are drivers for process analytical technologies (PAT) that enable seamless process control, greater flexibility and cost efficiency. ProPAT aims to develop novel sensors and analysers for providing measurements on composition, particle size and local bulk properties, as well as more traditional but smart sensors for measuring other process parameters, such as temperature, flowrate, pressure, etc., and integrate them into a versatile global control platform for data acquisition, data processing & mining and User Interface in order to measure properties of process streams and products, accurately and in real-time. The platform also provides self-learning and predictive capabilities aimed for dramatically reducing overcosts derived from even slight deviations from the optimum process. Low cost MEMS-NIR spectroscopic and granulometric analysers, smart sensors for in batch and in continuous processes will be developed and integrated into the global control platform with the chemometric tools and the predictive software to deliver an integrated process control platform. ProPAT will enable near real time closed-loop process control to operate industrial processes at their optimum, both economically and environmentally, while ensuring high levels of quality. It will also allow the uptake of the Quality by Design for continuous process improvement. The project results will be validated in different processes and applications including milling of minerals, ceramics, metals, mixing and granulation of pharma products and polymerization of resins, and will represent a major step forward towards more efficient, reliable and sustainable industrial operation

Farming is facing many economic challenges in terms of productivity and cost-effectiveness, as well as an increasing labour shortage partly due to depopulation of rural areas. Furthermore, reliable detection, accurate identification and proper quantification of pathogens and other factors affecting both plant and animal health, are critical to be kept under control in order to reduce economic expenditures, trade disruptions and even human health risks. AFarCloud will provide a distributed platform for autonomous farming that will allow the integration and cooperation of agriculture Cyber Physical Systems in real-time in order to increase efficiency, productivity, animal health, food quality and reduce farm labour costs. This platform will be integrated with farm management software and will support monitoring and decision-making solutions based on big data and real time data mining techniques. The AFarCloud project also aims to make farming robots accessible to more users by enabling farming vehicles to work in a cooperative mesh, thus opening up new applications and ensuring re-usability, as heterogeneous standard vehicles can combine their capabilities in order to lift farmer revenue and reduce labour costs. The achievements from AFarCloud will be demonstrated in 3 holistic demonstrators (Finland, Spain and Italy), including cropping and livestock management scenarios and 8 local demonstrators (Latvia, Sweden, Spain and Czech Republic) in order to test specific functionalities and validate project results in relevant environments located in different European regions. AFarCloud outcomes will strengthen partners’ market position boosting their innovation capacity and addressing industrial needs both at EU and international levels. The consortium represents the whole ICT-based farming solutions’ value chain, including all key actors needed for the development, demonstration and future market uptake of the precision farming framework targeted in the project.

Every year, EU citizens spend over €24 billion on illicit narcotics. Over 29 million people globally suffer from drug abuse – which is more people than all the Nordic countries combined. The key to limiting drug proliferation lies in the first-responder law enforcement to effectively detect narcotics in the field. However, the current tools and ways of working are not efficient in making quick and correct arrests of drug criminals, nor for discovering criminal organisations. We are introducing NarcoScan – the first pocket-sized scanner for first responders, such as police patrols, to quickly and accurately detect any type of illicit narcotics on the street. Being 20+ times less expensive than alternatives, NarcoScan uniquely enables mass-deployment of narcotics screeners. By combining our innovative spectral sensing technology with cloud and device-to-device connectivity, we have arrived at a disruptive solution that will make screening narcotics on the streets as ubiquitous as breathalysers for detecting drunk drivers. Our drug database is updated as soon as new narcotics appear on the streets, and the updates are deployed immediately across all the scanners on the field – just like antivirus databases are updated in computers. NarcoScan will bring at least €125 million in direct cost savings per year to the European criminal justice system. The impact of our solution extends further to the European society by reducing the size of illegal economy, improving the efficiency of police work (faster arrests, faster confessions, avoiding false arrests), and contributing to building healthier and more secure environments. Having proven the technical and economic viability of our solution through extensive feasibility studies, the main goal of our Phase 2 project is to prepare for global growth by building our technical backbone into a globally scalable and rich technical solution.