The project main objective is the demonstration of General Aviation and Rotorcraft capability to benefit from the concepts developed in the SESAR programme, in order to facilitate their integration into airspace and airports where the SESAR concepts and technologies are implemented. This objective will be achieved through live flight trials and preparatory Real-Time Simulation campaign, with hardware and humans in the loop, which will be focused on both procedural issues and technological aspects related to Global Navigation Satellite System technologies and simultaneous non-interfering operations. Specifically, the GRADE project will demonstrate in flight, by using GA aircraft and Rotorcraft equipped with non-certified or specific on-board equipment, the following existing SESAR Solutions: Solution #51 – “Enhanced terminal operations with LPV procedures”, Solution #55 – “Precision approaches using GBAS CAT II/III”, Solution #103 – “Approach Procedure with vertical guidance”, Solution #113 – “Optimised Low Level IFR routes for rotorcraft”. The project will also focus on technological aspects, testing in flight the following products, already available within the consortium and suitably customized to fit the above listed SESAR Solutions: GNSS EGNOS and GBAS navigation algorithms able to guarantee the applicable RNP; Portable non certified Primary Flight Display to support pilot decisions and operations. The live flight trials will be conducted at two different sites and using three different aircrafts (two fixed-wing and one rotary aircraft). Flight tests data and information will be collected and analysed by taking into account relevant applicable SESAR Key Performance Areas and suitably performance indices. Performance evaluation and lessons learnt will represent the outcome of the project and will be made available to support regulation, standardisation and certification activities, as well as the integration of GA and rotorcraft with commercial aviation.

The main goal of TraDE-Opt is the education of 15 experts in optimization for data science, with a solid multidisciplinary background, able to advance the state-of-the-art. This field is fast-developing and its reach on our life is growing both in pervasiveness and impact. The central task in data science is to extract meaningful information from huge amounts of collected observations. Optimization appears as the cornerstone of most of the theoretical and algorithmic methods employed in this area. Indeed, recent results in optimization, but also in related areas such as functional analysis, machine learning, statistics, linear algebra, signal processing, systems and control theory, graph theory, data mining, etc. already provide powerful tools for exploring the mathematical properties of the proposed models and devising effective algorithms. Despite these advances, the nature of the data to be analyzed, that are “big”, heterogeneous, uncertain, or partially observed, still poses challenges and opportunities to modern optimization. The key aspect of the TraDE-Opt research is the exploitation of structure, in the data, in the model, or in the computational platform, to derive new and more efficient algorithms with guarantees on their computational performance, based on decomposition and incremental/stochastic strategies, allowing parallel and distributed implementations. Advances in these directions will determine impressive scalability benefits to the class of the considered optimization methods, that will allow the solution of real world problems. To achieve this goal, we will offer an innovative training program, giving a solid technical background combined with employability skills: management, fund raising, communication, and career planning skills. Integrated training of the fellows takes place at the host institute and by secondments, workshops, and schools. As a result, TraDE-Opt fellows will be prepared for outstanding careers in academia or industry.

BAMBOO aims at developing new technologies addressing energy and resource efficiency challenges in 4 intensive industries (steel, petrochemical, minerals and pulp and paper). BAMBOO will scale up promising technologies to be adapted, tested and validated under real production conditions focus on three main innovation pillars: waste heat recovery, electrical flexibility and waste streams valorisation. These technologies include industrial heat pumps, Organic Rankine Cycles, combustion monitoring and control devices, improved burners and hybrid processes using energy from different carriers (waste heat, steam and electricity) for upgrading solid biofuels. These activities will be supported by quantitative Life Cycle Assessments. In order to maximize their application and impact to plant level, flexibility measures will be implemented in each demo case towards energy neutrality and joined in a horizontal decision support system for flexibility management. This tool will analyse, digest and interchange information from both, the process parameters and the energy market, including the BAMBOO solutions. As a result, the operation of the plants will be improved in terms of energy and raw materials consumption, and will lay the foundation of new approaches in the energy market. BAMBOO will empower intensive industries to take better decisions to become more competitive in the use of natural resources in a broader context, in the spirit of facilitating the use of larger variability and quantity of RES. BAMBOO consortium comprises strong industrial participation; 6 large companies as final users and 3 SMEs as technology providers, working with experienced RTOs and supporting entities. The private investment associated to BAMBOO is over 7M€ along the execution of the project. Lastly, the transferability potential of BAMBOO is extremely relevant as targeted process and plant improvements offer very high potential applications in other intensive industries.

The EFACA project consists of 6 main objectives at 3 levels. Level 1 consists of three TRL3 demonstrations of technologies relevant to the greening of aviation: (WP1) bench testing of a gearbox combining input from gas turbine and electric motor for an hybrid turbo-electric propulsion system for a propeller-driven regional aircraft; (WP2) comparative testing of fuel cells with conventional liquid and novel phase cooling, to show the benefits up to 20% of the latter in higher net power, reduced heat losses, and smaller volume and weight also reengineering of fuel cell and structural components to increase power-to-weight ratio up to 80%; (WP3) static ground testing of a complete liquid hydrogen fuel system from cryogenic tank to vaporization and combustion in a wide range of operating regimes and simulation of application to the speed and altitude flight envelope of jet airliners. Level 2 consists of two preliminary designs: (WP7) an 80-seat 1000-km range regional propeller driven aircraft including design and integration of hybrid turbo-electric propulsion; (WP89) a 150-seat 2000-km range jet liner with liquid hydrogen fuel including design and integration of cryogenic tanks and fuel system. At level 3 a road map (WP10) for the achievement of the EU environmental targets for aviation synthetizing conclusions in four steps: (i) current status on (WP4) emissions and (WP5) noise versus future targets and gap to be covered; (ii) assessment of relevant technologies to cover the gaps, including (WP6) battery electric and (WP9) sustainable aviation fuels, besides hydrogen (WP7) fuel cells and (WP8) turbines; (iii) most suitable technology for each class of aircraft (light, small and medium regional, single and twin aisle jetliners), and maturation time of the technology; (iv) contribution of each aircraft class to CO2 and non- CO2 global and local emissions and noise, leading to (WP10) a comprehensive road map of actions for carbon-free or emissions-free flight.