The SILENSE project will focus on using smart acoustic technologies and ultrasound in particular for Human Machine- and Machine to Machine Interfaces. Acoustic technologies have the main advantage of a much simpler, smaller, cheaper and easier to integrate transducer. The ambition of this project is to develop and improve acoustic technologies beyond state-of-the-art and extend its application beyond the mobile domain to Smart Home & Buildings and Automotive domains. In this project, it will be proven that acoustics can be used as a touchless activation and control mechanism, by improvement or development of different smart acoustic technology blocks (hardware, software and system level) and integrate these blocks at system level. At technology level, the SILENSE project will: - Adapt and improve cost, performance, directivity and power consumption of (MEMS) acoustic transducers (incl. testing and qualification) - Heterogeneously integrate arrays of acoustic transducers with other electronics, using advanced (3D) packaging concepts - Develop smart algorithms for acoustical sensing, localization and communication - Combine voice and gesture control by means of the same transducer(s) At application level the SILENSE project will: - Apply acoustical sensing for touchless activation/control of mobile devices, wearables and, more in general, IoT nodes. The project links to Smart Systems Integration (B4), and refers also to application application-related topics, such as Smart Mobility and Smart Society. The application scope of the developed technologies is broader and comprises more societal domains, such as smart home/buildings, smart factories (i.e. Smart Production) and even Smart Health. Furthermore, a clear cross reference with Semiconductor Process, Equipment and Materials (B1) is established in view of the heterogeneous integration of technology blocks. Conventional silicon technologies will be combined with printed (flexible, large area electronics).

DIH^2 is a network of 26 DIHs, with a target to reach over 170 DIHs. The sole aim of the network is to spark incremental (cut 50% cost of advance robotics solutions, double the growth of robotics market) and disruptive (maximum productivity & optimum agility) innovations in over 300,000 Manufacturing SMEs and Mid-Caps. It will support SMEs in their Agile Production challenge (50% increase in productivity) and unleash their digitalization potential by enabling robot solutions that are more cost effective at lower lot sizes. DIH^2 relies on: • A Common Open Platform Reference Architecture for Agile Production (COPRA-AP) -based on Industrial Data Space Reference Architecture Model and FIWARE technologies- to serve the needs of SMEs by means of a continuously growing set of Robotic-based Open Standard Enablers (ROSE-AP). • A marketplace as one-stop-shop for SMEs to access essential services for digital transformation including business modelling, technical support, access to skills and finance. • 2 competitive Open Calls to launch an ambitious Technology Transfer Program with 260 Agility Audits, 26 cross-border Technology Transfer Experiments and 26 ROSE-AP, leveraging over 26M€ of public & private funding in advance robotics solutions for Agile Production. • Members deeply rooted in their regional Smart Specialization Strategy (bringing €5M additional funding on top of EU funds), ensuring ‘working distance’ services for every SME in Europe - whichever the sector, wherever the location, whatever the size. • A Corporate Sponsorship Program from equipment and automation suppliers committed with the network to get access to wider market and latest research in robotics. DIH^2 will transform this network into a self-sustainable non-profit association with members all over Europe. DIH^2 will demonstrate that public funded research can help SMEs & Mid-Caps achieve digital excellence and global competitiveness through adopting advanced robotics solutions in Agile Production.

Connected and automated vehicles can be seen as a revolution in the global automotive industry, bringing a new mobility paradigm and having a huge impact on several economic sectors such as logistics industry. Significant progress has been made in the field of autonomous truck driving with numerous prototypes. However, challenges need to be addressed in order to ensure the uptake of this breakthrough technology and the future advent of an overall autonomous logistic chain. The deployment of autonomous heavy-duty vehicles is hindered by the current inabilities of these vehicles to work with the right safety and functional level for 24/7 availability (e.g. harsh weather conditions) and by the lack of harmonized regulatory framework. This project aims at developing and enabling to deploy a safe autonomous transportation systems in a wide range of real-life use cases in a variety of different scenarios. This encompasses the development of autonomous driving system (ADS) capable of handling adverse environmental conditions such as heavy rain, snowfall, fog. The ADS solution will be based on multiple sensor modalities to address 24/7 availability. The ADS will then be integrated into multiple vehicle types used in low-speed areas. Finally, these vehicles will be deployed, integrated and operated in a variety of real-life use cases to validate their value in the application and identify any limitations: forklift (un)loading in warehouses and industrial plants, hub-to-hub shuttle service on open road, automated baggage dispatching in airports, container transfer operations and vessel loading in ports. Logistics operations will be optimized thanks to a new fleet management system that will act as a control tower, gathering all information from subsystems (vehicles, road sensors, etc.) to coordinate the operations and protect vulnerable road users. This work should then enable commercial exploitation of the technology and policy recommendations for certifications processes.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is essential for the digitalization of the manufacturing sector; notwithstanding, less than 25% of the manufacturing companies in Europe profit from ICT-enabled solutions. In order to democratically boost the competitiveness of the European manufacturers (especially Small and Medium-sized Enterprises - SMEs), innovative solutions need to consider technological and commercial scalability from the beginning. From this perspective, the cloudification of services has become the ideal enabler in the manufacturing digitalization. Successful European initiatives such us CloudFlow, cloudSME or Fortissimo have demonstrated the benefits of cloudification for engineering services, by means of combining HPC resources, computational tools, and cloud computing platforms. Manufacturing SMEs are empowered to compute and solve problems that cannot be tackled without cloud and HPC technology, making them more competitive by reducing development times for innovative product with better performance. The results of these initiatives are fostering the engineering and to some extend the prototyping processes within the manufacturing workflow; however, monitoring and optimizing production processes have not yet greatly benefited from an integrated information workflow and simulation loop based on on-line factory data. The core partners of CloudFlow (eu-cloudflow.eu) and cloudSME (cloudsme.eu) are joining forces to leverage factory data with cloud-based engineering tools: a) paving the way toward manufacturing analytics, b) enriching the manufacturing engineering process with on-line data, and c) simulating and optimizing the production process with the vision to support it in real-time. The consolidated platform between CloudFlow and cloudSME with extended capabilities to process factory data is going to be accessed through a central interface, enabling the stakeholders to interact, and collaborate.

Political consumerism is a bottom up, grass root engagement of concerned citizens. By uniting their individual selves to a collective, the feeling of individual insignificance is transformed into a non-negligible player on the economic market. The diversification of political interests, the intransparent product interrelationships, however, far too often lead to an evaporation of the collective motion, of the rising up of individually aware citizens. The ASSET project develops and tests a pilot solution to pioneer on a new form of political consumerism aiming at empowering the individual to facilitate and to reinforce sustainable consumerism, through better decision-making and networking effects. Leveraging on the innovative combinations of interests by distilling individual and amplifying collective interests and forming collective political consumerism, it serves as an empowerment for the citizen. This crowd-sourced political consumerism builds upon open data, open source, distributed social networking and open hardware. Seizing the full potential of existing mobile communication, it creates collective awareness for political concerns amongst citizens, via integrating network and online collaboration, and collective awareness on economical demands for producers, visualizing mutual interest for sustainable consumption. The pilot solution includes an individually designed product rating system which is seamlessly integrated into the shopping routines. The pilot solution is developed by a multidisciplinary consortium including retail industry, consumer organization, social sciences and ICT centers, and is tested in fields studies with existing communities of people.