Weight reduction and cost savings have driven composites research towards a number of recent high profile achievements. The increased use of anisotropic AL/CFRP/Ti stacks in aircraft structures has in turn created enormous challenges for the industry due to the difficulties that arise from drilling these heterogeneous stack materials. The project “European and Chinese Platform for Stacked Aero-Structure Drilling Process and Equipment (ECSASDPE)” focuses on the staff exchange between the partners of EU and China, and the development of key enabling techniques and equipment for theorbital drilling process of stacked AL/CFRP/Ti. It meets the objectives and requirements of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions: Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE), by establishing multiple bridges between European and Chinese institutions. The ultimate goal of ECSASDPE is to set up a long-term international and inter-sector collaboration consortium through research and innovation staff exchanges between 8 world-recognised institutions in the cutting-edge research area of high value manufacturing with promising applications in scientific and engineering sectors. The synergistic methodologies achieved by ECSASDPE will serve as the building blocks of the stacked composite materialmachining mechanism, equipment design, process monitor and control, and machining quality metrology and characterisation and scale up application, and thus enhance the leading position of the consortium for the scientific and technological progresses in high value manufacturing. This project is divided into six inter-related work packages: (1) Setup of knowledge base and road mapping; (2) Fundamentals of drilling process; (3) Key techniques for Equipment development; (4) System integration and performance verification; (5) Dissemination and exploitation, and (6) Project management. The work packages integrate all activities that will lead to the accomplishment of all the project objectives within 66 months.

ACROBA project aims to develop and demonstrate a novel concept of cognitive robotic platforms based on a modular approach able to be smoothly adapted to virtually any industrial scenario applying agile manufacturing principles. The novel industrial platform will be based on the concept of plug-and-produce, featuring a modular and scalable architecture which will allow the connection of robotic systems with enhanced cognitive capabilities to deal with cyber physical systems (CPS) in fast-changing production environments. ACROBA Platform will take advantage of artificial intelligence and cognitive modules to meet personalisation requirements and enhance mass product customisation through advanced robotic systems capable of self-adapting to the different production needs. A novel ecosystem will be built as a result of this project, enabling the fast and economic deployment of advanced robotic solutions in agile manufacturing industrial lines, especially industrial SMEs. The characteristics of the ACROBA platform will allow its cost-effective integration and smooth adoption by diverse industrial scenarios to realise their true industrialisation within agile production environments. The platform will depart from the COPRA-AP reference architecture for the design of a novel generic module-based platform easily configurable and adaptable to virtually any manufacturing line. This platform will be provided with a decentralized ROS node-based structure to enhance its modularity. ACROBA Platform will definitely serve as a cost-effective solution for a wide range of Industrial sectors, both inside the consortium as well as additional industrial sectors that will be addressed in the future. The Project approach will be demonstrated by means of five industrial large-scale real pilots, Additionally, the Platform will be tested through twelve dedicated Hackatons and two ACROBA On-Site Labs for technology transfer experiments.