Container terminals serve thousands of ships, store billions of TEUs, compete to serve the next vessel, and introduction of larger ships will result in new challenges. While advances have been made in terminal automation (Automated Ground Vehicle (AGV), gate control, yard cranes, etc.), with current technologies terminals are limited by their ability to maintain growth and quality of service. To address these trends and demands the Robotic Container Management System (RCMS) has been developed. As a contribution to its implementation, Project main objectives are: A. to develop a detailed simulation model for RCMS to be evaluated in 2 Terminals (Gdansk and Koper) plus a set of generic simulation tools to be used in all terminals; B. to assess and compare RCMS performance with other state-of-the-art container handling technologies for 2 Terminals (Gdansk and Koper) with different features; C. to assess and compare RCMS performance with other state-of-the-art container handling technologies for 2 ports (Gdansk and Koper), with focus on comparison between RCMS solution and port surface extension; D. to assess impact of RCMS in a simulated transport network in terms of efficiency, reliability, capacity, performance indicators (travel times, average speed, etc.) and impacts (noise and air pollution) in the Port of La Spezia. Main results will be: a well-defined RCMS control logic; a dynamic physical AGV model to test AGV behavior; definition of operational procedures for RCMS; a generic simulation tool enabling testing of RCMS for various sites by non-simulation experts; an efficient entire terminal design with RCMS; a set of validated and quantified benefits of RCMS compared to commonly used handling systems; a set of Key Performances Indicators of the transport network using RCMS. Consortium is made by leading industries, SMEs, Research/Academic Centers and 3 ports/terminals as End-users. Project duration is 21 months and estimated eligible costs are 4 million €

Nowadays coordinated and every time more complex terrorist attacks are shocking the world. Due to the progressive rely of industrial sector and many critical infrastructures (CI) (e.g. EU ports) in ICT systems, the impact of a coordinated physical attack, a deliberate disruption of critical automation systems or even a combined scenario including both kind of attacks, could have disastrous consequences for the European Member States’ regions and social wellbeing in general. Taking into account this fact and this real threat on EU ports as one of the main CI in Europe, SAURON project proposes the holistic situation awareness concept as an integrated, scalable and yet installation-specific solution for protecting EU ports and its surroundings. This solution combines the more advanced physical SA features with the newest techniques in prevention, detection and mitigation of cyber-threats, including the synthetic cyber space understanding through the use of new visualization techniques (immersive interfaces, cyber 3D models and so on). In addition, a Hybrid Situation Awareness (HSA) application capable of determine the potential consequences of any threat will show the potential cascading effect of a detected threat in the two different domains (physical and cyber). On the other hand, through SAURON approach the public in the surroundings and the rescue/security teams will be able to be informed on any potential event/situation that could put in risk their integrity. Thus, SAURON proposes as main objective to ensure an adequate level of both physical and cyber protection for the EU ports and limiting, as far as possible, the detrimental effects for the society and citizens of a combined attack (physical & cyber) to an EU port. Reducing the vulnerabilities of EU ports, as one of the main European critical infrastructures and increasing their systemic resilience in the face of a physical, cyber or combined threat will be also part of the SAURON main objective.

5G-LOGINNOV will focus on seven 5G-PPP Thematics and support to the emergence of a European offer for new 5G core technologies in 11 families of use cases. 5G-LOGINNOV main aim is to design and innovative framework addressing integration and validation of CAD/CAM technologies related to the industry 4.0 and ports domains by creating new opportunities for LOGistics value chain INNOVation. 5G-LOGINNOV is supported by 5G technological blocks, including new generation of 5G terminals notably for future Connected and Automated Mobility, new types of Internet of Things 5G devices, data analytics, next generation traffic management and emerging 5G networks, for city ports to handle upcoming and future capacity, traffic, efficiency and environmental challenges. 5G-LOGINNOV will deploy and trail 11 families of Use cases beyond TRL7 including a GREEN TRUCK INNITIAVE using CAD/CAM & automatic trucks platooning based on 5G technological blocks. Thanks to the new advanced capabilities of 5G relating to wireless connectivity and Core Network agility, 5G-LOGINNOV ports will not only significantly optimize their operations but also minimize their environmental footprint to the city and the disturbance to the local population. 5G-LOGINNOV will be a catalyst for market opportunities build on 5G Core Technologies in the Logistics domains, thus being a pillar of economic development and business innovation and promoting local innovative high-tech SME and Start-Ups. 5G-LOGINNOV will open SMEs’ and Start-Ups’ door to these new markets using its three Living Labs as facilitators and ambassadors for innovation on ports. 5G-LOGINNOV promising innovations are key for the major deep sea European ports in view of the mega-vessel era (Hamburg, Athens), and are also relevant for medium sized ports with limited investment funds (Koper) for 5G.

The vision of NEPHELE is to enable the efficient, reliable and secure end-to-end orchestration of hyper-distributed applications over programmable infrastructure that is spanning across the compute continuum from Cloud-to-Edge-to-IoT, removing existing openness and interoperability barriers in the convergence of IoT technologies against cloud and edge computing orchestration platforms, and introducing automation and decentralized intelligence mechanisms powered by 5G and distributed AI technologies. The NEPHELE project aims to introduce two core innovations, namely: (i) an IoT and edge computing software stack for leveraging virtualization of IoT devices at the edge part of the infrastructure and supporting openness and interoperability aspects in a device-independent way. Through this software stack, management of a wide range of IoT devices and platforms can be realised in a unified way, avoiding the usage of middleware platforms, while edge computing functionalities can be offered on demand to efficiently support IoT applications’ operations. (ii) a synergetic meta-orchestration framework for managing the coordination between cloud and edge computing orchestration platforms, through high-level scheduling supervision and definition, based on the adoption of a “system of systems” approach. The NEPHELE outcomes are going to be demonstrated, validated and evaluated in a set of use cases across various vertical industries, including areas such as disaster management, logistic operations in ports, energy management in smart buildings and remote healthcare services. Two successive open calls will also take place, while a wide open-source community is envisaged to be created for supporting the NEPHELE outcomes.