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ATB joins €7M European R&D Project Investing in Platform for Developing Safe and Reliable Multi-Robot Systems

ATB is partnering with a consortium of leading European Universities, Research Institutes, Industrial and Government Organisations to address the complexity of developing systems of interconnected robots. The project will provide advanced software design and deployment capabilities that handle the uncertainty, variability, and interplay of safety and security assurance challenges posed by Multi-Robot Systems (MRS). The SESAME project is investing €7 million to develop an open, modular, configurable platform for systematic engineering of dependable MRS.

The advanced development and deployment technologies will enable a new generation of MRS to deliver solutions for key European sectors including Healthcare, Manufacturing, Agri-food, and Infrastructure Inspection, where groups of interconnected robots are better able to carry out critical tasks such as disinfecting hospitals, managing farms and crops, rapidly adapting production lines to new products, and maintaining energy transmission facilities.

ATB will be involved in the integration of the new SESAME platform, in the KUKA pilot development and will target use of the new technologies for Manufacturing to validate the capabilities provided for new MRS solutions.

 

The SESAME technologies will focus on addressing key aspects of MRS including emergent behaviour, uncertainties in the operating environments, security threats and safety, heterarchy of systems, variability of robotic hardware platforms and tailorability. Key technological advances being developed in the project include:

 

  • Simplifying MRS configurations by using new languages that hide the complexity and intricacies of robotic platforms
  • Machine learning of MRS tasks and scenarios that are adaptable and reusable to exploit past knowledge and experience for subsequent tasks
  • Advanced automation of effective safety and security analysis during MRS design providing substantial savings in time and costs
  • Novel forms of safety and security assurance that uses advanced run-time monitoring capabilities
  • Seamless configuration and reconfiguration at design and run-time enabling MRS to be rapidly adapted for different applications and scenarios

The innovative framework will be extensively validated through five industrial pilots addressing MRS for Healthcare, Manufacturing, Agri-food, and Infrastructure Inspection. The resulting platform will be made available in open source.

Coordinated by The Open Group and under the Technical Direction of University of York, the SESAME consortium includes leading universities and research institutes: ATB, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University, FORTH, Fraunhofer, KIOS, University of Hull and University of Luxembourg; leading robotics manufacturers and technology providers: KUKA, Locomotec and TTS; and industrial, agricultural and government organisations that rely on robotic systems: Aero41, Domaine Kox, Luxsense, AVL, and Cyprus Civil Defence Agency. Partners are based in Austria, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

The SESAME project is financed in part by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, an initiative of the European Community created to foster European research and development of new technologies, applications and industries. The SESAME project will run through the end of 2023.

More information about the project is available at www.sesame-project.org.

 

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