EuroCPS supports innovative SME and Midcap companies in the design of new Cyber Physical Systems through the use of efficient funding mechanisms. Direct funding can be provided through cascade funding support for internal company development, while indirect funding is leveraged to provide material and technical support from existing CPS platforms in the form of technical expertise and developmental support from design centers.
EuroCPS unites 14 partners from across Europe and is coordinated by CEA-Leti, an institute of CEA Tech, globally recognized as a leader in micro and nanotechnology research and development. The project combines world-class research technology organizations and industrially relevant technical universities to cover a broad spectrum of technical and application knowledge in support of innovation and dissemination of proven CPS platforms.
A total of € 9.2 million has been allocated to boost innovation in new market areas by providing technical expertise, coaching and access to advanced industrial CPS platforms. The objective is to quickly bring new actors up to speed in the fast paced development of “smart” products by facilitating access to the latest technologies and their implementation. By tapping into regional ecosystems across many countries, the full value chain from hardware/software platforms to cyber-physical systems can be activated for delivering the next generation of high value-added products and services.
What are Cyber Physical Systems?
In Cyber-physical systems (CPS), physical and software components are deeply intertwined and interact with each other differently depending of the context. Such mechanisms are controlled or monitored by computer-based algorithms, tightly integrated with the internet and its users.
Reaching companies to fund their innovation
Via local network organizations, brokerage events, technical forums, exhibitions and the EuroCPS homepage, EuroCPS partners were made aware of the calls proposed by this innovative ecosystem support project.
“More than 6,000 companies received notice of EuroCPS. Out of a high number of interested parties, 118 companies submitted industrial experiments during the 3 open calls”, highlights Olivier THOMAS, coordinator of the project, emphasizes that “the 34 selected proposals are showing a huge variety of application areas. Projects on low-power wireless connectivity, connected lighting, universal graphical data display, tracking of vehicles or clinical test tubes, multi-core platform for avionic domain, security control of cloud data or even on monitoring and optimizing different tasks in agri‐food production, were chosen.”
Proof by example: How EuroCPS has helped an SME to develop a prototype?
Industry is moving in the direction of systems capable of dynamically interacting with their environment. Detection of obstacles to adapt actions is applied in various domains such as automotive, robotics and surveillance. The SME Terabee develops and commercializes high performance low-power distance measurement sensors for robotics application.
In the field of wearable accessories there is a growing opportunity to apply wearable technology in new applications. The role of wearables can be of utmost importance when providing assistance to professionals in critical situations, such as fire-fighters responding to emergencies in environments where human vision is not enough. To solve this challenge, Terabee is targeting the integration of sensors in a large variety of wearable objects such as the watches, helmets or jackets of firemen in order to detect and avoid obstacles in constrained environments.
The difficulty for wearable sensors lies in managing the uncertainty of the sensor position and the user motion within an occupancy grid scheme. EuroCPS helped Terabee in the development of a multi-sensor fusion software compatible with Terabee sensors and STMicroelectronics i-NEMO inertial platform. This CEA-Leti partner provided all its expertise and development in low-power data fusion algorithms to build the occupancy grid. This expertise was developed in several previous projects related to automotive applications. Also, CEA-Leti contributed to the development of the technical solution. Thanks to EuroCPS, Terabee was able to connect with another company interested by their technological solution and promising collaboration discussions are ongoing.
The impact from EuroCPS on the development of a prototype has been significant. From a business point of view, this experiment will have impact on the Terabee strategy by opening to the society new market segments in the wearable domain.
 The project is part of the Smart Anything Everywhere Horizon 2020, which targets the generation of new and breakthrough technologies, in order to boost competitiveness, create jobs and support growth by offering a Europe-wide network of design centers. More than 100 industrial experiments have already been supported with the aim of involving more than 200 SMEs and midcaps in the field of cyber-physical systems (CPS), the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart systems integration (SSI). | About EURO-CPSGranted by a 8.2 M€ EU grant from Feb. 2015 to Jan. 2018, EuroCPS brings together 14 partners, committed to support innovative SME and Midcaps companies in the design of new Cyber Physical Systems.  |