Pushing the limit of physical intelligence and performance (RIA) -

Expected Outcome

Proposal results are expected to contribute to at least one of the following expected outcomes:

• Robots with advanced physical functionalities, capabilities and efficiency (faster, safer, more agile and precise, etc.), to achieve wider variety of tasks efficiently. This includes beyond human capabilities (e.g. very large and very small scale capabilities or beyond human precision, or beyond human perception and decision making, for example by using multi-modal sensing).
• Robots with greatly improved intrinsically safe and efficient human-centric human-robot and robot-environment/objects physical interaction capabilities, at natural human speed or more.
• Robots with improved abilities and robustness, allowing them to adapt to changes in the environment, and making them more energy efficient in order to run autonomously for longer periods of time while maintaining trustworthiness and dependability.

Scope

Proposals are expected to focus on technology and systems that significantly extend the physical capability of robots beyond the state of the art. Proposals should:

• Improve the physical performance of robots (for example: improving robustness and resilience – to handle environment variations and unknown or unexpected situations - and energy efficiency to run safely and autonomously for longer periods of time, increased speed, some operating under extreme physical conditions such as under water, rough terrain, difficult climatic conditions, in the body, in the air, etc.).
• Develop promising and innovative robotic concepts (e.g.: collaborative, modular and distributed, hyper redundant, highly reconfigurable, soft or miniaturised robotics) enabling adaptation to transformations of industry and society (including crisis), and in addition to examine design methods and tools for novel configurations and concepts.

Proposals should investigate novel scientific approaches or push the limit of existing ones to improve physical capabilities of robots relevant to industry and service needs in sectors where this is a barrier to uptake, such as innovative actuation principles (such as soft robotics, reconfigurable, hyper-redundant, modular robotics), or advance the field of miniaturised robotics, advanced control, improved hardware and increased trustworthiness and dependability (e.g. building on the latest results in mechatronics, advanced sensing and actuation, advanced materials, integrated and embedded systems for AI at the edge, neuromorphic computing).

Where relevant, proposals are also encouraged to embed, starting from the design stage, techniques, methods and tools that enhance the performance and interaction of robots in real world tasks where testability is limited and a “first time right” mentality must prevail; for example in space exploration, in dense urban environments, when developing applications for vulnerable people, or in safety critical infrastructures such as nuclear reactors, pressure vessels or chemical storage tanks.

Proposals are expected to rethink robot bodies, with improved physical and interaction capabilities (with the environment and with humans taking into account gender, age and disabilities as appropriate) to reach novel or advanced abilities, such as powerful, fast, precise, and intrinsically safe navigation, manipulation, sympathetic automated adaptation, etc. capabilities. The shape and size of robots can vary from miniature to large-scale, from soft, to more rigid structure, from manipulators, to ground, air, marine, in-vivo, exoskeletons and wearable robots, etc. Such proposals could also propose innovative approaches in building on and integrating the latest developments in key underlying technologies, or by exploiting multimodalities (audio, vision, AR/VR, haptics, etc.), improved safety mechanisms, physical collaboration, collaborative and swarm robotics. In addition, proposals can address energy efficiency, to address the current limitation of energy autonomy in robotics. Proposals could also focus on advances in cognitive mechatronics, where sensing and actuation are closely coupled with cognitive systems to deliver improved autonomy, dexterity, control, motion quality, interaction (including all modalities), adaptation and learning, and safer systems.

Proposals should also take into consideration trustworthy AI principles, as appropriate.

Progress should be demonstrated by qualitative and quantitative KPIs, demonstrators, benchmarking and progress monitoring. Activities are expected to achieve TRL 4-5 by the end of the project.

When possible, proposals should build on and reuse public results from relevant previous funded actions. Proposals should make use of connections to the Digital Innovation Hub networks, particularly those in Robotics, Data and AI. Full use should be made of the common resources available in the AI-on-Demand platform[1], Digital Industrial Platform for Robotics[2], data platforms[3] and, if necessary other relevant digital resource platforms. Communicable results from projects should be delivered to the most relevant of these platforms so as to enhance the European AI, Data and Robotics ecosystem through the sharing of results and best practice.

All proposals are expected to allocate tasks to cohesion activities with the co-programmed partnership on AI, Data and Robotics and funded actions related to this partnership, including the CSA HORIZON-CL4-2021-HUMAN-01-02. Where relevant, synergies with other European partnerships are encouraged.

Activities are expected to start at TRL 2-3 and achieve TRL 4-5 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.

Ocean sustainability and blue economyArtificial IntelligenceDigital Agenda

[1]Initiated under the AI4EU project https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/825619 and further developed in projects resulting from H2020-ICT-49-2020 call

[2]https://robmosys.eu/newsrobmosys-rosin-towards-an-eu-digital-industrial-platform-for-robotics/

[3]E.g.: https://www.big-data-europe.eu/

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