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EU funding (€7,622,568): Manipulation Enhancement through Robotic Guidance and Intelligent Novel Grippers Hor17 Oct 2019 EU Research and Innovation programme "Horizon"
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Manipulation Enhancement through Robotic Guidance and Intelligent Novel Grippers
MERGING will deliver a turnkey robotic solution to automate handling of flexible and fragile objects. Our ambition is to provide manufacturers with an end-to-end solution to automate the handling of soft objects. The solution will consist of a fingered gripper equipped with an electro-adhesive skin that conforms to the objects to handle, even delicate fabrics or components, without any damage. Electro-adhesion increases the direct gripping forces and thus allows greatly reduced clamping forces. Our solution includes perception and supervision functions to adapt the system's behaviour in real time to the execution conditions and for robot system programming accessible to non-specialists. Our main motivations are to build a versatile, easy-to-use and low-cost system. To demonstrate this and the possibilities of scaling up, we will design our system using proven laboratory technologies (TRL 4), then carry out proof of concept in realistic environments (TRL 6) in three different applications and sectors: fabric handling for lingerie manufacturing, technical fiber handling for composite bus panel manufacturing, plastic bag handling for the food industry. MERGING is a four-year project involving the entire value chain of soft object gripping automation. The CEA leads the project and provides the robotic technologies in collaboration with EPFL (electrical adhesion), AIMEN (perception), LMS (supervision), and SHADOW then OMNIGRASP (capture) and IPC (materials). CEA, EPFL, AIMEN and LMS will respectively use AI technologies for robotic demonstration programming, electro-adhesive skin control, perception and control of the complete system. SELMARK, VDL and THIMONNIER introduce cases of use of fabric, composite and polymer handling respectively. CASP and OPTEAMUM are respectively responsible for the software and hardware integration and the exploitation of the results. OMNIGRASP will release the pliers with electro-adhesive skin after the end of the project.
Funded Companies:
| Company name | Funding amount |
| Asociacion de Investigacion Metalurgica del Noroeste | €662,000 |
| Caravela das Letras Lda. | €0.00 |
| Centre Technique Industriel de la Plasturgie et des Composites | €424,875 |
| Commissariat a L Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives | €1,733,213 |
| Ecole Polytechnique Federale DE Lausanne | €844,490 |
| Omnigrasp Srl | €508,125 |
| Opteamum | €567,750 |
| Panepistimio Patron | €898,813 |
| Seleccion de Corseteria SL | €230,750 |
| Symvouloi Kai Proionta Logismikou Consulting AND Software Products C.A.S.P. Anonymos Etaireia | €415,000 |
| The Shadow Robot Company Espana SL | €16,405.84 |
| The Shadow Robot Company Ltd. | €235,897 |
| Thimonnier SAS | €601,000 |
| VDL Fibertech Industries B.V. | €484,250 |
Source: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/869963
The filing refers to a past date, and does not necessarily reflect the current state.