Deadline: 17-May-22
The European Commission (EC) is offering grants under “Testing and Experimentation Facility (TEF) for Manufacturing”.
The world-class large-scale reference site for testing and experimentation of AI-powered solutions will enable integrating state-of-the-art AI and robotics technologies in the manufacturing domain, and will foster the deployment of trustworthy, transferable and scalable Industrial AI in Europe. A transition towards a more AI-driven manufacturing industry will improve the quality and sustainability of production.
The manufacturing TEF will provide physical and virtual access to real-life manufacturing resources that can be used for testing and experimenting with AI solutions. Examples of such manufacturing resources are model factories that combine different technologies such as additive manufacturing, machine tools, intelligent conveyor systems, automated warehousing, trusted and secured access to data, IoT infrastructure and more, covering multiple industrial processes.
Key Areas
The manufacturing TEF will address the following key areas in an agile setup:
- Factory-level optimization (flexible production in high-throughput and high variety environments, rapid prototyping); testing and assessment of AI technology for autonomous decision making within the real world, i.e. interaction with and decision for humans and other machines; supporting e.g. to rearrange the manufacturing process dynamically (incl. choice of manufacturing techniques and logistics);
- Collaborative robotics (mobile, intelligent AI-powered robots enabling safe human-robot collaboration, also in teams; also in sectors like textiles, tourism or construction);
- Circular economy: minimise resource consumption, optimize supply chains in uncertain environments, use of substitute material, collection, sorting and treatment of products that have become waste (making available secondary raw materials and maximum extraction of value), reverse logistics, remanufacturing.
Contribution to AI innovation
- Boosting the competitiveness of the European industry, including SMEs in AI, a technology of high strategic relevance;
- Contributing to boost European IP and products based on European technology;
- Creation of world-class experimentation facilities in Europe, offering a comprehensive support combining the necessary expertise, meeting the needs of European innovators. The organisations running the TEFs and their process will ensure the highest level of trust and security for the users of the TEFs, and the highest quality of the testing and validation to guarantee trust and security in the tested solutions, key for their broad diffusion
- Contributing to European technology sovereignty and open strategic autonomy in AI, and AI-enabled solutions.
Funding Information
The available call budget is EUR 30.000.000,00.
Eligibility Criteria
In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
- be legal entities (public or private bodies)
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be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
- EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
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non-EU countries:
- listed EEA countries
- countries associated to the Digital Europe Programme or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature.
For more information, visit European Commission.
For more information, visit https://bit.ly/3s96y3H
