The PROACT project is being completed by a consortium of Europen companies. Click the link to visit the company home pages.
Space Applications Services is an independent Belgian SME whose activities cover manned and unmanned spacecraft, earth observation, science, exploration, communications, launch/re-entry vehicles, air traffic management, robotics and a wide range of technology developments. The company has over 30 years’ experience providing engineering services and expert advice to customers such as the European Space Technology Centre (ESTEC) and the European Astronaut Training Centre (EAC).Within PRO-ACT, SpaceApps will coordinate the project and be the focal point for coordinating contributions from all the partners of the consortium. System wide design and engineering, sensor fusion for perception, mapping and localisation, communications, control center and simulation are the main technical activities for SpaceApps.
AVS is an engineering company founded in 2006 that designs and develops Robotics, Mechanisms and Instrumentation for different areas of Science namely: Space, Astrophysics, Neutron sources, Synchrotrons, Particle Physics, and Medicine. AVS designs and develops mechanisms working on harsh environments such as cryogenic temperatures, neutron and gamma radiation, ultra-high vacuum and high magnetic fields. AVS is in charge of the design, manufacturing and assembly of the mobile gantry. The mobile gantry is composed by a structure that will be deployed by collaboration of RWAs and the cable robot which will be used for 3D printing and object manipulation also in collaboration with other RWAs.
The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence DFKI was founded in 1988 as a non-profit private research center dedicated to Artificial Intelligence (AI). The DFKI’s Robotics Innovation Center (RIC) in Bremen has a staff of more than 100 researchers from all over the world who are working together on R&D in robotics for a number of application areas, including space robotics, underwater robotics, agricultural robotics, logistic/industrial robotics, health robotics, and automated driving. DFKI provides the PRO-ACT project with the Mantis. This is a versatile robot for planetary exploration on complex surface conditions and has 2 dexterous manipulators. In PRO-ACT DFKI will be the WP2 leader (Preliminary design and modelling), performing trade-off analysis on non-OG building blocks during preliminary design, designing and implementing hardware and software adaptations to the Mantis and finally development of the EST Simulator for multi-robot simulations of planning and control.
GMV has a long history in research activities, especially in the area of robotics. They have had a leading project role for several of the PERASPERA OG projects and participated in many more. The current PRO-ACT GMV team also collaborated on the design, implementation and demonstration of the previous OGs, bringing extensive expertise and continuation in the H2020 program. GMV’s role in PRO-ACT will be focussed on; 1) contributing in the identification of system/technical requirements, 2) supporting the identification and definition of ESROCOS and ERGO outcomes to be re-usage, adapted and/or extended in PRO-ACT, 3) contribute to the Preliminary Design and lead the Detailed Design, specifically in the Multi-Agent cooperative Mission Planning concept.
Laboratoire d’Analyse et d’Architecture des Systèmes (LAAS) is a laboratory of the French National Organization for Scientific Research (CNRS), and it is associated with the University of Toulouse. Research at LAAS covers Automatic Control, Computer Science, Microelectronics and Nanosystems, Production Systems and Robotics. LAAS develops and implements the motion planning and control algorithms for cooperative manipulation and interacts with the other partners for the integration of the libraries and software developed for cooperative manipulation planning and control within the CREW system.
La Palma Research Centre S.L. (LPRC) is an independent, internationally active geoscience think-tank headquartered in Spain. LPRC works in the intersection of minerals, technology foresights and public awareness raising related to technology and science. In WP1 LPRC’s task is to contribute to the development of the actual mission scenarios and system requirements for the OG11b solution. In WP5, LPRC will collaborate in the logistics and geoscientific evaluation of the field demonstration. In WP7, will mobilise the geologist and mining community for the evaluation and uptake of project results.
Industrial Research Institute for Automation and Measurements PIAP was established in 1965 and currently employs 320 scientists, engineers and support staff who work in the areas of robotics, information technology, mechatronics, navigation, autonomy, and artificial intelligence. PIAP focuses its work in two main branches: robotization of industry; and development and manufacturing mobile robots for security and defence. In PRO-ACT project PIAP is responsible for provision and modification of IBIS robot, which will serve as mobile gantry RWA. IBIS manipulator will be redesigned to support cooperative manipulation properties of PRO-ACT system. The IBIS RWA will be controlled by CREW module provided by project consortium.
City, University of London (CITY), is a global university. City currently has over 18,000 students (46% at postgraduate level) from more than 160 countries and staff from over 75 countries. City has been educating students in London since 1894. In the 2014 UK Research Excellence Framework 75% of City’s submission was rated as either world-leading or internationally excellent. Within the School of Mathematics, Computer Science & Engineering, the Robotics, Autonomy and Machine Intelligence (RAMI) group (https://www.city.ac.uk/about/schools/mathematics-computer-science-engineering/research/robotics,-autonomy-and-machine-intelligence-rami-group)led by Professor Nabil Aouf is conducting world leading research related to Robotic Autonomous Systems (RAS) and AI. Our main technical contributions in PRO-ACT are in the development of cooperative navigation and mapping algorithms and distributed task allocation techniques for cooperative multi-robots autonomous systems.
Tales Alenia Space combines 40 years of experience and a unique diversity of expertise, talents and cultures, to design and deliver high technology solutions for telecommunications, navigation, Earth observation, environmental management, exploration, science and orbital infrastructures. TAS-UK developed the hardware for an ICU (Instrument Control Unit) during the previous call as part of OG4, also known as I3DS (Integrated 3D Sensors). The I3DS ICU is a high performance processing platform based on an FPGA and ARM SoC, which interfaces to a suite of sensors. During PRO-ACT, TAS-UK will provide an upgraded ICU platform and develop hardware-accelerated computer vision algorithms that run on this platform.
