The objective of the Arrowhead project was to address the technical and applicative challenges associated to cooperative automation:

• Provide a technical framework adapted in terms of functions and performances,
• Propose solutions for integration with legacy systems,Implement and evaluate the cooperative automation through real experimentations in applicative domains: electro-mobility, smart buildings, infrastructures and smart cities, industrial production, energy production and energy virtual market,
• Point out the accessible innovations thanks to new services,
• Lead the way to further standardization work.

The strategy adopted in the project had four major dimensions:

• An innovation strategy based on business and technology gap analysis paired with a market implementation strategy based on end users priorities and long term technology strategies
• Application pilots where technology demonstrations in real working environments will be made
• A technology framework enabling collaborative automation and closing innovation critical technology gaps
• An innovation coordination methodology for complex innovation ""orchestration""

Date of approval by the ECSEL JU: 29/11/2016"

The “Production” pilot domain targets the demonstration of efficiency improvements made possible by distributed and collaborative automation. This will be pursued for a number of application areas, targeting a variety of efficiency levers and requiring different combinations of technologies.

By “distributed” it is meant here that the application covers all functional layers of industrial systems, starting from sensor or process level and extending up to enterprise level. Another dimension of distribution is over the value chain of companies or plant sites, i.e., company networks both upstream and downstream, where efficiency is expected for the entire network, not just for a single factory or production line.

We will explore, for the targeted domains, the potential benefits of new smart and connected features and build the vision of the ecosystem evolution: what are the new business cases, what are the impacts on people, on production and on processes what are the technical issues and opportunities. We will experiment some of the new features through implementation on a real systems (machine or workshop of plant) or on simulated demonstrators connected with real data.

The perimeter of the new features includes:

•     Features directly aiming at increasing human, machine, plant, or value networks performance, reducing costs, improving energy efficiency, machine health, product quality, etc.
•     Features implementing flexible connectivity across functional layers and over factory sites.
•     Features treating confidential and open information or intellectual assets in a fair and useful manner.
•     Features enabling competitive and accurate service business in such value networks, for the benefit for all participants.
•     Features connecting the plant to the virtual market of energy through technical and business interfaces.

Seven demonstrators focus on improved supervision and maintenance: networked condition and performance monitoring, maintenance, respective networked service businesses, respective support centres. The three other demonstrators are focused on operations flexibility and energy efficiency: operations management, optimization, energy usage modulation, management of multiple energy sources, in connection with the Virtual Market of Energy.

Each demonstrator requires part of the Arrowhead main technologies, to be provided or improved as part of WP6-10, and relies on specific analytic and evaluation methods to evaluate and optimize efficiency gains.