ARSOFT is participating in the CASANDRA project

PROMOTING DATA FLOW ADOPTION IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN BY INTEGRATING INTELLIGENT AND DECENTRALIZED CONTROL FOR LARGE PART MANUFACTURING (EXP – 00169779 / MIG-20242031)

Europe leads in the manufacturing of complex and large components. In Spain, the metal-mechanical sector is also booming with significant growth (>8%) in recent years. This competitive advantage is supported by the quality of manufactured products, their characteristics, high level of customization, efficiency, and associated lifecycle services. However, compliance with increasingly demanding regulations, high quality requirements, and product complexity are pushing the limits of existing technologies, threatening the sector's competitiveness and its current privileged position. To address these challenges, CASANDRA emerges.

The main objective of the CASANDRA project is to develop a closed-loop digital manufacturing methodology that enables concepts of connected, intelligent, and autonomous factories, allowing the recording of the digital twin's evolution of the component to be manufactured throughout its lifecycle. This requires distributed monitoring and control tools, following a distributed data space model.

At the factory level, CASANDRA proposes the development of flexible, ubiquitous, and connected digital tools (collaborative robotics, AR/VR, and exoskeletons), designed to extend operators' capabilities and increase efficiency, quality, and precision in required manufacturing processes execution.
Monitoring and control tools combined with cross-cutting digital tools open the door to data analysis strategy implementations, enabling exploitation of collected data. This allows CASANDRA to implement an autonomous factory concept through a decision support system where, based on real-time data collected, strategies are developed to adjust processes and continuously adapt to varying conditions and physical model degradation. This involves work in edge intelligence, federated learning, and frugal AI combining active learning and XAI.

To this end, CASANDRA aims to achieve the following technical objectives:

Implementing a modular and hierarchical digital thread to drive data interoperability across the value chain to enhance traceability, efficiency, and quality in manufacturing and assembly of large parts.

Digital platform and middleware, digital thread, knowledge representation.

Implementing worker-focused tools that assist in executing labor-intensive tasks while preserving their knowledge and skills.

Robotics in shared workspace, VR/AR, user experience optimization.

Implementing data-driven decision support models for autonomous, more efficient, and sustainable manufacturing, through integration of digital twins of product, processes, and resources (PPR).

Digital twins, "Quality by design" manufacturing strategy, defect detection.

Implementing data-driven models to advance in the development of a comprehensive decision support system, progressing towards autonomous, more efficient, and sustainable manufacturing.

Edge intelligence, Frugal AI, federated learning, Decision Support System (DSS), and explainable AI (XAI).

Demonstrating CASANDRA's approach to improve quality, efficiency, and control of manufacturing process integration and traceability along the supply chain (TRL6), fostering results exploitation and future adoption.

Demonstrator in energy and naval sectors.

XL Pilot Factory: training, communication, and dissemination.
CASANDRA consists of two consortia, a group of companies (CDTI consortium), and a group of centers (AEI consortium) composed of the following members:

DGH - A Spanish company located in the Technology Park of Boecillo (Valladolid) specialized in industrial engineering and maintenance. With over 40 years of experience, DGH excels in the design, construction, and commissioning of automated and robotic solutions for various industrial sectors. It is a leader in the automotive industry and has expanded its activities to sectors such as aerospace, construction, and food. An innovative company participating in national and European innovation programs.

IDESA - Founded in 1993, headquartered in Asturias, it has become one of the most recognized and respected companies in the design, manufacture, and supply of static and modular equipment worldwide for the energy sector, specializing in large-scale components with high-quality standards, such as coke chambers, vacuum columns, fractionating columns, reactors, FCC and FCK units, as well as all types of storage tanks and process equipment.

ONS - A SME founded in 2010 based in Madrid, specializing in cloud infrastructure management and virtualization solutions. The company is dedicated to the development and support of OpenNebula, an open-source platform that allows the implementation and management of cloud computing environments and virtualized data centers.

NODOSA - NODOSA SHIPYARD is a Spanish company, based in Galicia, a leader in the naval sector. Specializing in the construction, repair, and maintenance of ships, it has over five decades of experience and has established itself as a benchmark both nationally and internationally, distinguished by its innovation, quality, and commitment to excellence.

ARSOFT - A Spanish technology company focused on the development of Augmented Reality and Virtual (AR & VR) systems for the industrial sector, transforming traditional production processes into intelligent production processes.
ARSOFT has developed its own authoring platform (Eyeflow) for the digitalization of industrial processes with mixed reality technologies (XR), reaching agreements with leading companies in its sector.

TRIMEK - Founded in 1993 in Altube (Álava), focuses on dimensional metrological engineering, developing measurement systems such as Coordinate Measuring Machines (CMMs), 3D scanning systems, metrological management computer platforms for various industrial sectors such as automotive, aerospace, naval, energy, transportation, or machine tools.

GOGOA - A SME established in 2015, based in Abadiño (Bizkaia), dedicated to the design, manufacture, and commercialization of exoskeletons to improve physical capabilities of individuals. With one of the widest ranges of products in the market and a solid intellectual property portfolio resulting from its sustained commitment to R&D, it offers solutions for clinical, industrial, military, and sports markets.

NVISION - A technology company specialized in bringing innovative solutions to the market based on the Internet of Things (IoT), combining technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), data analysis (Big Data, data analytics), and Edge computing to provide services oriented towards monitoring and advanced management of systems, including development of decision support tools and digital twins applicable to various sectors.
A consortium of centers (AEI consortium):

AIMEN - Located in Galicia, AIMEN is a private non-profit research association, a multidisciplinary center specialized in Materials Science, Manufacturing Process Engineering, Digitalization, Artificial Intelligence, and Sustainability. Established in 1967, its main objective is to increase technological competence in the manufacturing industry through participation in R&D projects, providing advanced technological services to industry, and technology transfer.
The R&D activity carried out by the center has stood out in recent years in research on how digital technologies allow the application of new, more flexible, reconfigurable, sustainable, circular, and quality manufacturing strategies, capable of validating these developments both at laboratory scale (TRL4) and in representative environments (TRL5/6) using the industrial equipment available at AIMEN.

IRI - The Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial is a university institute of mixed ownership belonging to the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), founded in 1995. It is one of the leaders in robotics and computer vision research in Spain, given the volume and quality of its scientific production and its extensive involvement in R&D projects in Europe with various international partners. The center offers excellence and technological capabilities in various areas of robotics, computer vision, artificial intelligence, and automatic control, among others.

CDEI-UPC - The Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) is a higher education institution with international recognition, focused on engineering, architecture, applied sciences, and technology. It stands out for its leadership in research and technology transfer, positioning itself as a benchmark in both academic and business fields.
CDEI-UPC, the Center for Industrial Equipment Design, specializes in the development of industrial products and equipment, dynamic analysis of complex systems, and mobile robotics, collaborating closely with national and international companies to innovate in the design and optimization of industrial equipment.
CITIC-UDC - The CITIC is a research center that promotes advancement and excellence in R&D applied to ICT, created in 2008 by the University of A Coruña. The center's scientific activity is structured into four main research areas: Artificial Intelligence; Data Science and Engineering; High-Performance Computing; and Intelligent Services and Networks, with a cross-sectional area of research: Cybersecurity.
The CITIC is accredited as a Center of Excellence and a member of the CIGUS Network for the period 2024-2027. The accreditation, structuring, and improvement of the CITIC are co-financed by the Xunta de Galicia and 60% by the European Union under the FEDER Galicia 2021-2027 Operational Program, with the thematic objective of promoting "a smarter Europe: innovative and intelligent economic transformation."

INNOVALIA - Innovalia Association is an R&D+i business unit member of the Basque Network of Science and Technology and a Technological Center founded in 2002 by a group of international presence technological SMEs. This private research laboratory was created by the INNOVALIA group to establish a solid base that achieves its long-term strategic research objectives.
INNOVALIA identifies and develops talent in collaborating companies, forming multidisciplinary teams to achieve long-term research objectives and meet the demand for advanced technological capabilities and transnational cooperation.

 FINANCING