HORSE aims to bring a leap forward in the manufacturing industry proposing a new flexible model of smart factory involving collaboration of humans, robots, AGV’s and machinery to realize industrial tasks in an efficient manner. The main strategy builds on existing technology and research results in robotics and smart factories and integrates them in a coherent and flexible software framework.

This action proposes to bring together potential public buyers, suppliers of innovation (with a special focus on SMEs and start-ups), and potential investors and researchers, with a view to determine projects suitable for public procurement of innovation.

The lack of trusted and secure platforms and privacy-aware analytics methods for secure sharing of personal data and proprietary/commercial/industrial data hampers the creation of a data market and data economy by limiting data sharing mostly to open data.

The challenge is to provide a sustainable ecosystem of robotics stakeholders covering the entire value network to facilitate and accelerate a broad uptake and integration of robotic technologies, and supporting the digitisation of industry through robotics.

Breakthrough education and training paradigms for continuous training of the existing workforce are needed, that will enable the European industrial workforce to develop new skills and competences in a quick and efficient way. This should put workers, both women and men, at the forefront of innovation and drive industry towards a smooth transition to the use of increasingly sophisticated machines and new technologies.

The ReconCell project aims at designing and implementing a new kind of an autonomous robot workcell, which will be attractive not only for large production lines but also for few-of- a-kind production, which often takes place in SMEs. The ReconCell project proposes to develop a flexible robotic workcell that will allow very short, self-adaptable and affordable changeovers under the conditions demanded and based on end-user needs. This will be achieved with the minimum use of additional resources over the system lifetime.

Digital manufacturing platforms play an increasing role in dealing with competitive pressures and incorporating new technologies, applications and services. Advances are needed in digital manufacturing platforms that integrate different technologies, make data from the shop floor and the supply network easily accessible, and allow for complementary applications. The challenge is to fully exploit new concepts and technologies that allow manufacturing companies (especially mid-caps and SMEs) to fulfil the demands from changing supply and value networks.

Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) on the factory floor has a high potential economic impact for European industry.