Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Longwave Infrared Laser Driven Ion Accelerators (LILDIA)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Reintegration panel
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Physics
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2019, 2019)
Start date: 2020-11-23
End date: 2022-11-22
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 224933.76
EU funding (EUR): 224933.76
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Europe is taking a world-leading role in developing new technologies crucial for meeting the needs of the multi-billion-euro particle accelerator market in healthcare, science and industry. Laser driven plasma accelerators are a disruptive technology developing hand-in-hand with the ongoing revolution in high power lasers. Research in laser driven accelerators typically utilise near-IR pulses, but there are benefits in using longer laser wavelengths which enables the use of lower density plasmas, boosting some accelerator properties. This project will capitalise on recent advances in CO2 lasers to experimentally develop repetitive ion accelerators driven by high-power longwave infrared pulses, which are focused to intensities so extreme that a plasma at laser focus is driven to velocities approaching the speed of light. This project will do this through three main research thrusts: 1) development of novel and comprehensive diagnostics for high repetition rate, enabling 2) the first characterisation of "electrostatic collisionless shockwaves" in high intensity-gas interaction, thought to accelerate narrowband ion beams, and 3) the investigation of high intensity laser solid interaction with unprecedented diagnostic access made possible by the long laser wavelength, providing unique insight into fundamentals which underpin the ion acceleration process. The project will therefore develop a new frontier in intense laser-plasma interactions and energetic ion sources with extremely high peak current, low transverse emittance and easily varied ion species, providing a promising alternative to conventional accelerators. This cutting-edge research combined with advanced training and networking opportunities at Imperial College London will not only position me at the front of an emerging field, enhancing future career prospects, but also reinforce European R&D in advanced accelerator concepts from a new perspective.

Keywords: high power laser ion accelerator ion source laser plasma interactions high intensity
Translation for breaking language barriers in the railway field (Translate4Rail)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Smart, green and integrated transport
Theme: Public-private partnerships
Destination: European rail initiative
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Partnership: Shift2Rail (Art-187)
Countries involved: Austria,France
Call: Breaking language barriers (H2020-S2RJU-OC-2019, 2019)
Start date: 2019-12-01
End date: 2021-11-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 248093.75
EU funding (EUR): 248093.75
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

The Rastatt incident in 2017 has highlighted the problems posed by foreign languages in the rail sector. It also highlighted the need to find alternative methods that are more modern, flexible and precise to allow the operations of international trains crossing several countries where different languages are spoken. The concept of the Translate4Rail project is to offer drivers a fully comprehensive set of predefined standardised messages which encompass all they have to exchange with an infrastructure manager traffic controller in normal or exceptional operational situations in a country where they do not understand nor speak the local language. An IT tool will then be implemented to enable the driver and the traffic controller to understand each other even though each of them speak in his/her native language. This will capitalise on the works already committed on this matter between Infrastructure Managers (IMs) and Railway Undertakings (RUs) at RNE and UIC level. These works have dealt with the analysis of the various types of operational situations needing exchanges between RUs drivers and IMs signallers. The project will enable to test these works and to further harmonise and standardise pre-defined messages in the light of the tests carried out. Such messages will be uttered by the driver or the traffic controller. They will then be identified, translated and uttered in the language of the other party by the given tool. The project will define the functional characteristics of the tool which will create a frame for the exchanges between drivers and traffic controllers. This tool will use voice recognition and translation applications. The tool will be tested on pilot trains running on cross border sections of rail freight corridors where drivers have to use different languages. The project intends to at least maintain the level of safety, increase the traffic fluidity at borders and to increase the competitiveness of the rail sector.

Keywords: language,infrastructure managers,railway operators,drivers,border,translation,signaler
Sensory Experiences for Interactive Technologies (SenseX)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Computer science and informatics
Panel description: Informatics and information systems, computer science, scientific computing, intelligent systems
Countries involved: United Kingdom,United Kingdom
Call: ERC Starting Grant (ERC-2014-STG, 2014)
Start date: 2015-04-01
End date: 2021-05-31
Duration (months): 74.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1494865.0
EU funding (EUR): 182263.76
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

The senses we call upon to interact with technology are still very limited relying mostly on visual and auditory senses. The grand challenge and vision of this project is to gain a rich and integrated understanding on touch, taste, and smell experiences for interactive technologies. We aim to achieve this ambitious grand vision by 1) creating a ‘sensory interaction framework’ on the bases of a systematic empirical investigation of touch, taste, and smell experiences, 2) integrating the generated understanding on the three senses into meaningful and efficient experiential cross-sensory gamuts and interaction principles, and 3) demonstrating the added value of the created experiential understanding on touch, taste, and smell – aka the experiential gamuts – through their integration into the development of multi-sensory systems verifying the short-, mid- and long-term societal and scientific impact (short-term: multi-sensory media experiences; mid-term: interaction concepts for partially sensory impaired people; long-term: multi-sensory interaction approach for life beyond Earth). This research will pioneer novel interaction concepts for interactive technologies in relation to essential components of multi-sensory experiences. This project will transform existing interaction paradigm in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and likewise impact other disciplines such as sensory and cognitive sciences by delivering ground-breaking new insights on the experiential dimensions underlying neurological processes and human perception. The PI’s research excellence and her track record (three recent seminal papers on touch, taste, and smell at the premier HCI – CHI conference) provide a rock solid foundation for the feasibility of the proposed scientific venture. This ERC project would enable her to establish an independent and interdisciplinary team to revolutionize multi-sensory research within the HCI community with impact across disciplines.

Keywords: user experience,multi sensory experience,interaction modalities
The impact of seed-dispersal by animals on plant distributions: an experimental and modelling approach (DIGEST)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Environment and Geosciences
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2016, 2016)
Start date: 2017-05-01
End date: 2019-04-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 177598.8
EU funding (EUR): 177598.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Many plant species produce seeds that are ingested, transported and egested by animals. This dispersal mechanism is known as endozoochory, and plays a crucial role in the persistence of a broad range of plant species worldwide. The importance of endozoochory is today best known for terrestrial plant species producing fleshy-fruits around their seeds to attract animals. However, animals also massively ingest seeds that lack fleshy components in wetland ecosystems, suggesting endozoochory can also impact wetland biodiversity. Current global pressures on wetlands urge a better understanding of the dispersal mechanisms regulating biodiversity in such “islands in a sea of land”. The proposed study aims to generate a mechanistic understanding of endozoochory by studying wetland ecosystems in a novel approach: traditional time-consuming and ethically-challenging experiments with living animals will be replaced by an innovative combination of experiments and biogeographical modelling. Four key objectives are to: (I) identify contrasts and similarities between endozoochory in terrestrial and aquatic habitats in a meta-analysis; (II) modify existing artificial digestion protocols for humans and domestic animals so they simulate digestion by three key vector animal species for wetlands, during a secondment in the food industry; (III) use these protocols to estimate the endozoochorous dispersal potential for a wide range of plant species; (IV) use biogeographical modelling to test relations among the suitability index of plant species for endozoochory, plant distributions and movements of vector animals. This integrated approach will improve our mechanistic understanding of endozoochory, fuse terrestrial and aquatic ecology, exchange knowledge between academia and the industry, inform on an important ecological process in a globally changing world, and will allow me to acquire all necessary competences and contacts to initiate my own research group after this project.

Keywords: animal physiology,artificial digestion,ecosystem engineers,plant dispersal,plant animal interactions
Bio-INspired GOld metamaterials (BINGO)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Chemistry
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2016, 2016)
Start date: 2017-03-01
End date: 2019-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 183454.8
EU funding (EUR): 183454.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The development of metamaterials has opened new opportunities for designing novel devices in the field of imaging, data storage and sensing. Although some progress has been achieved in in this emerging area, the fabrication of nanoscale metamaterials with tailorable geometries still remains challenging. This proposal aims to develop a facile and scalable synthesis approach to gold metamaterials inspired by nature. The key novelty of the action is to use self-assembled cellulose nanocrystals as templates to fabricate gold morphologies with chiral periodic organization. The goals of the action are (I) the isolation of cellulose nanocrystals from bulk celluloses and their co-assembly to highly organized CNC and CNC/Au chiral scaffolds, (II) the post-treatment of such chiral films to achieve high porosity and excellent compatibility with gold precursors, (III) the development of a facile wet-chemical route to continuous gold morphologies exploiting the self-assembly of cellulose nanocrystals, (VI) the optical characterization of CNC-templated gold structures. The cellulose-assisted synthesis of gold metamaterials has a potential to open a new pathway for fabrication of novel metamaterials and potentially can become a breakthrough technique in metamaterial engineering.

Keywords: nanostructured gold,template assisted synthesis,biotemplate,cellulose nanocrystals,biophotonics,metamaterials
Advanced Light MAterials and processes for the eco-design of electric vehicles (ALMA)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Smart, green and integrated transport
Action type: Innovation actions
Partnership: EGVI (cPPP)
Countries involved: Germany,Spain,Germany,Spain,Spain,France,France,Netherlands,Netherlands
Call: Advanced light materials and their production processes for automotive applications (H2020-LC-GV-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2021-02-01
End date: 2024-01-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 5197595.0
EU funding (EUR): 4266391.63
Participants: 11
Project status: SIGNED

In the need to improve the efficiency and driving range of electric vehicles (EVs), one strategy is the weight reduction of the global vehicle. There are already available solutions based on advanced light materials with promising structural properties but they still need further development to increase their TRL and reach the market. Furthermore, increasing environmental awareness and forthcoming stricter regulations demands the adoption of circular economy principles across the entire vehicle life-cycle. To respond to this challenge, ALMA will develop a novel BEV structure for a passenger car with 45% weight reduction potential compared to current baseline (15% additional reduction if compared to prior-art solutions) at affordable costs (below 3€/Kg-saved of additional cost), thus enabling up to 2.2 KWh/100Km efficiency increase and 11% LCA improvement. For this purpose, ALMA will develop a multi-material modular platform (BIW, chassis and closures) made of a combination of Advanced High Strength Steels (AHHS), Advanced-SMC and steel-hybrid materials, characterized with multiscale model-based tools. ALMA will adopt circular economy principles from early stages through the application of eco-design strategies to create a novel BEV platform “made to be recycled”, using a structural reversible bonding technology to enable the separation of components at the end-of-life (EoL) for repair and reuse. A ground-breaking health monitoring system based on acoustic emissions will be integrated in the structure to detect and locate damage while in-service. At last, efficient recycling and material recovery options will be analysed to complete the circular loop. ALMA involves a well balance group of 9 partners from 4 different EU countries, 5 of them are market-oriented companies (with 2 SMEs), being one an automotive OEM. It also includes 3 RTOs and one international association. ALMA has also gathered the support of 15 external supporting partners in the Advisory Board.

Keywords: lighweight,electric vehicle,advanced materials,eco design,steel,composites,debonding,multiscale simulation,structural health monitoring,circular economy,reuse,recycling
Highly Automated Air Traffic Controller Workstations with Artificial Intelligence Integration (HAAWAII)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Smart, green and integrated transport
Theme: Public-private partnerships
Destination: Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Partnership: SESAR (Art-187)
Countries involved: Iceland,Austria,Germany,Croatia,Switzerland,Czechia,United Kingdom
Call: Automation and CWP (H2020-SESAR-2019-2, 2019)
Start date: 2020-06-01
End date: 2022-11-30
Duration (months): 30.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1825000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1825000.0
Participants: 7
Project status: CLOSED

Advanced automation support developed in Wave 1 of SESAR IR includes using of automatic speech recognition (ASR) to reduce the amount of manual data inputs by air-traffic controllers. Evaluation of controllers’ feedback has been subdued due to the limited recognition performance of the commercial of the shell ASR engines that were used, even in laboratory conditions. The reasons for the unsatisfactory conclusions include e.g. inability to distinguish controllers’ accents, deviations from standard phraseology and limited real-time recognition performance. Past exploratory research funded project MALORCA, however, has shown (on restricted use-cases) that satisfactory performance can be reached with novel data-driven machine learning approaches. Based on the results of MALORCA HAAWAII project aims to research and develop a reliable, error resilient and adaptable solution to automatically transcribe voice commands issued by both air-traffic controllers and pilots. The project will build on very large collection of data, organized with a minimum expert effort to develop a new set of models for complex environments of Icelandic en-route and London TMA. HAAWAII aims to perform proof-of-concept trials in challenging environments, i.e. to be directly connected with real-life data from ops room. As pilot read-back error detection is the main application, HAAWAII aims to significantly enhance the validity of the speech recognition models. The proposed work goes far beyond the work planned for the Wave 2 IR programme and will improve both safety and reduce controllers’ workload. The digitization of controller and pilot voice utterances can be used for a wide variety of safety and performance related benefits including, but not limiting to pre-fill entries into electronic flight strips and CPDLC messages. Another application demonstrated during proof-of-concept will be to objectively estimate controllers’ workload utilising digitized voice recordings of the complex London TMA.

Keywords: artificial intelligence,machine learning,automatic speech recognition,readback error detection
The interactive side of emotion: A neuroethological approach in freely-moving monkeys (EMACTIVE)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Panel description: Nervous system development, homeostasis and ageing, nervous system function and dysfunction, systems neuroscience and modelling, biological basis of cognitive processes and of behaviour, neurological and mental disorders
Countries involved: Italy
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2020-COG, 2020)
Start date: 2022-04-01
End date: 2027-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1999231.0
EU funding (EUR): 1999231.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

A general principle of brain functioning is the exploitation of neural substrates for self-related processes, such as action planning, decision-making and space coding, to map those of others. Indirect evidence indicates that similar agent-based coding may characterize emotion as well. How does the primate brain represent emotional displays (EDs) of self and others from the single-neuron to the network level? EMACTIVE will leverage state-of-the-art wireless recording technologies developed during my previous ERC StG to crack the code of agent-based representation of EDs. I will first record single-neuron activity from the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) (WP1) and amygdala (WP2) alongside physiological data of freely moving pairs of macaques, aiming to identify self- (ST) and other-type (OT) neurons encoding EDs: I hypothesize that an animal’s ST neurons drive its Eds, which in turn trigger OT neurons of the partner, facilitating behavioural coordination. By means of neural decoding approaches, chemogenetic inactivation and wireless intracortical microstimulation, I will assess the causal role of each region in the control of specific EDs during interactive situations. Next (WP3), neuronal tracers will be injected in the amygdalar and ACC territories hosting ST and OT neurons, providing the connectional fingerprint of agent-based representation of EDs. Finally, in WP4 we will record neuronal activity simultaneously from multiple regions anatomically connected with the ACC and amygdala (capitalizing on findings from WP3) in two additional pairs of freely interacting monkeys (multiareal hyperscanning), thereby revealing the neural and contextual factors affecting interbrain synchrony and its role in behavioural coordination. EMACTIVE will reveal the single-cell and network mechanisms underlying EDs of self and others during social interactions, thought to be altered in several poorly understood neuropsychiatric diseases, such as anxiety disorders and autism.

Keywords: macaque monkey,wireless recording,emotion,social interaction,mirror neuron,amygdala,insula,cingulate cortex,single neuron
Efficient energy cleaning robotic platform for wind turbines (EeC WITUR) (EeC WITUR)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Secure, clean and efficient energy
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Spain
Call: Stimulating the innovation potential of SMEs for a low carbon energy system (H2020-SMEINST-1-2014, 2014)
Start date: 2015-05-01
End date: 2015-10-31
Duration (months): 6.0
Total project cost (EUR): 71429.0
EU funding (EUR): 50000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The purpose of the project is the large-scale commercialization of an integral both preventive and predictive maintenance service by means of cleaning and inspection actions of wind turbines for the increase of its energy efficiency, based on a monitored robotic platform. This robotic platform is innovative in the wind market due to its performance in connection to two preventive maintenance operations which are currently carried out manually, thus resulting in the corresponding cost, efficiency and hazard issues associated to them: •Cleaning service: the platform carries a water cannon with two degrees of freedom capable of injecting both hot water and soap at high pressure all over the surface of the tower, blades and nacelle, thus performing the cleaning tasks. •Inspection service: the robotic platform is capable of carrying adjustable high resolution cameras, and thermographic cameras, thereby collecting data, generating graphic reports, images, and high resolution videos. In the management and maintenance of towers, it is essential and really useful to conduct a close-range and detailed control of blades, which will allow for fast and concrete repairs to be carried out, thereby immediately increasing performance and preventing more significant damages. Nowadays, the aforementioned two actions are carried out manually in wind towers and, consequently, they are too expensive, not efficient enough, and dangerous, thus deriving in a potential performance reduction. Therefore, with the prototype developed, it is possible to achieve a potential increase in the energy efficiency of wind turbines as a result of lower costs, higher efficiency and a reduction of the hazards associated to the service by means of the EeC WITUR device. The current similar robotic solutions (mostly from the USA) are exclusively aimed at inspection services.

Keywords: wind turbines,energy efficiency,wind sector