GMV has hosted the fourth face to face meeting of the I-MECH (Intelligent Motion Control Platform for Smart Mechatronic Systems) project on 12-14 of November, 2018.

I-MECH is a H2020-ECSEL project with a total budget of € 17M, kicked off in mid-2017. It is led by the Netherlands Institution SIOUX CCM and gathers 31 organizations from 10 different member states, taking in not only multinationals of the industrial sector, like Philips, Siemens and Johnson & Johnson, but also prestigious universities such as University of Brescia, Eindhoven University of Technology or University of West Bohemia.

The remit of I-MECH is to develop hardware and software components adaptable to current motion-control systems and favoring achievement of industrial processes as efficiently as possible using smart mechatronic technology. This will enable motion control processes to be simulated beforehand and systems to be optimized as swiftly as possible. Within the scope of the project the core I-MECH platform will be built supporting the application of all the developed components. Furthermore, to make I-MECH sustainable, the project outcomes will be available for European smart industry through the envisioned “I-MECH Center”, after the completion of the project.

GMV is leading the test campaign “On-ground validation of space GNC systems through the use of robotic devices”, being held in the advanced robotics testbed platform-art^©. Control algorithms and related technology developed under I-MECH will be used to improve the performance of platform-art^© in hardware-in-the-loop testing scenarios calling for high accuracy in the dynamic control of handling robots.

The meeting was a resounding success, finalizing definition of the various hardware and software components to be developed in the project and making further headway in definition of development methodology. Participants were also taken on a guided tour around GMV’s site, finding out at first hand about the company’s space breakthroughs, such as the fine detail of the recently won contract for maintenance and upgrading of Galileo’s GCS, robotics developments and the projects implemented in platform-art^©.