The Basque technology center IK4-Ideko coordinates and leads the European project Coroma, which seeks to develop a new concept of intelligent, modular and flexible industrial robots, with in order to advance the development of Industry 4.0 and thus strengthen the competitiveness of the European manufacturing fabric.

The project designs different robotic applications, with the capacity to run multiple processes autonomously and manufacture metal parts and composite materials, for three very demanding sectors: aeronautics, shipbuilding and power generation. The project is therefore working on the development of a new modular robotic system that adapts to the production requirements of different manufacturing activities. To achieve this, the system will be provided with a simple interface with which the robot will receive commands from the human operator with minimal programming effort.

The new robot concept will be collaborative in nature and will have the ability to interact with other equipment and automatically react to the presence of both human beings and other machines. In addition, the system will be configured in such a way that it can increase its performance by learning from previous experiences.

In the project, which has a budget of 7 million euros, of which 6 come from the European Commission – within the framework of the Horizon 2020 program -, 16 companies and entities from 7 different countries participate, including the company Basque Soraluce, and three universities – University of Sheffield, University of Nantes and the Swedish KTH Royal Institute of Technology –.