A selection of British companies are poised to reap the benefits of a European-wide initiative on robotic technology after securing one of 25 ‘golden tickets’. Automata Technologies, Hexagon Metrology, Nissan Motor Manufacturing (UK) and Russell Finex are the latest UK beneficiaries from the second and final round of the ROBOTT-NET voucher programme.
In all, 64 vouchers have been given out via the programme, entitling each recipient to receive highly-specialised consultancy from a broad field of the brightest robotics experts around Europe, with the aim of bringing their ideas to fruition.
A total of 166 companies spread across 12 European countries applied for a voucher from the European robotic technology transfer network, which is a collaboration between the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) in Coventry, Danish Technological Institute (DTI) from Denmark, Fraunhofer IPA in Germany and Tecnalia from Spain. From the set of the 64 winning vouchers, eight companies will be selected for further assistance and funding towards a pilot project.
Jeremy Hadall, chief technologist in robotics and automation at the MTC, says: “With the announcement of the final 25 vouchers in the ROBOTT-NET program, the MTC is now working with a number of UK companies to develop their robot technologies and applications to allow them to grow their competitive position.”
One of the important aims of ROBOTT-NET is to strengthen the technology transfer between the participating research and technology organisations and the European manufacturing industry. To realise this technology transfer, all partners in ROBOTT-NET will run general courses for industry management as a complementary activity to voucher and pilot work systems.
The MTC will be holding a ROBOTT-NET course on 24-25 April.
For further information
www.the-mtc.org