In 2022 GIM Robotics joined in three national Business Finland funded projects: FUTURA, SANTTU and SWARM. These ambitious construction, mining, cargo handling and forestry related mobile machinery projects included each a mixed bag of research topics from the list of common keywords including digital twins, AI, operator assistive systems, autonomy, electrification, and whatnot. All three projects had one common denominator. Instead of just navigating there and back, these machines do some actual work which requires some sort of a manipulator, or as it can be called it in this context, a boom. So regardless of whether you are a John Lee Hooker, The Animals, or even Vengaboys fan, boom-boom-boom is the phrase of the day. As we are extremely happy to be among some Finnish flagship companies (OEMs, subsystem providers, etc.) and our top universities, we want to introduce the last active Business Finland project, FUTURA, here. SANTTU is already finalized and SWARM will be wrapped in no time.
FUTURA – THE OBJECTIVES
Future all-electric rough terrain autonomous mobile manipulators (FUTURA) project aims to exploit electrification benefits and create full-dynamics-based control of mobile manipulators: “The project focuses on developing technologies and methods that are fundamental for unlocking the full commercial potential of future electrified mobile working machines. The main objective is to develop science-based control methods which enable the cooperation of the electric boom and the rough-terrain-suitable electric mobile platform, paving the way for future fully electric rough-terrain mobile manipulators capable of flexible and autonomous task execution.”
FUTURA – THE FACTS
FUTURA is a 3 year / 3 million € project, which started October 1st 2022. It is run by our old friend from Tampere University, Professor Jouni Mattila. FUTURA has the crème-de-la-crème of Finnish mining, cargo handling and construction companies as members: Sandvik, Cargotec, Normet, Novatron, and Rambooms. GIM Robotics is thrilled to be among them to support this important research project.
You can read more about FUTURA project from Sustainable Industry X (SIX) webpage here:
