Next Generation Robotics

SCUOLA SUPERIORE SANT’ANNA

NGR works in the field of collaborative robotics and advanced robotic systems designed to operate within critical infrastructure. Their main product is a mobile robotic platform that uses an innovative traction system to remotely perform inspection of the underbody of trains without inspection pits. The high-definition camera enables detailed 3D reconstruction of the train underbody. The AI system automatically processes and analyzes the data to indicate points of interest in need of inspection and maintenance. Images, reports and data are sent directly to the company’s DBMS. 

Soundsafe Care

SCUOLA SUPERIORE SANT’ANNA

Soundsafe Care combines robotics and focused ultrasound for a safe and sound surgery for oncological treatments: the tumor removal is precise and non-invasive (i.e., requiring no incisions, no ionizing energy, and no anesthesia) thanks to robotics and ultrasound. Focused ultrasound takes advantage of a piezoelectric transducer in contact with the patient’s skin to focalize a high amount of energy in a millimetric spot deep in the body, without damaging all the surrounding tissues. Robotics is involved exactly for this accurate positioning, as well as its combination with imaging and machine learning can guarantee the compensation of possible motions of the therapy target and it can improve the safety throughout the treatment.

Rewing

Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia

ReWing is an innovative startup devoted to the commercialization and development of highly technological devices for the sensorimotor rehabilitation of patients with orthopedic or neurological impairments. The firsts products of ReWing are robotic devices for upper limb rehabilitation. Thanks to artificial intelligence algorithms, these devices automatically adapt to the needs of the patient, ensuring the right balance between the level of assistance and the active participation of the patient. The software platform ReWing AI interconnects all ReWing devices to combine and process all data from the different devices for comprehensive and accurate evaluations and treatment choices.

PipeIn

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PipeIn offers a software platform and an automated hardware device for the predictive analysis of pipelines. The device inserted inside the pipes is currently equipped with sensors (ultrasound probe, visual cameras) allowing a comprehensive analysis of the health status of conduits in an automated, reliable and safe way. Indeed, nowadays such inspections are conducted manually. Collected data is elaborated in post-processing by a specific AI predictive software and then delivered in a final report to customers, that can turn data into an actionable plan. The first target market is the hydropower industry for plant inspection.

Fluid Wire Robotics

SCUOLA SUPERIORE SANT’ANNA

Fluid Wire Robotics develops an innovative mechanical design for a robotic hydraulic transmission system. The innovation resides in the peculiar concept of the design of the system that allows the remotization of the motors to obtain lightweight and low-cost robots. Fluid Wire Robotics aims at conceiving a new generation of lightweight, fast, low-cost and reconfigurable collaborative robots to actually implement the concept of flexible manufacturing.

J4Energy

UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA | ETH ZURIGO

J4Energy is a startup whose mission is to deliver the Industrial Energy Transition from strategy to execution. The company combines best-of-breed scientific research with industrial knowledge to provide decision-makers with advanced proprietary algorithms embedded within a user-friendly Digital Energy Platform, to ease, improve and automate energy and sustainability decisions; these decisions are generally highly complex and uncertain and typically addressed by current players with rudimentary and unreliable approaches.

Mediate

SCUOLA SUPERIORE SANT’ANNA

Mediate develops an innovative proximity sensor based on a proprietary long-range capacitive detection technology called HEXtraSENSE. The goal of the project is to create a sensory aura around the end effectors and grippers of robotic arms to greatly increase collaboration and safety in human-machine interaction by equipping parts that to date lack sensory capabilities.

Accelerat

SCUOLA SUPERIORE SANT’ANNA

Accelerat is a Spin-Off company of the ReTiS Laboratory (Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna of Pisa), one of the world’s leading research teams in the area of embedded real-time systems. Accelerat developed CLARE, a proprietary software stack that guarantees cyber-security and safety for modern cyber-physical systems (CPSs) (e.g., autonomous vehicles, robots, medical devices, etc.). CLARE also allows a considerable reduction of the overall Size, Weight, Power consumption, and Costs (SWaP-C) and time-to-market in developing such systems.

Robosan

FEDERICO II DI NAPOLI

The idea of Robosan stems from the study and identification of points of concentration of preanalytical errors and consequent risks within a given analytical line, from sampling to laboratory processing of biological samples. Robosan proposes the first device capable of implementing a fully automated process for handling, sanitizing, and packaging biological samples aimed at increasing the safety and efficiency of the laboratory’s preanalytical phase.

Exsensia

ISTITUTO ITALIANO DI TECNOLOGIA

Exsensia team aims to develop, produce and commercialize flexible and innovative software and tools that allow intuitive programming of industrial automated or robotic systems consisting of different sensors, end-effectors and multiple robots. This technology enables the use of several types and brands of robotic systems even for non-expert users by just running Exsensia single software and algorithm. The team is developing a software platform that can be installed on any industrial PC and managed through a cross-platform web interface from different types of devices such as smartphones, tablets and traditional screens.

3DNexTech

SCUOLA SUPERIORE SANT’ANNA

3DNextech develops an innovative finishing method that will allow a shift in the Additive Manufacturing (AM) sector. The path will be from the current concept of mass production (centralized and rigid, based on a vast logistics infrastructure) to the concept of mass customization (distributed and flexible). The technology will enable the possible re-localization of companies and a greater control over the supply chain, aiming to take the best of today’s AM (flexibility, virtual absence of geometric constraints, customization) and traditional mass production technologies (speed, repeatability, mechanical performance). The features of 3DNextech patented technology make it suitable for both post-processing and production processes. The versatile solution will allow to improve the product quality and to make the mass production more sustainable and customized.

WeArt

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WEART is a company specialized in the development and commercialization of wearable haptic devices able to apply on the user skin a combination of tactile stimuli (forces, vibrations, thermal cues). These devices are meant to be integrated into XR applications to add a tactile layer to the audio/video ones. XR (extended reality) industry, after almost 10 years of development focusing on the visual part of the experience, is now focusing on the user’s interaction in these scenarios. Wearable haptic interfaces represent the natural evolution of these interactions, providing intuitiveness, realism, and user engagement.  WEART can meet this need, with its plug-and-play products providing highly-realistic haptic feedback.

Wearable Robotics

SCUOLA SUPERIORE SANT’ANNA

Wearable Robotics is a company operating in the exoskeleton and robotic rehabilitation sector. Their core product, AlexRS, is an exoskeleton that consists in two robotic arms for the upper limb rehabilitation in the acute phase post stroke. The system exploits a virtual reality software that guides the patient during the therapy in a user friendly manner. Protocols to treat chronic conditions, such as Parkinson’s motor disorders and spinal cord injuries, are under study.

Photon Path

PoLITECNICO DI MILANO

Photon Path designs and manufactures a portfolio of products based on integrated photonics for applications in communication, sensing, and new quantum applications to overcome the inherent limitations of electronics. In particular, fiber optic sensors are being adopted in several sectors thanks to the intrinsic optical fiber advantages. Photon Path targets the need of a lightweight interrogator for such sensors, the most compact solution on the market capable of processing data, while severely reducing size and cost.

Eye2Drive

SCUOLA SUPERIORE SANT’ANNA

Eye2Drive develops CMOS image sensors and digital imaging solutions with proprietary technology inspired by the human eye. Eye2Drive has developed a technology that allows its sensors to adjust in real-time, significantly enhancing the performance of AI-driven vision systems in rapidly changing light conditions. Targeting a rapidly evolving sector, Eye2Drive sets its sights on the autonomous navigation market, identified for its technological intricacies, unresolved challenges, and robust growth fueled by global advancements in autonomous systems.

Alba Robot

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ALBA Robot provides an end-to-end Integrated Mobility As a Service platform designed to be autonomous to move people in indoor and pedestrian areas. ALBA robot represents a end-to-end mobility solution composed of the Adaptive Mobility Platform and the SEDIA autonomous vehicle. The platform realizes a digital twin between real vehicles and simulated environment. to build context awareness about the vehicles, systems, persons and flows to adapt navigation and tracking algorithms and provide a real new experience on people moving. SEDIA instead stands for SEat Designed for Intelligent Autonomy. The solution is designed for airports and it can be adapted to different markets and facilities like hospitals, shopping malls, museums and residential living.

Imeros

SCUOLA SUPERIORE SANT’ANNA

Imeros develops an automated multisensory apparatus that uses touch and ultrasound to identify hard inclusions in soft tissue, such as excised tumour tissue. This makes it possible to identify with high accuracy the points where to take samples for histological analysis, a key step in tumour diagnosis. Imeros thus offers multiple benefits including 1) relieve the pathologist’s workload; (2) reduce the exposition to toxic substances  (e.g., formalin); (3) increase the accuracy and precision of the detection, making it independent from the operator experience; (4) standardize a process whose performance today varies from operator to operator; (5) create a database of all the analysed tissues.

Seamorph

I-RIM

The Reconfigurable Underwater Vehicle for Inspection, Free-floating Intervention and Survey Tasks (RUVIFIST) project develops an unmanned autonomous underwater vehicle (UUV) for survey and inspection operations. Due to its reconfigurability feature, it can enable different tasks in the submarine environment while being autonomous and maintaining maneuverability and compactness. The RUVIFIST design concept allows to integrate into a single vehicle the features of very different UUVs: the hydrodynamics and energy efficient behavior of torpedo shaped vehicles and the isotropic behavior and stable hovering performance of Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs).

Capio Robotics

SCUOLA SUPERIORE SANT’ANNA

The objective of MUSH is the development of a soft robotic platform and grippers portfolio. The platform consists of a modular structure comprising a Gripper Subsystem and a Wrist Subsystem. The innovative technologies introduced in the Grippers Subsystem are variable stiffness elements to enable both adaptability to object shape and payload. In the Wrist Subsystem, embodied intelligence principles are implemented in the soft structure to allow the implementation of the best picking and manipulation strategy of pressure-sensitive objects, using a highly simplified control system. Indeed, the solution proposed by MUSH enables safe-grasping, adaptability to object shape, and grasping versatility suitable for a variety of industrial applications, such as manipulation, pick-and-place and packaging of any object that requires a delicate yet effective touch.

Luxenta

SCUOLA SUPERIORE SANT’ANNA

Luxenta develops an ultra-wide band radio-frequency transceiver based on photonics. This feature allows frequency modulation (tunability), differently from the classic RF systems. The transceiver would be implemented on a silicon photonic chip. Being software-defined, this transceiver will work as enabling technology for multiple applications such as communication (5/6G and space), and radars (automotive, safety, robotics, space, defence, industry, agriculture, environment, meteorology).

MUSIS

UNIVERSITA’ DI FIRENZE

The Multi Sensors Integrated Solutions (MUSIS) project aims to build a new communication system able to integrate sensors that can interact in an unspecified environment. Sensors are connected to the communication environment by using specialized device drivers that plug information in exchange for weak requirements. This way it is possible to acquire data from independent sensors being able to retrieve a combined information without the burden of hardware synchronization. Moreover, this communication system enables the possibility to have more sensors dislocated over different robotic platforms, in order to speed the detection and acquisition through parallelization. The first use case, indeed, regards a multi sensor cart survey of a minefield aimed at identifying the position of unexploded ordnance (UXO) buried in the ground or lying on the soil surface.

Thermal X

UNIVERSITA’ DI VERONA

ThermalX develops a visual and thermal endoscopy system able to constantly and precisely monitor and quantitatively measure the body temperature in the surgical area. In particular, this technology aims at minimizing the damages caused by cauterization during surgeries.
The system will be implemented also with a visual camera, allowing the 3D visual reconstruction of the surgical environment. Firstly applied to the prostatectomy procedure, the system can be extended and used in all types of surgeries requiring cauterization.