Discover new technologies by our partners

In manufacturing and building construction, the installation of elements in a particular arrangement for covering a surface (that is much larger than the elements) is usually done in a repetitive manual process. In construction, particularly tiling is a strenuous and labour-intensive process undertaken by a shrinking pool of skilled workers. Although no complex joinery is involved, it is challenging to automate as it imposes sub-mm tolerances rarely found elsewhere on site and involves a precisely dosed, cement-based bonding material. This technology provides a solution to overcome these challenges and implemented a novel robotic solution to automate tiling work on construction sites. The goal is a robotic co-worker that relieves tilers of the most repetitive tasks. The compact mobile robot autonomously navigates the work site, applies thinset adhesive and places tiles on the surface, even in confined spaces. It offers increased productivity, consistent quality and detailed data available for quality assurance (QA) and Building Information Modeling (BIM) exchange. Completing a real tiling job on a live construction site has validated the solution. The technology can be licensed and consulting for assisting in its application is available. For the on-site robotic tiling use case, co-development of a market-ready system can be explored. For companies operating prefabrication plants for building elements, solutions to automate finishing tasks such as tiling, plastering or waterproofing can be developed. Large-scale repetitive assembly processes in manufacturing may also be automated using the developed technologies.

This technology encompasses a novel process to creating functional fibres from waste fruit, vegetable or seaweed biomasses. With the rise of consumers wanting clean-label or natural products, the demand for new and more natural ingredients within the food sector has increased. To meet this challenge, there has been a surge of new “functional” fibre products that bring technical or textural functionality to food systems. Highly functional fibres show superior texturising, stabilising and fat mimicking functionality that until recently, had only been provided by traditional food ingredients (i.e. agar, carrageenan, pectin, alginate, methylcellulose etc). This technology is aimed at food ingredient/bioprocessing companies with access to food waste/seaweed biomasses, who would like valorise these streams. Applicable biomasses include carrot waste, seed oil cakes, protein extraction waste, citrus peel, juicing waste or various other sources. The streams can be evaluated for active ingredients and can be converted into various types of functional fibres. Once fibre functionality is optimised any new fibre products can be evaluated within pre-trailed applications for marketing purposes for the producer.

The technology offer is an Augmented Reality (AR) through Head-Up Display (HUD) for Off-Highway Vehicles (OHVs), in which a transparent display that presents data on the windscreen without requiring the user to look away from his or her usual working viewpoint. Therefore, this will allow the machine driver to stay focused on his work whilst at the same time read the important messages such as measurements, instructions, work-orders and warnings. The technology can be applied in construction machines, forklifts, harbour cranes, forest machines and agricultural machines. The technology is field-proven, and the company is looking to initiate first production targeting one or a few OHV markets. For their value proposition, the company's HUD visualization hardware system compromises optics, electronics and mechanics protected by intellectual properties (IPs) which can be licensed.

Ultrasonic synthetic method is used to prepare various nano-porous (nanofoam) metal current collectors, including, but not limited to, copper metal for anode and aluminum/nickel metal for cathode. The innovative nanofoam metal current collectors are used to prepare high performance lithium ion (Li-ion) battery, which shows good capacity retention and cycling stability even under fast charge/discharge rates. It is easy to be industrialized and can improve rapid charge/discharge rates and electrochemical capacity retention of Li-ion battery.

This technology offer is a full-fledged Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) platform with a combination of proven technologies – Edge and Cloud Computing. The platform orchestrates the transport of extremely detailed data from industrial devices—anything from the machines in a factory to the engines inside an aeroplane—that are filled with sensors for real-time sharing between machine to machine (M2M) and enterprise to enterprise (E2E) to make processes more efficient and its potential to enable faster and better decision making. The advent of tiny low-cost sensors and high-bandwidth wireless networks now means even the smallest devices can be connected up, given a level of digital intelligence that allows them to be monitored and tracked, and can share data on their status and communicate with other devices. All of this data can then be collected and analyzed to make business processes more efficient, thanks to the platform, each of its elements are sufficiently mature and cheap enough that projects can be financially viable.

Global warming is accelerating and credible solutions in refrigeration are struggling to emerge. Aware of the enormous energy and environmental footprint of thermal production in the world, the technology owner is developing magnetic cooling modules from 20 to 100 kW with low environmental impact and high energy efficiency as well as machines for conversion into electrical energy from sources of solar or lost heat (below 100°C). The refrigeration solutions widely used today are high pressure refrigerant gas compressors. This technology, dating from the 1920s, is mature and well mastered. Its performance is modest and the refrigerants used have a negative environmental impact. Many sectors are therefore seeking new refrigeration solution that is both sustainable and environmentally friendly. The proposed technology relates to a magnetic refrigeration device that operate without refrigerant gas. The electricity consumption is at least 50% lower than traditional refrigeration systems. It is a green technology with great potential for the environment. The technology owner also developed a device to efficiently convert low sources of wasted heat into electricity. The two technologies are very similar and rely on the same magnetic core expertise. The technology owner is seeking partners to collaborate through various models including custom-made prototypes, co-development projects, technology licensing and strategic partnership.

Modern buildings are often equipped with building automation and control (BAC) systems for operational control and monitoring. Conventional BAC systems lack the level of intelligence to coordinate the control of complex building systems to achieve multiple targets (energy efficiency, occupant well-being). Most conventional BAC systems have the core control algorithm in a reactive manner such as on/off control or proportional–integral–derivative (PID) control. Due to the complexity of most modern buildings and their ACMV systems, reactive control can practically never achieve the desired control target based on the past measurement information. In addition, reactive control is typical for single-input systems (e.g., room temperature as a single input for ACMV system) but rarely capable of coordinating multiple systems. These limitations in the current reactive BAC systems could lead to low energy efficiency and unsatisfactory human comfort. The proposed technology offers a model predictive control (MPC) solution that overcomes such limitations by employing a building model to perform optimal, predictive and coordinated control of various building service systems including air-conditioning and mechanical ventilation (ACMV – FCU, VAV, ACB, PDV, etc), lighting (automated dimming) and shading (automated blinds and electrochromic windows), etc. The technology was test bedded in multiple buildings, achieving 20 – 60% of energy savings while greatly improving occupants’ thermal and visual comfort. This could largely disrupt the BAC market to shift to a much more intelligent level with predictive (instead of reactive) control and real-time optimization. A MPC system that is suitable for commercial deployment is now being developed. The technology provider is seeking for industry partners to collaborate through various modes including technology licensing and test bedding in buildings.

The technology offers an effective and hygienic solution for capturing first void urine (typically defined as the first 20 mL of the urine flow) in a standardized volumetric way, thereby guaranteeing significantly increased analytic accuracy and patient comfort over classic urine sampling devices. The technology is highly user-friendly and allows for non-clinician dependent self-sampling in a home based setting.  Due to the non-invasive character of urine sampling, it offers an alternative to clinician-dependent sampling such as pap smear, cervico-vaginal brushes, etc.  The technology platform consists of multiple variants capturing a range of urine volumes for different application purposes. To allow for transportation and storage of the urine sample at room temperature, the technology is also available in combination with various urine stabilization chemistries that remove the need for cold-chain transportation and immediate cold storage of the collected samples.

Optical camera communication (OCC) is a promising wireless communication technology that exploits the two-dimensional image sensor of digital cameras to capture and decode information sent through LED illumination. The OCC transmitter can include a single LED, an array of LEDs or a multi-pixel digital display. The company has developed a novel OCC method that facilitates flicker-free communication between RGB-LED emitters and low framerate cameras. At the core of the method is a patented under-sampled color-switch modulation scheme that employs complementary color-pairs as data symbols. Since the pairs are "metameric matches" of the color white, the resultant LEDs illumination is perceived as uniform white to the human eye. The color-based modulation allows higher data-rate per each LED transmitter compared to similar monochromatic methods.