While automakers have demonstrated progress with prototypes and commercial vehicles traveling greater than 500 km on a single fill, this driving range must be achievable across different vehicle makes and models and without compromising customer expectations of space, performance, safety, or cost. The TAHYA project, mainly led by industrial partners -already involved in producing and manufacturing hydrogen solutions for the automotive and aviation industry-, will focus on the development of a complete, competitive and innovative European H2 storage system (a cylinder with a mounted On-Tank-Valve with all integrated functionalities) for automotive applications up-performing the actual Asian and US ones. The TAHYA consortium composed of Optimum CPV, Anleg, Raigi, Volkswagen, Chemnitz University of Technology, Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung, PolarixParner and Absiskey will ensure that the development phase of the storage system remain in line with the expectations (cost, performance and safety) required by the market, end users’ and car manufacturers. The key objectives of the TAHYA project are: OBJ#1: Preparatory work to provide a compatible H2 storage system with high performances, safe and Health Safety Environment responsible. OBJ#2: Provide a compatible H2 storage system with mass production and cost competitive. OBJ#3: Regulation Codes and Standards (RCS) activities to propose updates on GRT13 and EC79 according to tests results obtained over the duration of the project.

The need for levels of availability and scalability beyond those supported by relational databases has led to the emergence of a new generation of purpose-specific databases grouped under the term NoSQL. In general, NoSQL databases are designed with horizontal scalability as a primary concern and deliver increased availability and fault-tolerance at a cost of temporary inconsistency and reduced durability of data. To balance the requirements for data consistency and availability, organisations increasingly migrate towards hybrid data persistence architectures comprising both relational and NoSQL databases. The consensus is that this trend will only become stronger in the future; critical data will continue to be stored in ACID (predominately relational) databases while non-critical data will be progressively migrated to high-availability NoSQL databases. Moreover, as the volume and the value of natural language content constantly grows, built-in support for sophisticated text processing in data persistence architectures is increasingly becoming essential. The aim of TYPHON is to provide a methodology and an integrated technical offering for designing, developing, querying and evolving scalable architectures for persistence, analytics and monitoring of large volumes of hybrid (relational, graph-based, document-based, natural language etc.) data. TYPHON brings together research partners with a long track record of conducting internationally-leading research on software modelling, domain-specific languages, text mining and data migration, and of delivering research results in the form of robust and widely-used open-source software, industrial partners active in the automotive, earth observation, banking, and motorway operation domains, an industrial advisory board of world-class experts in the fields of databases, business intelligence and analytics, and large-scale data management, and a global consortium including more than 400 organisations from all sectors of IT.

MAYA aims at developing simulation methodologies and multidisciplinary tools for the design, engineering and management of CPS-based (Cyber Physical Systems) Factories, in order to strategically support production-related activities during all the phases of the factory life-cycle, from the integrated design of the product-process- production system, through the optimization of the running factory, till the dismissal/reconfiguration phase. The concurrence and the cross-combination of the Cyber and the Physical dimensions with the Simulation domain is considered as cornerstone in MAYA innovations, to successfully address a new generation of smart factories for future industry responsiveness. MAYA finds complete validation in one of the most competitive, advanced and complex industrial sector in Europe, the automotive, where it will accomplish reduced time to production & reduced time to optimization within two use-cases (Volkswagen and FinnPower). In order to realize such a vision, MAYA addresses actual technological constraints through research and development activities focusing on the following three high level objectives: - MAYA for Digital Continuity; - MAYA for the Synchronization of the Digital and Real Factory; - MAYA for Multidisciplinary integrated simulation and modelling. MAYA’s concept and motivation have been born within the framework set by the Pathfinder initiative, and represent a concrete first step to empower the vision there drafted, and consolidated thanks to the contribution of several academic experts and industrial key-players (http://www.pathfinderproject.eu/contributors.asp).

Photofuel studies and advances the biocatalytic production of alternative liquid transportation fuels, which require only sunlight, CO2 and water. Microbial cells directly excrete hydrocarbon and long chain alcohol fuel compounds to the medium from which they are separated, without the need to harvest biomass. This significantly improves the costs and energy balances as only a minimum of nutrients is required for self-replication of the biocatalyst, whilst cell harvesting, drying and lipid extraction is omitted. Such minimum-input systems are compatible with operation on degraded or desert land which avoids the pitfalls of most of the currently available biofuel technologies. The products are drop-in fuels that fully or partially replace their fossil counterparts without the need for new infrastructure. To set a benchmark for alternative solar fuels, three research groups will collaborate in the advancement of the biocatalysts from TRL 3. The best biocatalytic system(s) will be up-scaled and operated outdoors in photobioreactors modified for direct fuel separation at a scale of several cubic meters (TRL 4-5). The identification of optimal future fuel blends with a fossil fuel base and Photofuel biofuels as additives, as well as the analysis of performance and emissions in car or truck engines, will be evaluated by the oil- and automotive-industry partners. The entire pathway will be assessed for environmental and economic performance as well as social acceptance of large scale production in rural communities and by the consumer. All results will be combined to a business development plan, which clearly identifies the opportunities but also the challenges prior to an economic fuel production in compliance to the EC Fuel Quality Directive.

Hi-Drive addresses a number of key challenges which are currently hindering the progress of developments in vehicle automation. The key aim of the project is to focus on testing and demonstrating automated driving, by improving intelligent vehicle technologies, to cover a large set of traffic environments, not currently achievable. Hi-Drive enables testing of a variety of functionalities, from motorway chauffeur to urban chauffeur, explored in diverse scenarios with heterogeneous driving cultures across Europe. In particular, the Hi-Drive trials will consider European TEN-T corridors and urban nodes in large and medium cities, with a specific attention to demanding, error-prone, conditions. The project’s ambition is to considerably extend the operational design domain (ODD) from the present situation, which frequently demands interventions from the human driver. Therefore, the project concept builds on reaching a widespread and continuous ODD, where automation can operate for longer periods and interoperability is assured across borders and brands. The project also investigates what factors influence user behavior and acceptance, as well as understanding the needs of other road users interacting with these vehicles. The removal of fragmentation in the ODD is expected to give rise to a gradual transition from a conditional operation towards higher levels of automated driving. With these aims, Hi-Drive associates a consortium of 41 European partners with a wide range of interests and capabilities covering the main impact areas which affect users, and the transport system, and enhance societal benefits. The project intends to contribute towards market deployment of automated systems by 2030. All this cannot be achieved by testing only. Accordingly, the work includes outreach activities on business innovation and standardization, plus extended networking with the interested stakeholders, coordinating parallel activities in Europe and overseas.