The energy industry relies on inspection and surveying activities to evaluate the condition of infrastructures and land surfaces. However, these activities are mainly performed manually by in-person missions, a time-consuming and costly process that may yields to incomplete and poor-quality results without possibilities of forecasting, as well as posing a safety threat to personnel performing these tasks. Towards that direction, drones - technically described as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) - are evolving beyond their military origin extending their offerings to commercial sectors. Companies are starting to realize that they constitute not only a replacement to time-consuming, costly and dangerous in-person missions but also an excellent alternative for accurate real-time data collection. With MYRIAD we disrupt commercial drones’ market by introducing an innovative drone-based inspection and surveying system to be applied as valuable business tool in a number of energy sectors. By combining the efficiency, cost benefits and safety of UAVs with insightful aerial data and powerful software with AI, MYRIAD enables decision making for our customers based on real-time anomalies detection and forecasting (Airborne Artificial Intelligence). With MYRIAD drone we propose a 24/7 fully autonomous inspection and surveying able to reduce associated workload and operational costs at 50-75% compared to traditional manual methods while minimizing personnel risks. Furthermore, through our proprietary software we offer on-demand acquisition of high-quality aerial data and real-time analysis, interpretation and forecasting of anomalies - powerful datasets – to guarantee the successful operation of energy related companies.

Climate change will affect Arctic ecosystems more than any other ecosystem worldwide, with temperature increases expected up to 4-6°C. While this is threatening the integrity and biodiversity of the ecosystems in itself, the larger ecosystem feedbacks triggered by this change are even more worrisome. During millions of years, atmospheric carbon has been stored in the Arctic soils. With warming, the carbon can rapidly escape the soils in the form of CO2 and (even worse) the strong greenhouse agent CH4. Despite decades of research, scientists still struggle to unveil the scale of this carbon exchange, and especially how it will interact with climate change. An overarching question remains: how much carbon will potentially escape the Arctic in the future climate, and how will this affect climate change? FutureArctic embeds this research challenge directly in an inter-sectoral training initiative for early stage researchers, that aims to form “ecosystem-of-things” scientists and engineers at the ForHot site. The FORHOT site in Iceland offers a geothermally controlled soil temperature warming gradient, to study how Arctic ecosystem processes are affected by temperature increases as expected through climate change. FutureArctic aims to pave the way for generalized permanently connected data acquisition systems for key environmental variables and processes. We will initiate a new machine-learning approach to analyse large high-throughput environmental data-streams, through installing a pioneer "ecosystem-of-things" at the ForHot site. FutureArctic will thus channel, building on a timely project in the ForHot area, an important evolution to machine-assisted environmental fundamental research. This is achieved through the dedicated training of researchers with profiles at the inter-sectoral edge of computer science, artificial intelligence, environmental science (both experimental and modelling), scoial sciences and sensor engineering and communication.

Energy ECS “Smart and secure energy solutions for future mobility” will focus on the interface of energy and mobility as well as related ICT and electronics. Central for today’s society, these two sectors are facing the restructuring of technology and business value chains that enable the emergence of completely new business models and ecosystems. The project concept builds on six use cases that represent different angles of future mobility and energy; enablers of new logistics modes, energy independent intermodal transport, charging technologies and opportunities, grid stability responding to bi-directional charging, and enablers of safe autonomous driving. The technology developments respond to a long list of MASP major challenges and include e.g. battery charging electronics, grid and sensor power management, energy harvesting, real time location controls and sensors. The R&D will also apply artificial intelligence, machine learning, immersive technologies, IoT, ultra-low power technologies, advanced algorithms and software. All technologies will be designed for cyber-security and reliability. The consortium includes 16 SMEs, 8 LEs and 6 RTOs from 8 countries. The complementary capabilities allow R&D results that lead to new competitiveness of the partners. By 2030, the project is expected to generate increased turnover by over 1 B€, increased market share and/or market leadership for 24 partners, 130+ new collaborations, 300+ new jobs and 10+ M€ of additional investments. The consortium with half of the partners being SMEs forms a squad of challengers, agile and hungry to grasp the huge business opportunities that emerge in the convergence of the two sectors, supported by large companies fostering the immediate business volume and carefully selected RTOs. The consortium nucleates a new ecosystem of strongly interlinked value networks, the impact towards European competitiveness, growth and innovation capabilities ranging far beyond 2030.