From intelligent orthopedic braces to data to make ice cream better. Eight stories of Mediterranean innovation

From technology to companies, small and medium-sized ones that need to push on digital transformation. Eight industry 4.0 projects funded by Meditechactive competence center in Campania And Pugliaborn from the 4.0 Transition Plan promoted by the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy.

From occupational safety to augmented reality for the maintenance of industrial plants, from innovative agricultural systems to artificial intelligence for train monitoring, eight solutions that are also the protagonists of Meditech stories, a podcast in as many episodes, produced by Societing lab , digital social innovation laboratory in the San Giovanni a Teduccio technological center of the Federico II University of Naples.

The stories of innovation from the South, told by the protagonists

Objective of the initiative? “Transforming project dissemination activities into real stories of innovation told in a simple way directly by the voice of the protagonists: large and small companies made up of men and women who dream of innovating their sector and improving their own lives and that of their colleagues and customers,” he explained Alex Giordanoprofessor of Social Innovation and Digital Transformation and scientific director of Societing Lab who created the format.

An initiative that makes use of “languages ​​and tools closer to the community, for the creation of an ever wider learning community. Using stories to tell small and large digital transformations also has multiple positive effects at the same time”. Among these, “small and medium-sized enterprises acquire knowledge on the possibilities of innovating and on the financial instruments at their disposal” and “makes the scope of innovation more usable and with an impact”.

An approach “from the curious even before that from communication professionals. We like to understand first of all what needs technologies have responded to, what type of technologies are used and then we are interested in understanding what impact they generate on people”.

The competence centers of Meditech

The competence centers were created with the aim of promoting the 4.0 integration of the supply chain and system of small and medium-sized enterprises, thanks to the adoption of enabling technologies. “The Meditech 4.0 competence centre, established in 2020, became fully operational in the spring of 2021” explained Piero Salatino, president of Meditech.

“Digitalization – he specified – is essential to increase the competitiveness of companies and support their development, it is an increasingly widespread awareness among production realities. The competence centers aim to accompany them in the transformation process, promoting a change that is cultural even before being technological”. Meditech 4.0 is, underlined the general manager Angelo Giuliana instead, “the only center of multi-regional competence, let’s look at the SMEs of Campania and Puglia. In reality, our catchment area is much broader and involves the whole of Southern Italy. The territory, understood as a macro-region, is the main element of our activities, our goal is to encourage its development through projects and actions with a direct impact on the entire ecosystem”.

Meditech’s 8 projects

Pamela – Sensors and algorithms for working environments

Mobile elevating platforms with intelligent semi-autonomous driving capabilities to improve driveability, precision and safety of movements in work contexts (think of warehouses): Pamela (acronym for highly drivable mobile elevating platforms) is a project developed by Quavlive ( spinoff of the Polytechnic of Bari) and Faraone. Thanks to the assisted and autonomous driving, as well as the collision avoidance, these mobile platforms allow the platform to move safely between narrow passages even on surfaces that are not perfectly levelled, the automatic following of defined trajectories, while the collision avoidance allows to avoid collision with obstacles automatically.

Metavehicle – New (sustainable) materials for acoustic insulation

Metavehicle is a solution that aims to improve the acoustic insulation system of cars thanks to metamaterials. “A typology of materials on which research is still being carried out at an academic level – explained Giovanni Cappellari, co-founder of Phononic Vibes, partner company of the project together with Adler – but which we are trying to bring to the industrial field. In fact, by modifying the geometry of some sound-absorbing materials we are able to significantly improve their absorption capacity for the same weight”. The project makes it possible to reduce the weight of the absorbent materials and make them with recyclable materials.

Tiam – Machine learning and augmented reality for maintenance

Tiam, which stands for “innovative technologies for assistance and maintenance”, is a project whose objective is the development of augmented reality viewers and maintenance services to make assistance, maintenance, assembly and repair more efficient on the field and to provide contextual information. “Tiam – explained Michelantonio Trizio, head of technology at Wideverse, the company that developed the project together with Exprivia and the Bari Polytechnic – is a cloud platform which, through augmented reality viewers, allows a plant maintainer to be assisted remotely , as if it were a normal video call, enhanced however by holograms capable of interacting with the machines”. To support the maintainer, Tiam also provides Algho, a virtual assistant: it is able to learn, thanks to a Natural Language Processing platform, and to extract information from documents of various kinds to report them to the operator.

Geoses – Sensors and mathematical models for sustainable agriculture

An intelligent greenhouse, equipped with sensors, connected to a graphical interface and a physical-mathematical model, to make agriculture more efficient and sustainable. It’s Geoses, a project created by Eng4life and Terramore and by the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Salerno. The main need to which the project intends to give a concrete answer is that of using innovative technologies to make the production and management of the activities of a farm more efficient and sustainable, even remotely.

Iomeskb – The smart brace for orthopedic rehabilitation

A wearable system (actually a brace) of post-operative rehabilitation for the knee, with remote cloud monitoring, based on the collection of biomedical data. Created by Sensoria, Monitech and Altitudo, Iomeskb and is one of the eight projects funded by Meditech and protagonists of the podcast in eight episodes created by Societing lab. The objective of the proposal is to develop a system that allows remote monitoring of patient activities based on data, so as to improve the quality of life of patients and, at the same time, allow medical staff to monitor their improvements.

Nettuno – The digital control for the quality of the ice cream

The Nettuno project was born from the need to digitize the quality control of the ice cream production lines. A mix of technological solutions that allows you to reduce waste, improve maintenance and above all to put ice cream on the market without imperfections. The customization of an already implemented technological product is envisaged, with the aim of optimizing maintenance management activities and quality control activities. It is a modular tool, capable of adapting to the needs that emerge and which, from time to time, can be adapted and increased over time. The project partners are Netgroup and Unilever.

Rigel – Internet of Things for the control of mobile containers

Rigel is an IoT solution that aims to bring the handling of mobile containers, also known as demountable (demountable) equipment, into the Industry 4.0 paradigm: the goal of the project is to create a system for geolocation, measurement and communication of full and with fire and ignition warning that can be installed both on roll-off containers and on compactors. Monitoring would also ensure that carriers’ resources are used to their full potential. The project partners are B-Energy, Netcom, Eitd and Innova.

Aid4train – Data analysis and artificial intelligence for train monitoring

The Aid4train project aims at the intelligent management of railway maintenance. The solution was born with the aim of creating an integrated software platform that allows the analysis of the operating data of the sensors applied to a train and to work preventively on problems that have not yet occurred. The project is the result of a collaboration between Critiware and Hitachi Rail.