Karlsruhe, September 18, 2024: The two-day consortium meeting of the COOPERANTS project brought together key stakeholders from all partner organizations on September 18th and 19th to present progress and set the course for the project’s future development. The hybrid event was hosted in the “Living Labs” of the consortium partner, the Research Center for Information Technology (FZI) in Karlsruhe. Alongside reports from the individual work packages and an interactive World Café session, the focus was particularly on demonstrating the Advanced Smart Services.
A review of successful project milestones
From the opening presentations, it became clear that COOPERANTS has made significant progress in recent months. Dr. Caroline Lange (DLR) kicked off the meeting with a comprehensive overview of the project’s milestones to date. Her presentation highlighted that COOPERANTS is on a promising path to creating intelligent solutions for future digital ecosystems. She emphasized, “We are ready for the validation of our services in our pilot missions, be it on the ISS platform or the asteroid sample return mission.” The work package leaders presented impressive results, particularly in the area of data infrastructures, which facilitate secure and efficient exchanges between different actors and will significantly contribute to digital transformation.
Presentations of application areas and pilots in a poster session
In the interactive poster sessions, participants had the opportunity to experience first-hand the concrete progress across various application fields. The showcased pilot projects demonstrated how COOPERANTS is already creating real value from Smart Services, enhancing both efficiency and sustainability in the aerospace sector.
A tour of the Living Labs
The event continued with an exciting insight into the pioneering developments of the FZI Living Labs, which explore and develop practical and industry-relevant solutions to real-world challenges. Key highlights of the tour included:
- The autonomous mobility systems, such as the “EVA-Shuttle” minibus, which detect and safely respond to traffic situations, paving the way for the future of mobility.
- Service robot Holly, which handles routine tasks in homes or healthcare settings, showcasing the potential of modern assistive technologies.
- Walking robot Lauron, which navigates rough terrain with ease, demonstrating how autonomous robots can be applied in both research and industry.
Demonstration of developed services
A highlight of the first day was the demonstration of several services developed within COOPERANTS, showcasing the technological advancements made thus far. The following services were introduced:
- Digital Project Management Office
- Customer Supplier Collaboration
- Agile Manufacturing Support
- HOLOWORK
- Digital Twin of Robots
- Large Language Model
Learn more about our services here.
Special attention was given to HOLOWORK, as it is the first service to be accessible and executable via the COOPERANTS data space. The demonstration of this service vividly showed how innovative applications can be directly launched through the marketplace, paving the way for many more services to follow.
World Café
The second day began with an interactive World Café session, where participants worked in small groups on various thematic stations, such as future event planning. This session allowed participants to dive deep into key topics of the COOPERANTS project and develop new ideas and approaches. The open and collaborative atmosphere fostered creative discussions and productive exchanges between the partners.
Conclusion
The 5th consortium meeting at the FZI Living Labs was a great success, clearly demonstrating that the COOPERANTS project is on the right track. The service presentations, especially of HOLOWORK, highlighted the technological progress and the future potential of the platform for the aerospace industry, particularly for SMEs. This was also confirmed by the consistently positive feedback from the Federal Network Agency. Lange summarized: “After the official part, we were able to set the course for the next six months, taking important steps such as finalizing the technical demonstrator and preparing for our appearance at Space Tech Expo Europe. Even beyond the funding project, we have a shared vision for operationalization, which continues to evolve.”
