Zero-emission travel, noiseless power trains and driving comfort are big advantages for electric vehicles (EV). One drawback, however, is the limited range that results from the use of smaller batteries to keep the cost down. In the day-to-day usage of such full electric vehicles (FEV) the driver has to recharge the vehicle quite. Using cables to connect vehicles in an outdoor environment is very unattractive for reasons of safety and soiling especially during winter with cold wet days. Additional drawbacks are liability issues with cables lying in the street and modification of the urban landscape. Battery recharging every day by cable could slow the growth of urban FEV fleets. The WIC2IT project offers a solution to expand FEV growth even faster by offering wireless charging. The ease-of-use of such charging systems insures that vehicles are connected to the grid more often since the driver just has to park the vehicle on the right spot and does not have to handle any bulky, heavy, dirty cables. The major challenge here is to insure that different vehicles are able to use charging spots whenever a parking space with such a spot becomes free. Successful interoperation means that even newer vehicles can be charged inductively at spots with older systems that were not specifically designed for the particular vehicle. The same is true for vehicles that might come from different manufacturers. Differences may occur since it is important to allow a free market and maximum design freedom for both vehicle manufacturers and suppliers of charging equipment. A second challenge within the scope of interoperation is in the knowledge of electromagnetic radiation. WIC2IT looks at the effect of electromagnetic radiation on living beings in order to gain valuable experience that will help determine the extent of design freedom and thus support the standardization process to make wireless charging reality in EU.

The electrical industry presently uses large quantities of synthetic resins to manufacture numerous parts having both mechanical and high voltage insulation functions. Today, in order to manufacture such parts, a mixture of complex chemicals is heated in a massive mould in order to trigger the polymerisation mechanism. Alternative methods which have the potential of simplifying the use of thermo-set materials for these applications whilst also strongly reducing the impact on the environment are now under investigation. The methods being considered are based on 'X-Ray Curing' and 'Electron Beam Curing'. Radiation curing offers the advantage of rapid curing of adequate mixtures without the need to heat it directly. This technology opens numerous possibilities for process improvement and in particular for increasing the energy efficiency and reducing environmental impact. Both scientific and technological breakthroughs are needed to reach this goal. On the one hand, one has to study in detail both electron beam and X-ray induced polymerisation in order to design new material formulations having electrical, mechanical and thermal properties compatible with high voltage applications; on the other hand, one has to know the impact of these new curing processes on the long term material properties (equipment manufactured for such applications must demonstrate a life time of about 30 years, the impact on electrical aging is a central issue to be studied). The scientific program is decomposed into three different tasks that will be realized sequentially. In the first one, two base materials, i.e. resins composed of either epoxy or epoxy-acrylate, will be selected along with the additives to be included in it. This first step aims at understanding the influence of the process and nature of the resin on the final properties of materials. From a comparison with standard materials performances, the gap for material improvement will be determined. In the second task, which constitutes the core of the project, the impact of materials microstructure on their electrical properties will be investigated and the mastering of materials properties through matrix formulation will be realized. A formulation-process-properties chart will be build. The final task is intended to validate the scientific approach through a specific industrial application: proposal for an alternative formulation-process solution, ageing tests and technico-economical evaluation of the process. The three years long project gathers three entities issued from academic and industrial area. The academic partners, Institut de Chimie Moléculaire de Reims and Laboratoire Plasma et Conversion d'Energie, Toulouse, have expertise respectively in the field of radiation chemistry with available experience in radiation processing of epoxy matrix composites and in the characterization of the dielectric behavior and space charge phenomena in polymeric insulations. The industrial partner, Schneider Electric brings knowledge and know-how in electrical insulation systems and in current processes for such insulations. Along the project, two PhD theses will be prepared and defended. Several Exchanges and stays of students in the respective labs will be organized.

The AMIE project opens a vast new research agenda for mobile Augmented Reality (AR) by making it interactive: Instead of only focusing on superimposing graphics on the real world, we aim at making the real world interactive by defining contextual reusable widgets attached to real objects and places. We introduce the term AR widget as a central concept of the AMIE project. The goal is to define reusable software building blocks for interactive AR. We base our approach on widgets (by analogy with Graphical User Interface) as elementary objects that take part in AR interaction. Instead of superimposing graphics on the real world, we aim at augmenting the physical world with widgets. Such widgets will be linked to the real world and will be manipulated by the users. As for Graphical User Interface (GUI) (e.g., the contextual menu attached to a selected graphical object), we will define AR contextual widget attached to a physical object. Moreover some AR widgets will be specifically designed for synchronous or asynchronous collaborative aspects (e.g., a telepointer for a distant expert). To do so the project is multidisciplinary including two complementary academic teams, one team dedicated to Sensor-Data fusion techniques for Localization/Registration and one team to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). As a starting point towards the definition of a toolkit for mobile collaborative AR, we adopt an iterative user-centred design approach in order to design and develop usable interactive and collaborative techniques. To do so we consider maintenance/machine operators in production plants, a domain represented by two industrial partners, DIGITAL Electronics and SCHNEIDER. AMIE therefore focuses on mobile and collaborative AR systems for operators in a production plant in which augmentation occurs through available knowledge of where the operator is and what the other users (operators, experts) are doing. From the first set of interactive techniques designed, developed and experimentally tested in the context of maintenance services in production plants, we will generalize the techniques in order to define AR widgets (e.g., a menu, a panel, a telepointer) as part of reusable building blocks of a toolkit.