The project aims to industrialize an innovative steering group for the motorcycle industry; the main objective is to recover economic competitiveness in the automotive sector. In last ten years, European market has lost significant market shares in favor of low-cost countries. Also Cometa, that have managed up to 25% of the market of steering groups, found a significant loss of the market share. For achieve this goal Cometa proposes to realize an innovative aluminum steering-triangles with composite technology using aluminum realized with cold technology plus a specific aluminum foam. A feasibility study that tests on technological, productive and economical level, the potential use of the innovative steering for the motorcycle industry. For the technical feasibility, Cometa will be supported by University of L'Aquila (Engineering department) and the University of Rome Tor Vergata. The initial reference market will be the complete steering systems production in aluminium, for the high quality motorcycle sector. The customers/OEM premium selected are HONDA, BMW for the following reasons: • Consolidated relationship (especially with HONDA) • They both belong to high quality standards in the market • They adopt high standards for the quality and reliability • They are large-scale producers

The objective of ESMERA is to support EU SMEs in materializing, testing and promoting robotic technologies through: - Providing industrial challenges defined by key EU companies, stimulating SMEs to compete by developing and promoting new technologies that address real life problems and thus already have a market - Engaging a number of Competence Centres (CCs) that can provide an easily accessible environment for developing, evaluating, testing, and demonstrating novel robotic technologies. - Offering direct financial support through a cascade funding mechanism to supplement the technical excellence offered by the CCs, allowing prototype/product creation and promotion - Offering mentoring and support in developing business cases and managing the complete chain from “idea to market product” by EU champions in robotics that have successfully undergone the process To achieve these objectives ESMERA involves 4 renowned robotics CCs (LMS, CEA, TUM, TEKNIKER) and 3 industrial partners/ facilitators (R U Robots, Blue Ocean Robotics, COMAU) who are at the forefront of EU robotics technology development. The project aspires to realize research experiments in two phases: - Phase 1 – Proof of concept: Carrying out 32 experiments organized in 2 Groups competing under 8 different challenges from 4 industrial sectors (energy, manufacturing, agri-food, construction). CCs will be supporting development activities with technical expertise and access to their state of the art facilities and equipment. - Phase 2 - Industrial Leadership and Business Support: Selecting 16 Challenge winners and providing further means for industrialization and commercialization of their solutions. Further RTD support by the centres and mentoring on business models and market outreach by the project facilitators. Taking lessons from challenges ran all over the world, we expect this approach will have a major impact on economy in EU regions on employment, market, businesses, skills and competitiveness.