In the past, fuel cell (FC) systems have been successfully developed for city buses. No activities towards the development of coaches are known in Europe so far. The target of this project is both to carry the experience from the development of FC city bus systems one step further into the more challenging constraints of typical coaches as well as to strengthen the European vehicle manufacturing base and supply chain of hydrogen components. The project presents two coach solutions to solve the challenges of longer driving distances of regional and long-distance coaches (400-800 km), the more stringent packaging constraints, less favourable driving patterns (lower recuperation) and higher auxiliary powers (air conditioning & heating) and demonstrates the coaches at two regions in 2 to 3-year demo phases. The project is based on a coherent structure and balanced partnership, addresses all call specific requirements and aims for the highest benefits from a technological and market perspective: -both coach types being equally addressed by applying a common hybrid system concept and preparing for the development of FC drive system synergies, -comparing different and modular FC packaging concepts by the use of multiple and single FC units being tested in fulfilment of the 100 kW power requirement, -one set of coaches to develop an OEM-based new-built FC coach and another one an existing coach retrofit to also provide answers for the second life use of environmentally outdated coach chassis, -partnering with established FC manufacturers promising to reach the required 25,000 operating hours minimum, and validated in the project possibly with used stacks. -an experienced composite tank manufacturer to discuss the design option of potentially applying 350 bar and 700 bar technology for the coaches in fulfilment of targeting the required driving ranges at lowest costs and -experienced automotive system developers to search for operational minimum energy consumption patterns.

Thanks to the advances in information technology, modern industrial systems are becoming increasingly intelligent and autonomous; thus their requirements for, e.g., correctness, availability, traceability and reliability, are also increasing. Monitoring, analysis and diagnosis of such industrial systems became pivotal and fueled the development of virtualization and simulation solutions such as digital twins. In a nutshell, digital twins are virtual representations of actual systems or processes that serve as real-time digital counterparts for, e.g., prediction, analysis, testing, and simulation. Developing digital twins is a complex process. On the one hand, it includes developing digital twins at different levels of abstraction of the system to allow one to focus on different relevant aspects (e.g, behavioural, logical, physical). On the other hand, it must ensure the correctness of digital twins with respect to the system specifications and the respective level of abstraction, and the federation enabling the communication between digital twins conceived as exchange and resume of models. This project aims to develop a model-based framework addressing the above-mentioned challenges by i) automating the creation of digital twins for the simulation, monitoring and testing of functional and non-functional properties ii) continuous validating digital twins to meet the required properties and iii) developing a multidomain and automated digital twin toolchain for the verification and validation of complex industrial systems based on digital twins. We foresee that this project will positively impact the efficiency of such systems by reducing their time to value and by increasing their final quality.

Data and AI-driven smart technologies, with an emphasis on (i) the connection between the urban space and the industrial space, (ii) sustainable living and (ii) sustainable industrial production, hold the transformative potential to enhance the sustainability and climate resilience across EU, in private and work spaces. Assuming this, NexTArc is devoted to augmenting the adoption of Trustworthy edge AI and IoT across 3 complementary and interrelated application domains, organised as Use Cases (UC): SLN - Smart, sustainable and Liveable Neighbourhood in Urban Spaces; STI - Smart, sustainable and transparent industrial Spaces; and TEM - Trustworthy and Eco-friendly Multimodal Connectivity of Urban and Industrial Spaces through people and freight mobility, incl. the inter and intra-mobility. Building on this vision, NexTArc aims to promote the cross-fertilization of ideas among a broad spectrum of stakeholders, 38 partners in 10 countries, integrated over a four-fold Innovation Module (IM) approach: i) cyber-resilience on chip; ii) low-power embedded AI; iii) improved computation and dependability covering the high-performance needs; iv) holistic solution stack to enable trustworthy services, which resonate with the EU Chips Act, etc. NexTArc has identified 6 Specific Objectives: 1) Driving adoption of AI while enhancing connectivity preparedness; 2) Targeting a 40% increase in data transmission rates and a 30% reduction in energy use during data processes, while ensuring robust architectural resilience; 3) Fortifying cyber-physical security with an aim for full-compliance with EU’s Chip and Cybersecurity act; 4) Realising open HW/SW to ensure designs that are secure, safe, private, and accountable; 5) Proactively adapting to the dynamic landscape of open-source innovations and key industry standards; 6) Orchestrating 4 IM, unveiling 15 Key Innovations to develop the solutions that are needed for Europe to take the technological lead towards a sustainable society.

Manufacturers of automated systems and the manufacturers of the components used in these systems have been allocating an enormous amount of time and effort in the past years developing and conducting research on automated systems. The effort spent has resulted in the availability of prototypes demonstrating new capabilities as well as the introduction of such systems to the market within different domains. Manufacturers of these systems need to make sure that the systems function in the intended way and according to specifications which is not a trivial task as system complexity rises dramatically the more integrated and interconnected these systems become with the addition of automated functionality and features to them. With rising complexity, unknown emerging properties of the system may come to the surface making it necessary to conduct thorough verification and validation (V&V) of these systems. VALU3S aims to design, implement and evaluate state-of-the-art V&V methods and tools in order to reduce the time and cost needed to verify and validate automated systems with respect to safety, cybersecurity and privacy (SCP) requirements. This will ensure that European manufacturers of automated systems remain competitive and that they remain world leaders. To this end, a multi-domain framework is designed and evaluated with the aim to create a clear structure around the components and elements needed to conduct V&V process through identification and classification of evaluation methods, tools, environments and concepts that are needed to verify and validate automated systems with respect to SCP requirements. The implemented V&V methods as well as improved process workflows and tools will also be evaluated in the project using a comprehensive set of demonstrators built from 13 use cases with specific SCP requirements from 6 domains of automotive, industrial robotics, agriculture, Aerospace, railway and health.