Sensitive Industry: INL joins an innovating Smart Sensors project

Bringing Artificial Intelligence to the industrial landscape, INL signs a contract with Bosch Security Systems and the University of Porto in a joint investment until 2025. “Sensitive Industry” is the new innovation project that allocates funds, supported by COMPETE 2020, to the Industry 4.0 and AIoT areas.

The project aims to find solutions for industrial efficiency, quality and production cost, centring on Smart Sensors and AIoT, which combine artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and the Internet of things (IoT) infrastructure. “Sensitive Industry” also pertains to transform the Portuguese economy, hoping to make it more digital and sustainable – fundamental goals for the agents working together on the project.

Articulating its scope of action within the academic field and the know-how from Bosch Security Systems, the project has concrete applications for the joint investment: collecting and analysing production and logistic data and creating a digital twin in these areas.

A key participant in “Smart Sensors”, Diogo Aguiam, Staff Researcher at INL, explains that this subproject collaborates in developing “flat optics and hologram projection to improve compactness and increase the reliability of the imaging sensors.” Diogo is part of the Integrated Micro and Nano Technologies (IMiNa) research group and points to the importance of applied research alongside external industrial partners: “With INL, companies can apply nanotechnology to their processes and products to innovate in new ways beyond their day-to-day business”.