Digital innovation hubs for robotics - TRINITY approach for distributing knowledge via modular use case demonstrations

Robots are no longer stand-alone systems on the factory floor. The demand for industrial robots (market) is anticipated to be growing to 65 billion euros by the year 2023. Within all areas of robotics, the demand for collaborative and more flexible systems is rising as well. The level of desired collaboration and increased flexibility will only be reached if the systems are developed as a whole, e.g. perception, reasoning and physical manipulation. The rising need for collaborative robots in the automation industry is acting as a driver for this market and is expected to serve as a market opportunity for future growth. However, at the same time especially smaller companies have difficulties to formulate a concrete vision and strategies for the uptake of robotics, finding skilled workforce to develop and deploy the robot systems and/or work in the manufacturing industry. A number of Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) have been developed to enhance the knowledge and technology transfer from laboratories to factory floors, mitigating the skills gap and supporting the formulation of innovation ecosystems with the specific focus on small and medium-sized companies around Europe. The main aim of this paper is to introduce the concept and approach taken in H2020 TRINITY-project that aims to develop a Robotics Innovation Hub focused on Agile Production. The paper will introduce the concept and technical approach of the project, and discusses the preliminary results, challenges and opportunities of these kind of DIHs.