The highlights of what has been achieved so far are:
• Forming an advisory board within the WeldGalaxy project. Its members play a crucial role in advising the consortium on the relevance of the various technical and exploitation activities as well as to review the progress of all activities within the project.
• Profiling the project and shaping the image. Promotional materials such as flyers, and a roll up banner were produced to promote the objectives of the project (to include the OIC calls). Media amplification was achieved via the project website, LinkedIn, twitter, Facebook, press releases and presenting the project at several events.
• Defining the first exploitation plan for WeldGalaxy. This has been achieved as the result of business research performed during the first year of the project. The research included analysis of the welding market ecosystem, typical business processes and drivers, and the possibilities of using the WeldGalaxy platform to add value and create commercial benefits for the welding industry stakeholders.
• Defining the WeldGalaxy platform technical and functional requirements. This was carried out as part of WP1 activities and completed at the end of the first iteration of the project.
• Designing and populating WeldGalaxy Database (WGDB). This was achieved in WP 2 by analysing, migrating and transforming TWI data sources for data modelling and WGDB population and storage.
• Developing the KBE tool. This was achieved by acquiring, representing and transforming the knowledge, using as a main source, TWI data, into scalable machine readable-format to which rules were applied and optimised for the case of Aluminium in the aerospace and automotive sectors in this first iteration.
• Developing the DLT sub-platform of WeldGalaxy. Following the work carried out to identify key potential business use cases for WeldGalaxy platform, the WeldGalaxy DLT/blockchain architecture which supports integration of multiple distributed applications implemented as Self Sovereign Applications (SSApps) was developed. The first phase of implementation, integration and testing of distributed applications and smart contracts over Distributed Ledger Technology platform has all also been carried out.
• Developing the WeldGalaxy Chatbot. This was achieved as part of WP5 activities by developing a Natural Language Processing (NLP) engine in several languages, the chatbot dialog engine and the chatbot web messenger with speech recognition support. Moreover, an initial integration with the KBE API was realised.
• Developing the powerful simulation capabilities of WeldGalaxy. The FlowPhys CWM module based on a transient 3D non-linear thermo-elasto-plastic finite element algorithm for general geometries was developed based on the physics being solved in a sequential manner: first a thermal analysis, then a microstructural analysis, then a mechanical analysis within each equilibrium time step iteration.
• Integrating WeldGalaxy components into the DKM platform. This was achieved in an iterative and agile approach to support a better testing and debugging process. The integration was achieved for all components of WeldGalaxy except for the numerical simulation module which should be integrated during the second iteration of the project.
• Showcasing WeldGalaxy platform. An initial WeldGalaxy demonstrator that showcases the different software components connection and intelligent layer under a single point of entrance was demonstrated during the participation at the CAE conference (held in Italy in October 2019)
• Launching the 1st round of the Open Innovation Calls. The first OIC was launched on the 16th March 2020 with a proposal submission deadline of the 29th May. The OIC was advertised using different platforms (EC portal, FBOX dedicated website, WeldGalaxy website, webinars, LinkedIn etc.).
In the final Reporting Period the following achievements were made:
1 Completion of WeldGalaxy platform with respect to technical and functional requirements.
2 The WeldGalaxy database have been produced as a high quality curated data set and space, supporting with data accuracy, completeness, consistency and reliability to the
WeldGalaxy tools developed in the platform.
3 WeldGalaxy components (KBE tool, DLT sub-platform, Chatbot, simulation capabilities) developed and then Integrated into the platform.
4 Launch of the WG platform (from alpha version to gamma)
5 Successful launch and completion of 1 and 2nd round of the Open Innovation Calls (25 projects!).
