RICAIP, the Research and Innovation Centre on Advanced Industrial Production, is a newly established international distributed research centre in the area of advanced artificial intelligence and industrial robotics. RICAIP is hosted at the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics, and Cybernetics (CIIRC) of the Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU) with direct participation of the project partners (CEITEC BUT - Central European Institute of Technology at the Brno University of Technology, DFKI - German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, and ZeMA - Center for Mechatronics and Automation Technology).
The aim of the RICAIP project is to develop a strong cooperation at international level evolving the concept of Industry 4.0 and addressing current needs, gaps and demands of the industrial sector and society. RICAIP will built the very first multi-site/distributed experimental facility in Europe, representing virtually interconnected testbeds (in Prague, Brno and Saarbrücken) into a common integrated R&D infrastructure. The so called RICAIP Industrial Testbed Core will enable new, smart, safe, sophisticated and geographically distributed operations challenging the current manufacturing concepts and evolving a new paradigm for industrial production.
RICAIP Centre is focusing on the prominent research field of advanced manufacturing with strong scientific impact; boosting the scientific excellence and innovation potential (with attention of less developed partners); promoting interdisciplinary research and collaboration with non-technical fields to tackle the societal challenges reflecting gender imbalance in technical fields and changing paradigm of the work alignment; triggering the positive spill-over effect on the industrial and societal ecosystem; enhancing the priority area of Industry 4.0 and industrial competitiveness through a new quality of collaboration and novel scientific, innovation and business strategies of a distributed testbed facility; addressing highly ranked challenges of the EU economy and society; benefiting from top-level governmental support, traditional intensive relations, and strong social and economic ties between the Czech Republic and Germany. The Centre is driven by the quality and excellence, clear social-economic benefits, longstanding sustainability, sound and autonomous management and trust.
RICAIP project has an impact on academia (in terms of research excellence, education, internationalisation and visibility), industry (innovation potential, global value chains and networks, competitiveness) as well as society itself (new job opportunities, gender and ethical dimension of research, public engagement, etc.). RICAIP will also enable strengthened access to creativity, to development of new approaches and research avenues as well as mobility opportunities via mutually beneficial actions with the specific expertise of each partner in the consortium.
