The consortium of Basque companies involved in the NONDAGO project, of which Geograma 2,170,500.66 until 2023 in a research project to optimise the real-time monitoring of all moving parts in a production plant and translate this into improvements in operational safety, productivity and in-plant logistics in Industry 4.0.
NONDAGO’s objectives and current situation
The NONDAGO project started in 2021, is funded by SPRI’s Hazitek programme and combines the design of new positioning devices, “capable of operating in hostile environments” (with advanced technologies such as Ultra Wideband-Ultra Wideband (UWB), 5G, Bluetooth 5.1AoA), advanced data analytics and the development of management software “for visualisation and decision making” on plant activity.
Among other specific objectives, NONDAGO will seek to develop and optimise “more than 10 industrial positioning products and services” applied to specific cases such as tracking the movements of cranes, forklifts or robotic arms, mould and tooling changes, as well as monitoring people in confined spaces.
Thus, with the support of data analytics and management software, the aim is to optimise plant movements and send alerts in order to improve the safety of operations and reduce production times and costs.
The first year of the project has concluded with the definition of requirements, specifications and background of existing developments, devices and management platforms, and work is currently underway to investigate new devices, real-time data analytics and location information management platforms for implementation in industry.
In particular, work is being done on aspects such as low-power positioning systems, systems that provide reliable positioning data both indoors and outdoors, new algorithms in environments where tracking is more complicated (where there are continuous changes between indoors and outdoors, or movements also at height), and tools that simplify the remote configuration of all tools.
This will bring benefits to the industry such as more efficient and flexible processes, improved safety and automation of operations, as well as improvements in the products developed. Also, thanks to the optimisation of movements, a reduction in the use of resources and in the environmental impact of many current processes.
To achieve this, the project will have to respond to challenges such as the need to provide accurate height estimation in addition to plant positioning (important for machinery movements such as cranes); interoperability with other existing positioning systems; and research into new artificial intelligence algorithms to improve real-time tracking.
The project is relying on Radio Frequency technologies, and in particular UWB (Ultra Wideband) technology, as it has the best characteristics in terms of accuracy and power consumption and thus achieves the scientific and technical objective of an accuracy of 20 centimetres to facilitate the deployment of positioning technologies in industrial environments. In addition to UWB, other technologies such as NB-IOT, 5G, Bluethooth 5.1AoA or Laser will also be used.
Who are the members of NONDAGO?
NONDAGO is an innovation project in advanced positioning technologies for the improvement of productivity, safety and logistics in Industry 4.0 and Factories of the Future. The consortium of entities developing it is made up of complementary profiles to address the challenge posed by the optimisation of processes in the industrial sector from the perspective of positioning as a vehicle.
NONDAGO is led by Deusto Seidor and made up of the companies DOMINION and its Environmental Services and R+D team, GeogramaIDK, i2U, SEGULA Technologies and VI4Crane and the centres of the Basque Science, Technology and Innovation Network (RVCTI) Ceit and the Mobility and Logistics Cluster of the Basque Country, representing the segments of developers and suppliers of electronic devices; positioning systems; capture, processing and analysis of geographic information (Indoor Mapping), and entities that wish to use positioning systems to develop innovative services or products.
NONDAGO is a project supported by the Basque Government, through the Hazitek programme.
File no: ZE-2021/00014.
Project title: Research into advanced positioning technologies to improve productivity, safety and logistics in Basque industry.
Acronym: NONDAGO
This project is financed by the Basque Government, within the framework of the HAZITEK aid programme for the support of Industrial Research Projects and co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
