The AIMS5.0 EU funded project stands for “Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing leading to Sustainability and Industry5.0” and is a Collaborative Innovation Action between multiple domains with a consortium of over 50 academic and industry partners.

Its main goals consist of strengthening the European digital sovereignty in comprehensively sustainable production, and boosting the economy by adopting, extending and implementing AI-enabled hardware and software components and systems across the whole industrial value chain. Its aim is to create human-centric workplace-conditions and a climate-friendly production. The AIMS5.0 project supports AI-enabled fabs to be more productive and eco-efficient. It advocates shorter supply chains, better resilience, global competitiveness and higher sustainability.

The global semiconductor manufacturer Infineon Technologies AG has several contributions to the AIMS5.0 funded project, with one of them being Work Package Four. Work Package Four, “The Open Access Platform” is co-lead by Infineon Technologies and FernUniversität Hagen with contributions from DAC.digital and NXP. The primary objective of the Open Access Platform is to create a consistent and modular semantic description of the semiconductor industry containing industrial domains and supply chains based on the Digital Reference Ontology (DRO), which will be elaborated in the following.

The Semantic Web and Ontologies

To define the concept and strengths of ontologies, one first needs to understand the Semantic Web. The Semantic Web was coined from T. Berner Lee as an extension of the World Wide Web that enables machines to understand and interpret meaning behind data. It is founded on the concept of data interoperability allowing information to be easily shared, reused, and combined across different organizations and systems. As a result, a more connected and integrated digital ecosystem is enabled. Traditionally, data on the web has been structured in a human-centric manner, with information presented in formats like HTML text documents that are easily comprehensible to humans. However, these formats are not machine-friendly, making it challenging for computers to interpret and process the data efficiently.
 

Aiming at a more sustainable, efficient, and user-friendly production, AIMS5.0 is about to show how artificial intelligence (AI) can take a decisive step towards Industry 5.0 and European digital sovereignty. The ambitious research project started a year ago and is part of the EU programme Horizon2020. Its characteristics represent the self-image of EU funded projects as an intelligent collaboration between partners and other projects, for mutual benefit and growth.

AIMS5.0, the project title sets the direction. The acronym stands for “Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing leading to Sustainability and Industry5.0” and aims at the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in the development and manufacture of hardware and software components. In addition to comprehensive sustainability and user-friendliness, the desired goals include significantly increased efficiency in production.

Semiconductor production predestined for use of AI

The semiconductor industry in particular is perfectly suited for exploiting the potential of AI. There are many barely visible data-generating manufacturing processes here. At least 250 systems contribute to the manufacture of a product. Each has 20 parameters and 100,000 wafers with up to 10,000 different design variants run in the factory. Considering these figures could be even higher, it is clear that human beings alone are not able to fully comprehend these highly complex processes, let alone monitor them. This is where it takes the assistance of AI. Automatic error detection, for instance, can ensure fewer rejects and an overall higher quality.
 

With the attempt to take the European Industry to the next level of digitalisation, first fundamental research activities in AIMS5.0 prepare the way to get the 20 use cases off the ground bringing the future of a highly efficient fabrication to life. One of the striking examples is an autonomous indoor drone.

As a work result of work package 5, the drone will demonstrate an AI based improved connection between production and logistics. Developed by IPH, “Institut für integrierte Produktion Hannover” from Germany it will work as a scan device covering a complete production site of carmaker BMW to create a digital twin of it.

Daily scans for digital twins

The drone is able to navigate autonomously through a manufacturing hall catching every corner and measuring each millimetre. Other than a ground bound device, it can measure even closed robot cells or conveyor belts. Together with the metrics from a ground bound automated guided vehicle system (AGV), a robot dog, the gapless data collection enables an accurate three-dimensional reproduction for a digital twin with regular updates.

With regard to collaboration and synergy effects within and across the project, a major event in 2023 is worth being noted, which, in fact, was a two-in-one event. 

On 27-28 September, the University of Applied Sciences in St. Pölten, Austria, hosted the Deep Tech Workshop as part of the two large-scale European initiatives AIMS5.0 and Arrowhead fPVN, while at the same time, the new Research Studio Smart Digital Industries and Services (SDIS) was opened on the premises of the university.    

Both Arrowhead fPVN coordinator Luleå  University of Technology (LTU) in Sweden and SDIS founder Research Studios Austria Forschungsgesellschaft (RSA FG) are members of the AIMS5.0 consortium. LTU is co-leader of WP3 working on the cyber architecture, and RSA is co-leader of WP7 dealing with human acceptance, trust and ethics for Digital Workspaces. 

Deep Tech Workshop for collaboration

The Deep Tech Workshop’s primary focus was on common technologies and initial use of use-cases in AIMS5.0 and Arrowhead fPVN. The latter project name stands for the Arrowhead framework and implementation platform focusing on flexible Production Value Network (fPVN). The workshop provided a valuable forum for sharing knowledge and exchanging ideas on topics like cyber architecture, data models or AI code generation.

AIMS5.0 is one of those projects where major findings from other research initiatives are taken to the next level, thus bringing them to life. The subject in question is a Digital Reference (DR), a holistic ontology for supply chains in the field of semiconductor. Its characteristics in turn, represent the self-image of the complete AIMS5.0 project as an intelligent collaboration between partners and other projects, for mutual benefit and growth. 

The Semantic Web model will help to clearly interpret and exchange countless information and data in a complex supply chain. This way, ambitious goals in fields like quality management or sustainability can easily be achieved in a new manner. In AIMS5.0, DR and other ontologies are subject to WP4, based on the idea that in the area of the Internet of things (IoT) ontology creates a language that is understood by humans and computers alike with the aim of smooth interaction throughout the entire supply chain.

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