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SESAME project: Development of Safe and Secure Multi-Robot Systems

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The SESAME EU project aims to develop a new generation of Multi-Robot Systems (MRS), utilizing AI/ML among other approaches, to design dependable and secure multi-robot systems for key European sectors including Healthcare, Manufacturing, Agri-food, and Infrastructure Inspection.

Currently, MRS play a significant role in missions ranging from precision agriculture and fast delivery of medical samples to real-time road traffic monitoring and critical infrastructure inspection. The intrinsic characteristics of these missions, i.e. distributed sensing and action, uncertain operating environment, and the need for endurance and robust behaviour, necessitate the use of MRS instead of single-robot solutions.

Although MRS offer improved scalability and performance, increased robustness, and mission enablement, the lack of a systematic engineering methodology, covering the complete engineering lifecycle and handling efficiently the salient characteristics of MRS such as openness, uncertainty, variability, and interplay of safety and security, results in solutions that fail because of fragile design and unrealistic assumptions.

To overcome these challenges, the SESAME project will develop advanced technologies that will deliver an open, modular, model-based approach for the systematic engineering of dependable MRS. Target MRS may employ Artificial Intelligence, and will be capable of operating dependably in open configurations, and in conditions of uncertainty that include the acknowledged possibility of cyber-attacks. The SESAME approach will be validated through five use cases in the domains of healthcare, agile manufacturing, agri-food, and inspection and maintenance.

This project’s partnership includes 17 partners, consisting of leading universities and research institutes, leading robotics manufacturers and technology providers and industrial, agricultural and government organizations that rely on robotic systems. Partners are based in Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The project is coordinated by The Open Group under the Technical Direction of University of York.

Project’s website: https://www.sesame-project.org/

The SESAME project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No. 101017258.