PRECISE INDOOR LOCATION ACTIVE@HOME CORDONGRIS EYEFUNDUSSCOPE COLABORAR USER NETWORK ANNUAL REPORT 2016 1 Associação Fraunhofer Portugal Research Research of Practical Utility lies at the heart of all A investigação de utilidade prática está no centro de todas activities developed by Fraunhofer Portugal. as atividades desenvolvidas pela Fraunhofer Portugal. Founded in 2008 – as a result of the long-term Portuguese- Fundada em 2008 – e resultando de uma colaboração de longo German collaboration in Science and Technology – Associação prazo em Ciência e Tecnologia entre Portugal e a Alemanha – a Fraunhofer Portugal Research focuses on companies as Associação Fraunhofer Portugal Research mantém um enfoque customers and partners to promote innovative product nas empresas como parceiros, promovendo e desenvolvendo development by delivering applied research results in an atividades de investigação aplicada num contexto internacional. international context. Adotando o bem-sucedido modelo de negócio operado na Adopting the well-tested – and undisputedly successful – model Alemanha pela Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, a Fraunhofer Portugal operated in Germany by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Fraunhofer apoia o desenvolvimento económico e promove o bem-estar Portugal supports economic development and social well-being social, ao contribuir para a melhoria da qualidade de vida das by contributing to the population’s quality of life. populações. Currently, Associação Fraunhofer Portugal Research (Fraunhofer Neste momento, a Associação Fraunhofer Portugal Research Portugal) owns and operates the Fraunhofer Portugal Research (Fraunhofer Portugal) detém e opera o Fraunhofer Portugal Center for Assistive Information and Communication Solutions Research Center for Assistive Information and Communication (Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS ) – a partnership between Solutions (Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS) – uma parceria entre a Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and the University of Porto – focusing Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft e a Universidade do Porto – dedicada às on Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) and Information and áreas de “Ambient Assisted Living” (AAL) e de Tecnologias de Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D). Informação e Comunicação para o Desenvolvimento (ICT4D). Acknowledged by the Portuguese Government as an ’Entity of Reconhecida pelo Estado Português como Pessoa Coletiva de Public Interest’, Associação Fraunhofer Portugal Research was Utilidade Pública, a Associação tem o nome do famoso cientista, named after Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787–1826), the illustrious inventor e empreendedor Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787–1826), Munich researcher, inventor and entrepreneur. originário de Munique, Alemanha. ANNUAL REPORT 2016 Fraunhofer Portugal: Leveraging the IoT for Societal This is most important, as regarding the industry contract Changes research business, the outcome of 2016 was not as positive as it was expected due to a series of reasons that are mostly 2016 provided Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS (FhP-AICOS) the related with the delays of the PT2020 programme. opportunity to evolve from the work carried out in the past towards a set of new goals targeted by a large new project Being PT2020 an important political and economic instrument and related to two key opportunities linked to the deployment to leverage the socioeconomic growth of Portugal, these of the IoT: Understanding context and delivering personalized, administrative delays have a direct impact on the normal context sensitive support to human users. development of the country as a series of public and private investments are being postponed for a long time. In some This project, named Deus ex Machina, envisaged the creation specific cases, these delays reached more than seven months of two new research lines whose technological and scientific after the deadline to announce the results of the call. Within foundations came from the previous competence centres. The this context, it is very hard to estimate and plan the expected EITCC – Eyes of the Internet of Things Competence Centre outcomes of an organization due to the extensive time and the C3 – Companion Competence Centre are now the periods that result in impacts in more than one economic year. core of the upgraded strategic research agenda of FhP-AICOS, which founds its roots in the competences nurtured in its This also impacted the performance of Fraunhofer Portugal: scientific team. Deus ex Machina was formally approved our performance indicator (Rho) was affected and resulted in January 2016 with a global investment of approx. 3M€, in a value below our plan, which could have been achieved being the investment and incentive divided by FhP-AICOS highly likely in a scenario where we could have started the and six research centres associated to the three universities of projects for our customers as planned. Most likely in 2017 the the north region of Portugal: University of Porto, University indicator will rise again to values above the 60% due to the of Minho and University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro. accumulation of the expected revenue that will be accounted Together with our partners we strive to develop technology in 2017. This value would be in line with the expected that will prepare us to provide leading edge innovations for performance and balanced with the results that characterized our industrial customers. the performance of the organization during the last two years. At the end of 2016, the total Business Volume was circa 3,1M€, representing a decrease of 5% compared with the previous year. 4 Nevertheless, the evolution of industry revenues and EU During the year, FhP-AICOS team was very active in project revenues was positive in 2016 and, in the case of the first proposals submission, circa 4,4M€, and at the end of 2016 one FhP-AICOS achieved a growth rate of 42%. Most of the total Backlog of proposal being evaluated is on the level of the increase in the industry projects Backlog was due to 2,5M€. The current expectations in terms of the achievement PT2020 project proposals that were submitted in mid 2015 of R&D contracts coming from these proposals is very positive and beginning 2016, which were approved for funding, and with a likelihood to have contracts for the future years on leading to six new industry projects contracted along the a significant dimension. Actually, one of the positive aspects year and representing five new industry clients. Besides related to the project proposals submitted for funding in these contracts supported by PT2020 funding, FhP-AICOS the PT2020 framework programme in 2015 and 2016 was was also able to contract two direct industry contracts the high success rates achieved. Having in consideration with foreign clients. Also during 2016, the organization has the different calls and different types of project proposals been negotiating with a large company the participation in that FhP-AICOS submitted as coordinator, as partner in a PT2020 individual R&D project. Another project that the consortiums coordinated by industry clients, or in individual organization was able to start in 2016 concerns with the projects submitted by companies (in which the organization Sustainable Villages for Development – SV4D, a concept that was subcontracted), the approval rates were above 50%, FhP-AICOS is developing with Association of Communications which revealed itself as a very positive sign of the quality of and Telecommunications of the Community of Portuguese the proposals submitted for funding in national programmes. Speaking Countries – ARCTEL-CPLP for about two years This result contrasts with the low success rates that were and that finally is being contracted for implementation in associated to the previous framework programme, QREN. the North region of Mozambique, more precisely in the Zambezia district. This region has an area of 103 478 km2 and a population of approx. four million people. In terms of the network communications technology that is being used in this last project, there is the involvement of Fraunhofer FIT who is supplying the WiBACK technology to build the low cost communications infrastructure associated to the project. In terms of EU projects, in 2016, FhP-AICOS started the implementation of two projects proposals that were submitted to the AAL Joint Programme (AAL JP) in 2015: CordonGris and Active@Home. These projects contributed to the growth of 20% of the EU revenues in 2016. 5 Along the year, FhP-AICOS had also the opportunity to In 2016 we also received the visits of important guests, celebrate different awards that made our team proud and namely the President of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Professor motivated. One of the most positive results was the 2nd place Reimund Neugebauer, the Portuguese Minister of Science, in the Microsoft Indoor Position contest, won by Precise Technology and Higher Education, Professor Manuel Heitor, Indoor Location technological framework that was being and the Portuguese Minister of Economy, Professor Manuel developed in the past three years. This achievement brought Caldeira Cabral. Within the visit of Professor Neugebauer, once again the attention of important potential industry FhP-AICOS had the opportunity to present some of its latest clients to FhP-AICOS and the future perspectives for licensing scientific and technological results which created an excellent seem promising. Two other awards were obtained during impression to the visiting delegation. 2016. One honourable mention to a technology related with low cost device to detect diabetic