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Research Center

Confirm| Smart Manufacturing Research Centre

Address

University of Limerick Digital District
Unit 2, Park Point, Dublin Road, Castletroy
Limerick
Co. Limerick
V94 C928
Ireland

Description

The CONFIRM Centre for Smart Manufacturing is an Irish Research Centre focused on the delivery of research that brings digital innovation, intelligence, and enhanced information technology and IoT into the manufacturing domain resulting in optimised production systems, Smart products, Smart machines, Smart production systems, and Smart supply chains. The Centre, headquartered in Limerick, was established in 2017 as part of a national strategic initiative to foster growth and competitiveness in the manufacturing industry. CONFIRM is supported by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), the Irish national foundation for investment in scientific and engineering research. CONFIRM brings together the research expertise of 9 core Irish research performing organisations (RPOs) and draws on 16 international collaborations and over 60 Industry partnerships across MNC and SME sectors.

The Centre has core research expertise in the areas of:

  • Data Analytics
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Predictive Modelling
  • Decision Analytics
  • Enterprise Modelling & Simulation
  • Software Systems
  • Human Computer Interaction
  • Security & Integration
  • Networking Systems & IoT
  • Sensors
  • Robotics & Control
  • Product & Process Modelling
  • Material Processing

CONFIRM provides the skills and services required to place Irish based manufacturing industries at the forefront of the smart manufacturing revolution, Industrie4.0, helping companies of all sizes adopt the technologies to increase their product line adaptability, enable real-time decision making, shorten supply-chains, and speed up the development of new innovations to produce higher-quality goods at reduced costs.

Confirm| Smart Manufacturing Research Centre

Confirm| Smart Manufacturing Research Centre

Contact Person

Sean Nolan
Research Funding Manager
sean.p.nolan@confirm.ie
+353 868528899

Equipment

The Confirm Research Centre has access an array of cutting edge equipment that can be used to enable Industrially focused research in Smart Manufacturing.

Confirm completed construction of a new 1600m^2 purpose build research facility in early 2020. The new facility  incorporates the first open 5G digital manufacturing network in Ireland, an 8M diameter VR cave, a large test-bed facility to house Ireland’s future factory, a digital manufacturing lab with prototyping and non-contact 3D part scanning. The new facility can accommodate 60+ research staff.

Confirm can also offer access to a range of laboratory infrastructure and equipment from our nine University & Institute of Technology partners, a selection of which is detailed below.

  • JAMIR – Joining of Advanced Materials using Industry 4.0
  • Maxiem 1530 Water-Jet Machining Centre (WJMC)
  • Branson 2000x Ultrasonic Welder
  • Cobot Universal Robot Arm (UR3/UR5) complete with RG2 Collaborative Gripper
  • Product & Process Development Labs
  • Process Technology Services

Services

In addition to Confirm's core R&D services offering i.e. provision of contract research and development services to enterprise and collaborative research partnership with enterprise, the new Confirm Competence centre provides R&D space for commercial rental, access to an 8M diameter VR cave, a large test-bed facility to house Ireland’s future factory, a digital manufacturing lab that includes metal, plastic, and electronic printing and non-contact 3D part scanning. The Centre will also shortly provide MNE & SME industry collaborators and academic partners with access to Ireland’s first 5G MPN manufacturing testbed for research and development. Confirm can provide test-before-invest, and training services in key emerging technology areas such as next generation manufacturing execution systems, Cobotic manufacturing, indoor track and trace of production assets and inventory, and navigation mapping for autonomous transport vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles. Through the establishment of the Confirm DIH we are actively working to expand our service offering in SME training and skills development, financial services for startups/scale-ups. We are currently rolling out third party services to our industry partners on a commercial basis. The Confirm Centre and Confirm DIH are keen share best practice in service provision, offer our expertise, facilities and training resources and work with other centres to access services outside our competencies.

Activities

Advanced Manufacturing Additive manufacturing High-performance, high precision processing High-performance production (flexibility, productivity, precision and zero defect) Intelligent/ sensor-based equipment Monitoring and control Process industry (processing of novel materials, structures, etc.) Robotics / Human machine interaction Smart Manufacturing / Industry 4.0 AR/VR Augmented Reality Mixed Reality Virtual Reality Artificial intelligence Natural Language Processing Signal sensing Smart control Video / image processing Data management (acquisition, extraction and integration) Machine learning Block chain Private blockchain Public blockchain Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-service Platform-as-a-service Software-as-a-service IoT Advanced sensor technologies Broadband network technologies (e.g. 5G, 4G, Wifi) Edge computing Location detection technologies Narrowband network technologies (e.g. LoRa, Sigfox, NB-IoT) Automated vehicles, guided carts, trailer loading, vessels Unmanned Aircraft Systems (e.g. drones) Robotics Collaborative robots Industrial robots Security and connectivity Cryptography Network security

Service for Industry and SMEs

Yes

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