CONVERGING had its 1st First Review Meeting in San Sebastian

The CONVERGING project recently reached a major milestone with its first review meeting, held April 16th to 19th at the TECHNALIA facilities in San Sebastian, Spain. This meeting brought together the project consortium, the Project Officer, and the reviewers to assess the recent developments and the progress archived over the last 18 months.

The meeting kicked off with introductions from the project coordinator, Nikos Dimitropoulos, who welcomed the Project Officer and reviewers to the consortium. Partners then had the opportunity to introduce themselves and their roles in the project. TECHNALIA's Urko Esnaola, responsible for hosting the meeting, warmly welcomed all participants and provided a brief overview of TECHNALIA's activities.

Following introductions, the project coordinator presented an overview of the project's work packages (WPs) and their current status. He also showcased the project video, which effectively communicates project's goals and achievements to a broader audience and is used as well for promotional purposes.

WP and Task Leaders delved deeper into the project's progress, showcasing achievements until M18 of the project. Two integrated demos were a particular highlight:

• White Goods Pilot Case: The Kawada humanoid robot was used to demonstrate human-robot collaboration in a white goods scenario.
• Automotive Pilot Case: A challenging polishing operation in the automotive sector was presented.

The strong collaboration between consortium partners and the CONVERGING software integration architecture were key factors in streamlining these successful demonstrations.

Furthermore, a live demo session at TECHNALIA allowed the Project Officer and reviewers to experience the polishing procedure with human-robot collaboration firsthand. They actively engaged with pilot leaders, asking insightful questions.

The reviewers and Project Officer were impressed by the project's progress, the consistency of deliverables, and the level of detail provided. The project's exploitation plan also received high praise from the reviewers.

The review concluded with positive comments on both the progress made and the quality of work delivered so far. The consortium, along with the valuable input from the reviewers and Project Officer, has planned the next steps for the project.