Translation page - User or potential user

Smart Systems affect every walk of life

• They are bringing diagnostic instruments to clinics.
• They are bringing automatic safety systems to cars and public transport.
• They are becoming embedded into consumer goods, into the networks that power and inform society, and they are underpinning the efficient provision of public and private services.
• Increasingly they sense their surroundings, operate autonomously and collaborate with other Smart Systems.

Users and potential users have a critical role to play in unlocking the benefits the most of Smart products and systems. User-generated ideas and the first-hand experience of users are crucial to the generating and refinement of new Smart products and services.

The Smart Systems Showcases included in this Gateway illustrate the variety products already in use.

Visions of smart systems

Smart Systems Communications and Security team up to provide secure transactions whilst protecting personal identity

Smart Systems not only unite multiple technologies, they are strongly tailored to application sectors. This knowledge-rich environment is fertile ground for a truly European manufacturing supply chain, and its involvement of agile, innovative, SMEs.

All forms of Transport & Mobility and their infrastructure continually demand improved safety, efficiency and environmental impact. Smart Systems offer reduced operator distraction and error, and optimisation of vehicle control, navigation and logistics across multiple modes of transportation.

In Health & Well-being, Smart Systems, with their in-built expertise and portable miniaturisation, promise benefits from personal diagnosis and monitoring, through treatment and the preparation of targeted drugs and implants, and ultimately to telemedicine and personalised health systems across the community.

Manufacturing & Factory Automation use Smart Systems to optimise processes ranging from the examination of raw materials and parts, the predicting of subsequent machine settings to compensate for variation, and the updating of manufacturing parameters based upon end-product performance measured at final test and in the field.

The capability for Smart Systems to Communicate, with users and with other collaborating systems is paramount. Furthermore, the individual elements of Smart Systems may themselves be integrated by communications rather than direct physical contact.

Energy is behind almost every class of human endeavour. Civilisation depends upon care, security and efficiency at every stage from the discovery and unlocking of energy sources, through the storage and distribution of energy and on to its final use. Smart Systems are at work safeguarding and optimising every aspect of this critical chain.

The demands for precision, low mass, fuel efficiency and utmost reliability make Aerospace a fundamental driver for high technology. Smart Systems bring the potential for the elimination of human error in control, guidance and navigation, and for the continuous monitoring of safety-critical airframes and ground systems.

Smart Systems, with their ability to accept and evaluate multiple inputs - temperature, pressure, rainfall, pollutants, contaminants - are already finding application in the Environment. Their ability to network, coupled with small size and low cost, enables area-wide improvements not only in living and working environments, but also across the recycling and disposal landscape.

Autonomous drones – gaining wide access to US airspace by 2015, and 30,000 flying worldwide by 2020 – will be a huge driver for light, efficient, Smart Systems development

Frog Design envisage smart face masks that protect but also sample pollution – communicating city-wide with other masks to provide a map of air quality

The ability of Smart Systems to make autonomous decisions based upon a combination of events allow them to safeguard life, property and information, maintaining a continuous vigil. Safety, Security & Reliability affect all walks of life, from the protection of transactions and identity through to product safety and the continuous monitoring of food quality.

Smart Systems are playing an increasing role in Construction & Civil Engineering, starting with surveying, continuing with the logistics of bringing together the manifold elements of construction, controlling the services of completed buildings and structures, and monitoring their integrity over life.

The convergence of broadcasting, communications and computing is revolutionising not just the media, but also all manner of domestic appliances. The massive and pervasive Home & Entertainment sector now takes Smart Systems for granted, and an eager public expects further advances month-by-month.

The most basic needs of increasing populations are provided by continuing advances in the efficiency and productivity of the Agriculture, fisheries, and food & beverage sectors. Smart Systems have key roles to play in dairy and arable farming, forestry, the fishing industry, food and drinks processing, distribution and safety.

Where robots Google - the Rapyuta database is part of the European Robo Earth project, sharing and standardising the way robots perceive the human world

To better achieve the above advantages, Smart Systems will need to overcome significant challenges for standards, standardisation and reliability. Their intimate fusion of software, communications and networking, and the prospect of fully autonomous operation will require “Whole System” standards, tailored to specific applications sectors, and indeed individual subsectors. These matters, and the issues of managing updates, and the maintaining privacy and ethical propriety mean that Smart Systems must be central to wide-ranging debate and contributions from society at large.