Europäische Rahmenprogramme

Die von Optel durchgeführte F&E Arbeiten repräsentieren sicher das Weltniveau. OPTEL wird seit vielen Jahren als erfahrener Expertenteam in Ultraschalltechnik und Biometrie betrachtet. Durch langjährige profesionelle Arbeit und viel  Kreativität  gelten wir vielen als zuverlässiger Partner. Das ist sicher auch der Grund, warum wir zu vielen EU Rahmenprojekten eingeladen werden.

Auf Grund der Tatsache, dass die Menge solcher Projekte, in denen wir engagiert waren über Jahre deutlich größer als der polnische Durchschnitt war, wurden wir v2006 on dem Polnischen Koordinationszentrum für EU Projekte für den Preis der "Kryształowej Brukselki" in der Kategorie der kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen nominiert, die in dem 6. Rahmenprogramm der EU für Forschung, technologische Entwicklung und Demonstration teilgenommen haben. [...]

In 2007 belegte Optel den 81 Platz in dem gesamt polnischen Ranking der innovativsten Unternehmen. In Niederschlesien belegten wir den dritten Platz.  In diesem Vergleich wurden über 3000 Unternehmen bewertet, sowohl große, wie auch kleine und mittlere. Es wurde vom Institut der Ökonomischen Wissenschaften der der Polnischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, BRE Bank und der Wirtschaftstageszeitung "Gazeta Prawna" vorbereitet. [...]
  
  

 Seventh Research Framework Programme (FP7)

WINTUR
[FP 7-SME-2008-1]

Lokale, drahtlose Überwachung von Flügeln der ländlichen und küstennahen Windturbinen mit Hilfe von energy harvesting.

List of Beneficiaries
TWI Ltd UK
Przedsiebiorstwo Badawczo-Produkcyjne Optel sp.Z.o.o (Optel) Poland
Smart Material GmbH (Smart Material) Germany
CEDRAT Technologies (CEDRAT) France
Nexus Engineering Bulgaria 6. EESTI Tuulenergia Assotsiatsioon (Estonian Wind Power Association) (EWPA) Estonia
Wintur AB (Win) Sweden
Solent Composite Systems Ltd (SCS) UK
BCF Designs Ltd (BCF) UK
Southern & Scottish Energy (SSE) UK
ZENON SA Robotics and informatics (Zenon) Greece 
Kauno Technologijos Universiteta s, Prof. Barsauko Ultragarso Mokslo Institutas (KTU) 

RAILECT
[FP7-222425]

Development of an ultrasonic technique, sensors and systems for the volumetric examination of alumino-thermic rail welds

List of Beneficiaries
TWI Ltd UK
Optel Sp. z o.o. 
VERMON SA France 
Spree Engineering Ltd Spree UK 
IKnowHow Informatics SA IKH Greece 
Jarvis Plc Jarvis UK 
Kauno technologijos univesiteto Prof. K. Barsausko Ultragarso mokslo insitutas KTU Lithuania
The university of Newcastle Upon Tyne UNUT UK

Background
There are an estimated 11 million site alumino-thermic welds on the European rail network. There are thousands of new welds (estimated at 300,000 to 400,000 annually) being made daily throughout Europe. These welds form the basis of 'continuous welded rail' (CWR) that is a common feature of the European rail system. CWR has, in the main replaced the 'fishplate' rail jointing method and has produced a vast improvement in the quality of ride for passenger trains. 
Although the alumino-thermic welding technique is well proven, it is, none-the-less, a critical safety component of the rail infrastructure and yet these welds are not volumetrically examined in any of the countries in the European Union as there is currently no suitable NDT technique. The irregular weld bead is ground flush on the railhead running face and railhead running side(s). In the UK, France and Germany the proportion of rail breaks attributed to weld failures is similar at about 20% of all rail failures. Although this is proportionally a very small percentage of the total number of welds on the three rail networks, nevertheless it still totals several hundred weld failures annually including those on high speed and high passenger density routes. The consequences of a single failure could result in the derailment causes lost of life and millions of Euros of cost. For example, in the UK, the Hatfield disaster which occurred in 2000, killed four people, injured many more and cost 800 million Euros (see Figure B 1.1.a).

Project Concept
The concept of the project is to produce a "clamp-on" ultrasonic testing device (Figure B 1.1.g) that does an ultrasonic test of the weld, and classifies the weld according to pre-determined quality criteria. The challenge of the inspection of such welds is in the characterisation of the ultrasonic beam behaviour. The beam path will be distorted by the non linearities of the ultrasonic properties of the weld material caused by the grain structure. This will require a careful theoretical study involving advanced finite element analysis. It is likely that the inspection process will require novel development in advanced phased array probes technology and instrumentation. The probes will also have to be automatically deployed, electronically scanned and the beam steered. The signals will need to be interpreted and analysed rapidly, in order to compare defect sizes with acceptance criteria. These will be determined by a detailed Engineering Critical Assessment (ECA) and fatigue testing.

HIDE
[FP7-217762]

HIDE – Homeland Security, Biometric Identification & Personal Detection Ethics 

HIDE is a project promoted by the European Commission (EC) and coordinated by the Centre for Science, Society and Citizenship, an independent research centre based in Rome (IT). 
HIDE aims to establish a platform devoted to monitoring the ethical and privacy implications of biometrics and personal detection technologies. Detection technologies are technologies used to detect something or someone within a security or safety context. Personal Detection Technologies focus specifically on individuals, they include for example CCTV, infrared detectors and thermal imaging, GPS and other Geographical Information Systems (GISs), RFID, MEMS, smart ID cards, transponders, body scanners, etc. Biometrics is the application of technologies that make use of a measurable, physical characteristic or personal behavioural trait in recognizing the identity, or verifying the claimed identity of a previously registered individual. 
Personal detection technologies and biometrics are increasingly interwoven within a variety of applications. Most of these applications seek to create sensor network infrastructures for continuous detection, authentication and identification of individuals within diverse settings ranging from, amongst others, commercial, transport, public locales and border control. Moreover, by developing multimodal signal analyses, these technologies may allow activity recognition, indoor movement monitoring and non-verbal communication cues (body language, facial expressions, speech intonation, etc) which may assist in the prediction of behaviour. In its recent Green Paper on Detection Technologies, the EC argues that personal detection technologies and biometrics are "inherently intrusive" and "their use needs to be carefully analyzed, in order to establish limitations to their intrusiveness where necessary". HIDE meets this call and promotes open conversation between technology, security, ethics and policy experts as well as encouraging public discussions and dialogue. HIDE is based on the values of dialogue, responsibility, and integrity.

Vision statement: We work to make the world a safer and freer place by promoting an open international dialogue on liberty, security and democracy and by building confidence and improving understanding among the main international and transnational actors. We also strives to advance a new and comprehensive, win-win, concept of surveillance technologies by building a new global second-track architecture based on search for common values and shared goals in the global community. 
[...]

Mission statement: HIDE's mission is to set up a platform devoted to ethical and privacy issues of biometrics and personal detection technologies which addresses transnational (European) and international problems. HIDE aims to become the preeminent catalyst for innovative policy solutions to emerging ethical problems in the area of surveillance technologies, especially where collaboration among national and international 

List of Beneficiaries
Centre for Science, Society and Citizenship
ESRC Centre for the Economic and Social aspects of Genomics
Centre for Biomedical Ethics – Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine Singapore
Eutelis Consult Italia & Associates S.r.l.
Faculty of Electrical Engineering – University of Ljubljana
Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD
International Biometric Group
Optel Ltd.
Sagem Sécurité
The Hastings Center
Zuyd University – Infonomics, New Media & Society

 Sixth Framework Programme

BITE
[SAS6-006093]

Promoting Research and Public Debate on Bioethical Implications of Emerging Biometric Identification Technologies

BITE aims to prompt research and to launch a public debate on bioethics of biometric technology. The number of biometric devices in use in Europe has jumped from 8,550 in 1996 to more than to 150,000 in 2004 and biometric industries revenues are expected to more than triple in the next two years. “Biometrics seem headed for dramatic growth in the next few years. But calm, public discussion of their benefits and drawbacks has been lamentably lacking” (The Economist, Prepare to be scanned, Monday December 8th 2003). The BITE project aims to launch such a discussion.

http://www.biteproject.org/

RiserTest
[COOP-CT-2005-018267]

Development of a Guided Long Range Ultrasonic Inspection System for the examination of offshore subsea Risers, Steel Catenary Risers (SCRs) and Flowlines

Partners:
TWI LIMITED Granta Park, UNITED KINGDOM
COAXIAL POWER SYSTEMS LIMITED, UNITED KINGDOM
2H OFFSHORE ENGINEERING LIMITED, UNITED KINGDOM
ATLANTIS NDE INGENIERÍA DE INSPECCIÓN NO DESCTRUCTIVA SL, SPAINPBP 
OPTEL SP. Z O.O., POLAND
I&T NARDONI INSTITUTE, ITALY
DACON AS, NORWAY
BP EXPLORATION OPERATING COMPANY LIMITED, UNITED KINGDOM
PETROLEO BRASILEIRO S.A., BRAZIL
DET NORSKE VERITAS PLC, NORWAY
ZENON S.A. ROBOTICS AND INFORMATICS, GREECE

Abstract
In the ever-increasing search by oil majors for new fields and with the advent of advanced drilling and extraction technologies, very deep-water offshore fields are now being developed in the Gulf of Mexico, offshore Brazil and offshore West Africa. There have been significant engineering difficulties to overcome to make the development of deep-water offshore fields possible. However, there are still Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) and inspection problems to solve. One such significant concern is the in-service NDT and inspection of the subsea risers, steel catenary risers (SCRs) and subsea flowlines. Once installed in their subsea environment, conventional NDT techniques will be impossible to apply to these components. Although the pipes comprising these components are manufactured and welded to the highest standards, they nevertheless need to be able to operate for 20 years or more without failure. Fatigue analysis shows that the 'start of life' defect size to ensure that failure will not occur is small (in the region of a mm or so through thickness dimension). It is inevitable that some welding defects of that size will go undetected at the manufactured weld NDT and inspection stage. Some parts of the SCRs (particularly in the least accessible seabed region) will be subject to fatigue loading that could ultimately cause premature failure and significant environmental pollution.In this project, guided wave ultrasonic testing developments are proposed that will overcome the limitations of the current technology and greatly increase the applicability and productivity of the technology.These developments will lead to increased business for EU inspection and maintenance SMEs. Recent business trends have seen oil companies outsource their entire inspection and maintenance requirements to specialist service SMEs. This will significantly increase business opportunities for these SMEs.

Tare It
[COOP-CT-2003-017331]

A Novel Tare Identification and Corrosion Detection System to Improve Filling Accuracy, Productivity and Safety for SME LPG, Butane & Propane Gas Vendors

Partners:
Norgaard Teknik A/S
Quantel SA
Optel Sp. z o.o.
Cylindric Denmark A/S
Kosan Crisplant A/S
DII A/S
TWI Ltd
Arrow Technical Services Ltd

  

CLEAR BRUSH
[COOP-CT-2005-016844]