IPCEI CIS General Assembly & 8ra Open Conference – March 2026
In the DS4 capacity as a partner of the ENACT project, our Managing Director Nikolay secured participation at the 8ra Annual Summit 2026 in Rotterdam and learned more about this funding initiative and potential interactions with Horizon Europe projects and other EU funding programmes.
IPCEI (Important Projects of Common European Interest), which is a new funding mechanisms in Europe, promotes strategic technologies, such as cloud-to-edge infrastructure, and drives EU economic growth. IPCEI-CIS (IPCEI on Cloud Infrastructure and Services) involves 12 Member States providing funds for Europe’s next generation cloud services.
Following Nikolay’s fruitful participation, DS4 and our project partners will explore further support that 8ra can provide to our ENACT project.
And as seen below, Nikolay happened to bump into a collaborator from about 20 years ago. Surprise opportunities always arise within this small world!
After 45 months work on the RoBétArmé project all partners got together one more time in the project final conference and presented their many achievements.
The construction industry stakeholders are all well aware of the challenges that the construction industry is facing including labour shortages, safety challenges, cost overruns and climate change. Our project addressed some of them through human-robot collaboration and advances in digitization, perception, mobility and shotcrete automation.
The final conference participants in the likes of construction and digitalisation industry experts and researchers had the opportunity to hear more about the project innovations, impact and outcomes through technical demonstrations and fruitful discussions sessions. Our DS4 team led the session on “The impact of Robots and AI in the Construction Industry”. Alongside our use cases partners from ARUP, Bouygues Construction and Christiansen & Essenbæk the discussion focused not so much on theory but what really works and what this means for jobs, productivity and project implementation.
Thank you Caelan, Christina, Mads, Bruno and Xavier for joining in our presenter Nikolay and showcasing your in-depth knowledge and professional expertise during our session. It’s been a pleasure collaborating with you 🙂
After exactly 42 months of carefully creating the Inspection Reconnaissance manipulator (IRR), the project partners gathered in the Alps to test it in real working conditions. The IRR is a complex system which consists of an autonomous rover and a laser welding robot/manipulator mounted on a trailer.
Our DS4 team, along with our partners from Bouygues Construction and the robot developers, watched intensely against the cold wind as the IRR rover was launched. Using its specially designed grippy tires, it rolled into the muddy tunnel. The rover confidently moved forward into the tunnel, scanning the environment with its camera and detecting defective rebars. The rebars are an essential framework to allow the spraying of shotcrete, ultimately allowing the building and repairing of crucial tunnel infrastructure.
We and the current end-users from Bouygues Construction, watched on amazed as an image of the rebars and surrounding environment appeared on the laptop. The 3D image highlighted the defects in the rebars. The rover then picked up the IRR manipulator (see pictures below) and towed it to the exact right spot. Sparks flew as the software instructed the manipulator to weld (fix) the defective metal rebars.
The end-users walked forwards tentatively towards the robot, minding their step. They examined the rebar carefully, tilting their head to see all angles. Then they looked back at us with a smile and nodding faces.
Our IRR robot, at its first ever real working environment testing, had performed an excellent repair.
As we interviewed the end-users afterwards, we enjoyed gathering valuable information for our evaluation analysis of this complex system. Next week we are eagerly waiting the testing of the Shotcrete and Finishing mobile manipulator (SFR); this is further addressing the unhealthy harmful conditions of the shotcreting process in harsh environment.
We would like to thank Bouygues Construction for their professionalism during the preparation and running of the tests. In addition to handling complex logistics and safety issues, they also took into consideration the project gender equality plan ensuring female partners felt comfortable during this thrilling experience.
To further immerse you into our human-robot collaborative work in the Alpine construction setting, we are providing the images below.
5 years ago in the beautiful city of Plovdiv a new company was born.
The founders had a dream and they had the drive. They knew how to build an outstanding team and lead them on challenging journeys. Even more importantly, they knew how to collaborate and become a trusted partner.
With a few completed projects under our belt and a few more ongoing right now, we have plenty of ideas for the future.
Thanks to all our friends and collaborators for the support over the last five years! Наздраве!
For those of you who followed our MobiSpaces journey in the past 3 years, we would like to share with you that our project work has now been completed. The final review on 16 October 2025 in Genoa presented us with an opportunity to highlight all our project achievements which could benefit thousands of citizens as well as researchers and organisations in big numbers.
Thank you project partners for the collaborative work with our DS4 team. And thank you Matteo Falsetta for your vision, leadership and support. Throughout the project you were encouraging us to ‘keep pushing’; at the end of the project your message to us was no different:
‘And remember … KEEP PUSHING … always!!!’
Promise Matteo, we will. And we know that you will too.
We also know how to celebrate our achievements as the photo from the recent Impact event in Rome shows below 🙂
Last week the DS4 team had the pleasure to attend the MobiSpaces Impact Event: Advancing European Mobility Data Innovation held in the beautiful building Spazio Europa in Rome.
It was a wonderful opportunity to take part in this final event which presented and demonstrated the innovations developed during the lifetime of the project; their results empowered 5 real life scenarios including smart cities, transportation systems and maritime operations.
Technical and use cases partners engaged in fruitful discussions with other leaders and researchers in the field of data-driven innovations including AI, data spaces and sustainable transport.
The photos below show Petia in action early in the morning getting ready to meet and greet the participants at the registration desk.
Photos also show Zhilber networking with the other fellow participants; that included smiling in front of the cameras of course 🙂
To read further details about the event and watch the recordings of the presentations follow this MobiSpaces project website link
This week, the ENACT project reached an important milestone as partners gathered in sunny Valencia for the mid-term plenary meeting. With the first phase of the project wrapping up at the end of June, this was a key moment to showcase progress—and it didn’t disappoint.
The technical partners presented the first working versions of their components and it was inspiring to see how far we’ve come in such a short time and how well the different parts are beginning to integrate.
At DS4, we’re proud to be contributing to the ENACT project by developing a Security Risk Modeller (SRM)—an automated tool designed to assess deployment configurations for security threats. SRM identifies risks and recommends ISO 27001-aligned controls to ensure that deployment decisions made by the ENACT orchestrator are secure and standards-compliant.
A huge shout-out to Nadia for presenting the first version of the SRM and delivering an impressive live demo of its capabilities! The session sparked valuable discussions with our partners and demonstrated how SRM is shaping up to be a key component of the project.
None of this would have been possible without the tireless work of our brilliant technical team working behind the scenes. Your hard work made this milestone possible—thank you!
Time flies when you’re having fun, and we couldn’t believe how quickly we got into the final months of the MobiSpaces project.
The project partners were delighted to get together again for a plenary meeting; this time they joined in at the ATOS premises in Madrid.
Every partner updated the consortium on their achievements to date; this was followed by discussing the open issues and outstanding tasks in the few remaining project months.
The DS4 work on the Security Risk Modeller was presented by Zhilber with the active participation of Nadia on-line.
Special mention also to our excellent technical team who work hard in the background on integration activities.
Thank you DS4 team and thank you project partners for our collaborative work 🙂
In our recent blog post about Hannover Messe we informed about receiving valuable feedback from people working in the constructions, robotics and digital transformation industries who attended our RoBétArmé project booth. As promised, the prize winner has been drawn and they received their gift card. Congratulations! As for us, we were glad to receive constructive comments verbally and in writing.
After three years of research and innovation, the DS4 team is joining in with all our partners to showcase our main achievements on the MobiSpaces project.
MobiSpaces is an EU-funded initiative developing a mobility-aware, optimised data governance platform. It focuses on extracting actionable insights from mobile sensor and IoT data in a decentralised manner, enhancing intelligent transportation services while ensuring privacy and compliance.
Click on this link to find further details about the event and how you can register to attend.
