EU projects

Biomedical Engineering Competence Center (Competence Center - BME) long-term common goal is to establish Slovenia, on the global map, as an incubator of the most innovative companies with, from a marketing perspective, the most interesting biomedical devices in the world. The Competence Center BME's long-term common strategy is the permanent establishment of a large virtual research and development group of companies and the academic sphere from the field of biomedical engineering, which will have a suitable critical mass of knowledge and human and material resources for fast transfer of research findings into selling products and revolutionary technological breakthroughs on the global market.

Within the frame of Competence Center - BME are active 5 projects:
· PhysiCoDerm
· SAMinZDRAV (leading partner Gorenje,d.d.)
· SmartMed
· TOF-PET
· MINMED

Gorenje is the leading partner of a project 'SAMinZDRAV' ('ALONEandHEALTHY' project). The final objective of 'SAMinZDRAV' R&D project is to investigate and demonstrate the preferred implementation technology of components for building a system that will unobtrusively acquire and evaluate the parameters of functional health. This system will help people to prolong their independent and healthy living. Research will be based on the iGorenje architecture, a proprietary platform of the project’s partner Gorenje, which connects the household appliances and home devices through the integration scheme called XMC.

The project is in run.

The goal of the INHOME project is to provide the means for improving the quality of life of elderly people at home, by developing generic technologies for managing their domestic ambient environment, comprised of white goods, entertainment equipment and home automation systems with the aim to increase their autonomy and safety.

Contrary to the practises followed up to now, the INHOME project focuses on the problem of appliances flexible use by discriminating between experienced and inexperienced rather than enabled or disabled users.
By adopting this radically different standpoint the project is posed to set out a generic set of appliance design guidelines targeting the intensification of home appliances use and user dependency.

The project is in run.

BeyWatch is a 30-month research project supported by the European Commission (DG Information Society and Media) aiming at ICT tools for environmental management and energy efficiency. BeyWatch will develop an energy-aware and user-centric solution, able to provide intelligent energy monitoring/control and power demand balancing at home/building & neighbourhood level.

To reach its objectives, BeyWatch shall undertake the following:

• Design ultra-low energy-consumption white-goods
• Implement methods, techniques and services to reduce the power consumption in smart/green homes/blocks/neighbours by intelligent control  of electrical devices
• Generate hot water and electricity from renewable energy sources at building level, leading to further power savings and energy consumption/production optimisation services
• Elaborate business plans and business support system (BSS) applications that will help the users and providers to reach beneficiary contracts
• Motivate user's awareness, towards less CO2 emissions on the whole energy value chain (production, transportation, distribution, supply) and  cleaner environment.

The project is in run.

Innovative Switchable Shading Appliances based on Nanomaterials and Hybrid Electrochromic Device Configurations (INNOSHADE)

SEVENTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME - Nanosciences, nanotechnologies, materials & new production technologies

Project INNOSHADE is concerned with an innovative switchable light transmittance technology developed previously for small sized objects (eyewear). The core of this previous achievement is a new conducting polymerpolysiloxane nanocomposite coating with outstanding electro-optical properties that changes its optical absorption properties (i.e., its colour) within seconds with a high optical contrast upon the application of a small electric voltage. It constitutes a breakthrough in smart shading technology by overcoming common limitations of state-of-the-art electrochromic devices (ECDs). INNOSHADE enables the low cost production of electrochromic shading appliances with lower energy consumption and faster response. ECDs can be considered for use in a multitude of applications where the degree of visible or infrared light transmittance is desired to be controlled for reasons of safety, comfort and energy saving. The overall objective of the project is to scale up and study the underlying nanotechnology based processes from laboratory to pilot line production, with the major goal to explore and extend the application potential of the new ECD technology by creating interest in several potential user groups and industries. Procedures shall therefore be implemented to establish pilot production lines for the individual device components as well as for their assembly. The envisaged fields of application therefore range from automotive sunroofs, rear-view mirrors, eyewear/visors, and domestic appliances (refrigerator and oven windows) to switchable cabin windows and thermal shutters for air- and spacecrafts.
Gorenje,s (as the end user of developed solutions for switchable shading and manufacturer of appliances) principal role in the INNOSHADE project is specification of technical requirements, design of appliances incorporating switchable shading solutions, testing of applications, performance of field tests and preparation of the demonstration appliances.

The project is in run.

In the middle of March 2008 we concluded the first European project in Gorenje’s history, called Estia (Enhanced networked environment for personalised provision of AV content and appliances control information).
In January 2006, when the implementation of the project started, we were confronted with a huge challenge, as beside the fact that before this project we neither had any similar experiences nor adequate number of persons available, being able to confront with this challenge efficiently. The Point Program – Intelligent Home and Innovation Centre stepped together on the two-year long gaining of a new know-how and experiences in implementing European projects.

Further, we will briefly present the content of the Estia project with the architecture of the system, describe in detail Gorenje’s contribution and at the end, present the plan for exercising the research results, set by the department - Intelligent Home.

At the beginning of November we concluded with the second European R&D project – Comanche – in which ten partners co-operated including Gorenje. Based on experiences acquired with the first European project - Estia, the Point program, – Intelligent Home and Innovation Centre, headed by Mr. Boro Jerabek, we undertook again the 26 months cooperation in this project. Similarly, as has been done with our first European project Estia, also in this article the architecture of the Comanche system is presented with Gorenje’s contribution to the project realisation, along with exercising the research results within the scope of internal project »Web portal iGorenje and connected Wi-Fi appliance «.