About The Project
Twinning IZTECH in Robotics Manufacturing Systems (TWIN-IT-ROMANS) is a twinning project awarded under the European Commission Horizon Europe program. The project is coordinated by Izmir Institute of Technology (IZTECH), and the project partners are RWTH Aachen University (Germany), Politecnico di Torino -POLITO- (Italy), Management Centre Innsbruck Internationale Hochschule GMBH -MCI- (Austria), Hidropar Hareket Kontrol Teknolojileri Merkezi -HKTM- (Turkiye), University of Bath -UoB-, and London South Bank University -LSBU- (United Kingdom).
This project aims to develop a lightweight, portable, and low-cost manufacturing cell capable of performing precise manufacturing and quality control tasks. Achieving this requires collaboration among experts from different fields. The Izmir Institute of Technology (IZTECH) is dedicated to advancing technologies in robotics and manufacturing systems but has been held back by limited resources in research and project management. To unlock its full potential, IZTECH needs to form partnerships with international leaders in this area.
Such collaboration would help spread scientific excellence in robotics and manufacturing across Europe, improve Türkiye’s research and innovation capabilities, and close the gap between Türkiye and the European Union in this field. As a result of this project, IZTECH is expected to enhance its research reputation and capacity.
When prototyping or producing a machine or its parts, several methods of manufacturing are used, such as machining, additive manufacturing, laser cutting, or welding. These manufactured parts are investigated for their manufacturing tolerances upon production via quality control systems, such as a coordinate measurement machine. However, at the current state of the art, one production machine can only perform its one designated process. Additionally, these machines are generally large and bulky computer numerical control systems. As a result, these manufacturing machines are heavy and non-portable products with high investment costs. For these reasons, small investors or start-ups cannot invest in these machines, or very few of them can invest in only one type of manufacturing machine. The aim of this project is to develop a lightweight, portable, and low-cost manufacturing cell that can perform precise manufacturing and quality control. This challenge can only be solved by the collaborative work of interdisciplinary partners. Inspired by this action, Izmir Institute of Technology (IZTECH) has been firmly committed to developing and promoting enabling technologies for robotic and manufacturing systems. However, IZTECH could not fully exploit its technological and innovation potential in this field due to limited resources in research and project management. There is a clear need for concrete partnership between IZTECH and internationally leading counterparts to bring this potential into play, and thus to spread scientific excellence in robotics and manufacturing systems over the European Research Area and industry. In this way, Türkiye’s excellence capacity and resources can be improved, and the research and innovation gap between Türkiye and the European Union can be closed in this specific area. As a consequence of this project, IZTECH’s reputation and capacity to carry out advanced research are expected to grow due to this collaboration.