| LEAPFROG ‘Open Days’ on final project results | | July 17, 2009 (Italy) |  |
 LEAPFROG is a large scale research project for the future of the European Textile and Clothing industry. Endowed with a budget of close to 24 millions € in four years, the project was undertaken to develop concepts and technologies which would radically modernize and ultimately transform the clothing sector into a demand-driven, knowledge-based, high-tech industry.
Coordinated by EURATEX, the European Apparel and Textile Confederation, and with the support of the European Commission’s 6th Research Framework Programme, an international Consortium of 37 partners has exploited recent advances in a broad area of scientific-technological fields ranging from: polymeric material science; robotics and innovative fabric joining techniques; 3D computer graphics and animation to e-business, supply chain integration and management research.
Over the past four years, the LEAPFROG research and development work has reached a significant number of its objectives to develop radically innovative technological and organisational solutions for the (textile &) clothing business of the 21st Century.
It has the potential to lead to an innovation and new business development cycle involving a great number of textile, clothing, machinery and service companies in Europe.
Several results will be available for commercial exploitation shortly after the project conclusion in July 2009, others require additional research to realize their full innovation potential and to bring them in the form of proven technology into industrial application.
To create opportunities with companies interested in results use and exploitation, LEAPFROG has organized “OPEN DAYS” at one of its partner’s facility in Italy to show live-demonstrations of some of the results achieved.
Such demonstrations have taken place in three editions, 10th June, 3rd July and 15th July and featured in particular:
- Robotic fabric-grasping /handling prototypes,
- conveyor system for cut parts with automatic loading/unloading,
- 3D robotic sewing operations,
- Laser welding operations for traditional and technical textiles,
- Virtual prototyping solutions and advanced eBusiness
The OPEN DAYS were attended by a substantial number of industrialists coming from Italy and from several other European Countries who showed keen interest in the technologies developed. In some cases preliminary contacts for possible exploitation have been established with the developers. | | | | LEAPFROG | |
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