Call #2 for Innovators in AI Planning (AIPlan4EU project)

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AIPlan4EU is looking for real-world use-cases of AI planning, software development and planning technology.

FSTP - Cascade Funding

AIPlan4EU is offering equity-funding for AI planning technology, software development and use-cases.

Target Applicants

Companies Large Mid-caps Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) Startup Consortium Individuals Non Governmental Organizations (NGO) Research and Technology Organizations (RTO) Research Organisations

Business Category

Agriculture Cloud, Edge and Infrastructure Earth Observation Energy Healthcare Manufacturing Maritime Sector Public Services Regional Engagement - DIHs Telecommunications Transportation

Automated Planning and Scheduling is a central research area in AI, concerned with reasoning on a predictive model of a system to identify a course of actions that achieves a desired goal. It has been studied since the inception of the field and European research has been making strong contributions over decades.

Planning engines have now reached a maturity that makes them highly useful for real-world applications. Still, their application in practise is sometimes hindered by the fact that the planning world is quite heterogeneous, without a common programming interface that makes the technology easily accessible. Moreover, it can be very hard, even for experts, to reliably predict which technique will work well on a certain problem. Thus, it is important that a user needs not to commit to a certain technique at an early stage of adoption but can at any time easily try out and switch to other, better-suited planning technology.

AIPlan4EU aims at solving these problems: it offers state-of-the-art planning technology through a unified API designed for practitioners and validated on practical use-cases.

Which are the goals of the AIPlan4EU project?

Following the overall vision for AI in Europe, the project leverages the excellent research on planning technology that Europe has funded and constructed over the years by bringing it to innovators and practitioners.

AIPlan4EU is centred around 6 ambitious objectives:       

  • Making planning accessible to practitioners and innovators               
  • Facilitate the integration of planning and other ICT technologies
  • Making planning relevant in a wide range of application sectors   
  • Seamlessly integrate planning within the AI4EU platform
  • Facilitate learning of planning for up- and reskilling and lower the access barrier
  • Standardize and drive academic research towards applications

Is the project restricted to certain sectors? NO!

The design of the various activities in AIPlan4EU is derived from user needs, considering use-cases relevant in the scope of AI planning, regardless of their sector. For example, the use-cases provided by the project partners themselves are from the following areas:

  • Planning for space
  • Planning for agriculture
  • Planning for manufacturing
  • Planning for logistics
  • Planning for autonomous driving
  • Planning for automated experimentation
  • Planning for subsea robotics

Who are we looking for?

Open call #2 for innovators features three different tracks, distinguishing three different kinds of contributions. Track A is mainly of interest for planning experts, while Tracks B and C mostly require more general software development. In track B, we are also looking for additional use-cases, which can potentially be of interest for everyone.

If you have any questions on the different tracks, don’t be shy to contact us via email.

 

Track A — Planning Technology

What is Track A about?

Track A is for innovators who want to contribute planning technology to the AIPlan4EU ecosystem.

We seek all kinds of software tool/library/technology related to planning. Examples include (but are not limited to): 

  • plan generation tools (e.g. automated planners),
  • validation procedures (e.g. plan validators),
  • visualization tools (e.g. plan animators),
  • problem transformation utilities (e.g. grounders and compilations).

A funded project will make their contribution available as a service within the unified planning framework, a python library developed within the AIPlan4EU project that enables the programmatic modelling, manipulation and solving of planning problems. The integration code shall be documented, and a final written report shall describe in detail the functionality and the usage of the tool via the unified planning framework.

The financed projects will have a development phase of 6 months that will be structured in three sprints of 2 months each, plus one month for finalizing and preparing the demonstrator (7 months in total).

 

Who are we looking for in this track?

Innovators (researchers, experts, students,…) and organisations (SMEs, MidCaps, larger companies, universities, research institutes, labs,…)

 

What do we have to offer?

  • The opportunity to make your planning technology more widely accessible
  • €60.000 funding for each project for up to 4 projects

 

Will there be a webinar? Where to ask questions?

There was a webinar on January 18 that is available as a recording. You can also always contact us via email.

 

How to apply

Open call #2 for innovators is open from 1 December 2022 to 8 February 2023, 17h CET. Please read and complete the following documents and apply via the F6S platform.

 

Track B — Integration of New Use-Case

What is Track B about?

Track B is intended for a consortia of two partners who together want to solve a planning use-case, exploiting the capabilities of the unified planning framework. The framework is a software library developed by the AIPlan4EU project and offers planning-related capabilities in a general and convenient way.

One consortium partner will be a use-case provider, who wants to explore the benefit of planning for their specific use-case. The other partner will typically have expertise in planning and/or software development and will realize a “Technology-Specific Bridge” (TSB) that connects the technology/software from the use-case with the unified planning framework.

Examples include (but are not limited to): 

  • adding planning capabilities to simulators (i.e. extend plan simulation tools with plan generation capabilities so that generated plans can then be simulated),
  • integration of automated planning in logistics tools (e.g. gather data from Warehouse Management Systems to form a planning query and report the generated plan to the user),
  • visualization tools (e.g. plan animators, plan simulators), integration of planning in existing software ecosystems (e.g. wrap the unified planning framework for robotic operating systems),
  • translating from existing formalisms/software libraries for decision making into planning problems and mapping-back the results.

You have never heard of AI planning before and are unsure whether your task is a use-case for planning? If it can be framed in some way as identifying a course of actions, it potentially is. If you need a first-contact explanation, you can have a look at our recent blog entry or some use-cases of our project partners. If you are still unsure, don’t hesitate to contact us via email.

A funded project will describe the use-case in a dedicated report and the developed TSB will address at least some of the aspects highlighted by the use-case. Moreover, the TSB shall be demonstrated and evaluated on the use-case specifications. The TSB code shall be documented, and a final written report shall describe in detail the functionality and the usage of the tool.

The financed projects will have a development phase of 6 months that will be structured in three sprints of 2 months each, plus one month for finalizing and preparing the demonstrator (7 months in total).

 

Who are we looking for in this track?

A consortium of 2 organizations — a use-case owner and a TSB provider (SMEs, MidCaps, larger companies, universities, research institutes, labs,…)

 

What do we have to offer?

  • Funded opportunity to explore the benefits of AI Planning for the use-case owner
  • €90.000 for the winning consortium

 

Will there be a webinar? Where to ask questions?

There was a webinar on January 25 that is available as a recording. You can also always contact us via email.

 

How to apply

Open call #2 for innovators is open from 1 December 2022 to 8 February 2023, 17h CET. Please read and complete the following documents and apply via the F6S platform.

 

Track C — Integration of an Existing Use-Case (Development of a Technology-specific Bridge)

What is Track C about?

Track C is intended for companies, organizations and individualy that have expertise in software development and/or planning and want to integrate an existing use-case with the unified planning framework, a software library developed by the AIPlan4EU project that offers planning-related capabilities in a general and convenient way.

Each funded project will realize a “Technology-Specific Bridge” (TSB) that connects the technology/software from a use-case with the unified planning framework. Both entities, the TSB provider and the use-case owner, will work together and validate the results.

The AIPlan4EU project finances the realization of TSBs that must use the functionality offered by the unified planning library and the realization of a demonstrator that showcases the developed TSBs on the respective use-case.

The TSB code shall be documented, and a final written report shall describe in detail the functionality and the usage of the tool.

The financed projects will have a development phase of 6 months that will be structured in three sprints of 2 months each, plus one month for finalizing and preparing the demonstrator (7 months in total).

 

What are the use-cases for which we seek a TSB?

The description of the use-cases can be found on the AIPlan4EU project page.

 

Who are we looking for in this track?

Innovators (researchers, experts, students,…) and single organisations (SMEs, Mid-Caps, start-up, spin-off corporates, large companies, research institutes, universities, labs, NGOs, Foundations,…) that can provide a TSB for one of the given use-cases

 

What do we have to offer?

€60.000 for each TSB provider (one TSB for each of the 8 use-cases)

 

Will there be a webinar? Where to ask questions?

There was a webinar on January 25 that is available as a recording. You can also always contact us via email.

 

How to apply

Open call #2 for innovators is open from 1 December 2022 to 8 February 2023, 17h CET. Potential TSB providers need to apply for the Technology Specific Bridge sub-track of Track C. For the other sub-track, only use-case owners that have already been successful in open call #2 or #3 for use-cases are eligible.

Please read and complete the following documents and apply via the F6S platform.