Projects
By strongly investing in R&D - currently to 10% of the company’s yearly turnover - we recognize its importance in the process of bringing new technologies, products and processes to the market, as well as for incorporating innovation into our customer’s projects.
Such investment has already brought successful and innovative products and technologies to the market. A few illustrative R&D projects where Critical is or has been involved are:
ONGOING PROJECTS:
mobiOS
As a result of previous experiences with IT projects in the electric mobility sector, namely electric vehicles, a lack of integration in existent systems is clearly identified. This fact produces a great impact on the capacity to provide services and data, whether it refers to users or other systems.
The mobiOS project aims to solve this technological limitation, by building up a platform that is able to integrate easily existent IT solutions, coping with different types of systems, hardware or software solutions, enhancing the capacity to create an ecosystem of IT solutions for mobility and, by removing the technological barriers, promoting the entry of new players in the sector and enhancing the creation of new business models.
Go to mobiOS project.
MOBI.EUROPE
MOBI.Europe will promote the full integration and interoperability of a cloud of ICT applications associated with electro-mobility, which were already developed and are in the process of being tested. It is built upon the Portuguese, the Irish, the city of Amsterdam (The Netherlands), and the Galician (Spain) ongoing electro-mobility initiatives. Involving all the relevant stakeholders, it will be capable of delivering comprehensive and innovative solutions to foster electro-mobility among European citizens.
The Project aims to integrate these four initiatives, generating additional mobility services in benefit of the EV user. Its main features are:
- make the user more comfortable to use EV beyond the limits of “range anxiety” by providing EV users with universal access to an interoperable charging infrastructure independent from its energy utility and region;
- promote energy-efficient mobility services through a seamless integration with the transport system and with the EV ecosystem;
- contribute to the standardization and openness of the EV ecosystem establishing open interfaces between the different systems and stakeholders; and
- establish the management interface between the EV infrastructure and the electric grid, taking benefit of this information to create a more reliable and efficient end-to-end energy system.
MOBICAR
Mobicar Info is one sub-project of TICE Mobilidade (PPS#9) and aims to develop an infotainment for the Mobicar vehicle, a Portuguese electric vehicle prototype that is currently under development. With this solution the user shall be able to monitor vehicle data, namely battery charging status and search for a Mobi.e network charging station in the vicinity, as well as proceed with its reservation. By accessing the O.S.T. platform (PPS#1 of TICE Mobilidade), it is possible to plan a trip using several means of transport, to select the most efficient route according to traffic information received, as well as obtain recommended points of interest, among other information.
The MobicarInfo solution will be constructed using the Visteon InVehicleInfotainment (IVI) platform, which includes hardware and software components. This IVI solution provides several functionalities, like range from GPS, Bluetooth, network connectivity, among others. The technical challenge is to develop a GUI over Visteon IVI hardware and base software, using the native resources available to develop the required functionalities and provide integration with the vehicle, O.S.T. and Mobi.e.
SIGEDI
“SIGEDI intention is to develop a novel way of providing information for Smart Buildings. The project will provide the underlying communication, recollection and actuation mechanism for the efficient management of Smart Buildings. The usage of low cost wireless sensor nodes makes the technology accessible in terms of cost and a valid alternative to the normal cabled options.”
BLUE EYE
The Blue Eye project arose from the need to overcome the challenges related to the efficiency and effectiveness of maritime missions related to Search and Rescue (SAR), maritime supervision and environment protection. In order to improve the anticipation capability and responsiveness when facing SAR incidents, illicit activities or environmental disasters, innovative technological solutions are needed. Oversee results from the Blue Eye Project.
The BlueEye project aims to investigate and develop technology that will increase efficiency and effectiveness in maritime safety, security and environmental protection operations. The project consortium comprises:
- Critical Software SA (Consortium Leader)
- The Portuguese Navy
- University of Porto, Faculty of Engineering
The Portuguese Navy operational context is characterized by:
- the existence of more and more stovepipe, independent systems;
- by the growing need of sharing information between other entities with responsibilities on the Maritime domain;
- by the increasing volume of information which needs to be processed faster.
These aspects cause difficulties in the decision process and decrease the speed of responsiveness, thus affecting the effectiveness of the operations.
There is therefore an opportunity to develop and validate innovative technological solutions, focusing in two distinct axes. The first one will explore the application of Information Technologies as a mean to overcome the problem of integration of the different stovepipe systems thus facilitating the inter-agency and inter-nation information exchange, improving the operational picture and decision process. The second one will explore new technological concepts, with the objective of assessing their applicability to maritime operations.
The project will be led by Critical Software and will include the operational expertise of the Portuguese Navy and the scientific background from the Engineering Faculty of Oporto University. Within the Navy, different entities will participate, bringing to the project different types of expertise: at operational level the Naval Command, the Directorate-General for Maritime Authority and the Naval Staff; at scientific and technological level the Naval Research Centre, the Hydrographic Institute and the Superintendence of Information and Communication Technologies.
With a total investment of €1,732,929.32 (One Million, Seven Hundred and Thirty Two Thousands, Nine Hundred and Twenty Nine Euros and Thirty Two Cents) the BlueEye project has received funding of €964,782.47 (Nine Hundred and Sixty Four Thounsands, Seven Hundred and Eighty Two Euros and Forty Seven Cents) from the Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER), via the QREN Programme - Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade (POFC) and contracted by ADI through the Contrato de Concessão Incentivos Financeiros n.º 2011/021607. The project began in April 2011 and is planned to last for 36 months.
Go to Oversee Solutions web page.
NEMO & CODED
The NEMO&CODED project represents a ITEA2 initiative, and targets the definition and development of a web services based infrastructure to monitor and manage energy related devices, taking under consideration energy generation (including generation based on renewal sources), distribution and consumption.
Projeto QREN de Internacionalização - 6214
Critical Software SA signed with AICEP, under the QREN, Program SIQPME and Project n. º 6214, a Concession Financial Incentives with a total investment amount of € 427,071.00 (Four Hundred and Twenty Seven Thousand, Seventy-One Euros) whose implementation period originally contracted is between 04/30/2011 and 05/12/2009.
The project in question was financed by QREN, under the Operational Competitiveness Factors Programme in the amount of € 167,958.45 (One Hundred and Sixty Seven Thousands, Nine Hundred and Fifty Eight Euros and Forty Five Cents). It aims to increase competitiveness in the global marketplace, research knowledge, develop actions to promote Critical international brand, mark presence in international markets (fairs prospecting and direct action and participation in international competitions), to promote international marketing and develop concrete actions and focused both in established markets such as emerging and large markets.
CESAR
The embedded safety-critical systems design and development industry is facing increasing complexity and variety of systems and advices, coupled with increasing regulatory constraints while costs, performances and time to market are constantly challenged. This has led to a profusion of enablers (new processes, methods and tools), which are neither integrated nor interoperable because they have been developed more or less independently, adressing only a part of the complexity issue, such as safety. The absence of internationally recognized open standards is a limiting factor in terms of industrial performancewhen companies have to select among these enablers.
CESAR will bring significant and conclusive innovations in the two improvable systems engineering disciplines:
- Requirements engineering in particular through formalization of multi viewpoint, multi criteria and multi level requirements,
- Component based engineering applied to design space exploration comprising multi-view, multi-criteria and multi level architecture trade-offs.
Go to CESAR Project http://www.cesarproject.eu
csSECURE
csSECURE was a project funded by QREN with €78,300.50, under the Programa Operacional Temático Fatores de Competitividade. It was contracted with IAPMEI through the Financial Incentives Concession Agreement nº 2009/6579 with a total investment amount of €158,816.59 (One Hundred and Fifty Eight Thousands, Eight Hundred and Sixteen Euros and Fifty Nine Cents) and an implementation period between 01-06-2009 and 05-31-2011. The main gola was to create a solution for information protection focused on unstructured data, based on an information security methodology sustained by the MultiLevel operating mode.
The csSECURE II is a project of joint promotion, developed between Critical Software SA, as head of the Consortium, and the University of Minho, in fixing as one of its purposes the sustained expansion of innovation capacity, by encouraging cooperation between R&D Institutions and companies, namely in the area of computer security, funded in €490,397.66 (Four Hundred and Ninety Thousand, Three Hundred and Ninety Seven Euros and Sixty Six Cents) by QREN, under the Programa Operacional Fatores de Competitividade, at the contract stage with ADI through the Contrato de Concessão Incentivos Financeiros nº 2010/013619 with a global investment amount of €1,079,834.94 (One Million, Seventy Nine Thousand, Eight Hundred and Thirty Four Euros and Ninety Four Cents) and an implementation period from 02-02-2010 to 31-01-2012. Has as main objectives tne intensification of the research component of scientific and technological solutions for the features identified as having potential to come to integrate the products csSECURE roadmap and extend reseach activities in the field of market approach, in order to maximize the economic exploitation.
CRITICAL STEP
The CRITICAL Software Technology for an Evolutionary Partnership (CRITICAL STEP) is a Marie-Curie Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways (IAPP) belonging to call FP7-PEOPLE-2008-IAPP. It aims at establishing the basis for a long term strategic research collaboration between partners involved in this project in the growing and challenging domain of software for large-scale Safety-Critical Systems (SCSs) based on the use of Off-The-Shelf (OTS) software components for the control of complex distributed infrastructures such as Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems, complex industrial plants, etc.
Partners feel they are in need of sharing and combining their knowledge and use the existing synergies/complementarities to set long term strategic bases to deal with the complexity of the next generation SCSs, resist market competition and win the challenge of developing new safe technologies and standards. The project is implemented via secondment and recruitment of 182 Research-Months (RM) in total: 72 RM for recruitment of 3 experienced researchers and 110 RM for secondments of 13 research fellows from the participating organizations.
The partners of this project are:
- CINI/UoN ITEM Laboratory "Carlo Savy" of the CINI Consortium and the University of Naples (Italy) – Coordinator
- CSW Critical Software S.A. (Portugal)
- FCTUC Faculdade de Ciencias e Tecnologia Universidade de Coimbra (Portugal)
- SESM S.c.a.r.l. (Italy)
EMMON
EMMON Project is a collaborative venture within the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission. EMMON will evolve through a partnership between Critical Software S.A. and eight other organisations, both corporate and academic: Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, Intesys, Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Tecnicas de Gipuzkoa, Critical Software Technologies, Trinity College Dublin, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, SESM S.c.a.r.l., Akting Ingeniaritza S.L.
EMMON intends to develop a functional prototype for the real-time monitoring of specific natural scenarios (related to the quality of urban life, forest environment, civil protection etc) using Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) devices. The project will provide the technology to effectively monitor and control an area of 50 square km - this will involve the deployment of thousands of wireless sensor nodes which will be a massive advance on the current state-of-the-art.
Projecto ARTEMIS/0002/2008 - EMMON - EMbedded MONitoring - financiado pela Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia e pelo Estado Português.
COMPLETED PROJECTS IN 2011:
AMBER Itest
The main goal of this project is to develop a set of tools and techniques to automate specification based GUI testing, solving the shortcomings found in our previous work, and show their applicability in industrial environments: hide as much as possible formal modelling details from users, via a visual modelling front-end that is integrated with the formal modelling environment and is supported by appropriate translation tools; ease the task of mapping the abstract actions described in the model to concrete actions on physical objects in the implemented GUI for several platforms, via a enhanced GUI mapping tool; help the generation of higher quality test cases, via the identification of the most appropriate test coverage criteria for model base GUI testing and the development of tools to evaluate the quality and control and guide the generation of test cases; and validate the overall approach by a set of industrial case studies.
FEUP webpage: http://paginas.fe.up.pt/~apaiva/AMBERiTest/AMBERiTest.htm
Mala Segura
This project aims to enable the location and tracking of luggage through an information system embedded within. The system will be tamper-proof, compliant with international standards and will incorporate new technologies.
Briefly, the main objectives of this project are:
- Development of a new type of “smart suitcase", integrating identification technologies, sensing and communication;
- Development of a management, control and monitoring system for suitcases.
To prove the concept, pilot tests will be made in Portuguese Airports, whose effort to decrease the baggage misshadling ratio generates a good environment for validating the proposed solutions.
The new type of suitcase with embedded identifiers allows its owner to know its location almost anytime, provided an infrastructure compatible with the identifiers used exists. Thus, the monitoring, management and control system to be developed could have a broader application than just airports, and could be used in railway stations, bus terminals, shopping centres hospitals, schools or other public spaces.
VS2
Info available at http://www.critical-materials.com/rd/vs2core/
PULSE
The goal of this project, “Pulse”, is to develop a Real-Time Business Intelligence disruptive product called FeedZai Pulse. The product produces continuously updated business information that allows decision makers to monitor their enterprises, react to new information in real-time, and maximize their businesses potential. This product will incorporate several technologies and research ideas developed by the company founders while research professors at the University of Coimbra.
INTELLIshm
The project IntelliSHM will address the following topics: Design of an integrated SHM system, with reduced number of sensors, embedded solutions, Optimum location of sensors, Sensor fault detection by multi-scale methods, Improved diagnostic and prognostic tools. Also this proposal aims at developing a software package for designing sensorised composite panels for reliable detection of impact events. The proposed approach is based on the customization of proprietary VS2TM technology, in order to develop enhanced diagnostics and prognostics capabilities.
SAFER
Prepare the operational implementation of the Emergency Response Core Service (ERCS):
- based on the recommendations of the implementation group;
- supported by the outcomes of the former projects (PREVIEW, RISK-EOS, RESPOND, TERRAFIRMA, LIMES, BOSS4GMES), with both a continuity of the core partnership and an extension of the geographic coverage;
- integrating existing capacities at European level;
- validating and qualifying the operational performance of the services;
- automatic Burn Scar Mapping service provided to Portuguese and Greek authorities;
- forest Fire Monitoring provided to the Portuguese authorities. Reinforcing European capacity to respond to emergency emergencies such as fires, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides and humanitarian crisis.
pSHIELD
The pSHIELD project aims at being a pioneer investigation to address Security, Privacy and Dependability (SPD) in the context of Embedded Systems (ESs) as “built in” rather than as “add-on” functionalities, proposing and perceiving with this strategy the first step toward SPD certification for future ES.
The leading concept is to demonstrate composability of SPD technologies. Starting from current SPD solutions in ESs, the project will develop new technologies and consolidate the available ones in a solid basement that will become the reference milestone for a new generation of “SPD-ready” ESs. pSHIELD will approach SPD at 4 different levels: node, network, middleware and overlay. For each level, the state of the art in SPD of single technologies and solutions will be improved and integrated (hardware and communication technologies, cryptography, middleware, smart SPD applications, etc.). The SPD technologies will be enhanced with composable functionality, in order to fit in the pSHIELD architectural framework. The composability of SHIELD architectural framework will have great impact on the system design costs and time to market of new SPD solutions in ESs. At the same time, the integrated use of SPD metrics in the SHIELD framework will have impact on the development cycles of SPD in ESs because the qualification, (re-)certification and (re-)validation process of a SHIELD framework instance will be faster, easier and widely accepted.
The use of an overlay approach to SPD and the introduction of semantic technologies address the complexity associated with the design, development and deployment of built-in SPD in ESs. Using semantics, the available technologies can be automatically composed to match the needed, application specific SPD levels, resulting also in an effort reduction during all the design, operational and maintaining phases. The pSHIELD approach is based on modularity and expandability, and can be adopted to bring built-in SPD solutions in all the strategic sector of ARTEMIS, such as transportation, communication, health, energy and manufacturing. In order to verify these important achievements, the project will validate the SHIELD integrated system by means of an application scenario: monitoring of freight trains transporting hazardous material.
SAFE LUGGAGE
Critical Software is researching and developing a system that will increase luggage security. Safe Luggage project will develop a management, control and monitoring system for a new type of intelligent bags integrating technology for identification and communication. Current luggage identifiers are fixed in suitcases presenting problems related to bar code (as wet or missing labels). The fact that luggage and identifier are two separated objects can break up a security system. The idea is to create a new type of bags with identifiers embedded in them so they won't be accessible. These identifiers will be based on RFID, WSN and GPS / Galileo / GSM techno
logies. The SAFE LUGGAGE is a project funded by QREN with € 1.586.763,82 (One Million, Five Hundred and Eighty Six Thousands, Seven Hundred and Sixty Three Euros and Eighty Two Cents), under the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors, contracted with the ADI through the Concession Agreement No. 2008/001613 Financial Incentives with an overall investment amount of € 2.462.663,00 (Two Million, Four Hundred and Sixty Two Thousands, Six Hundred and Sixty Three Euros) with an implementation period between 09/01/2008 and 02/28/2011. It's main objectives are to develop a new type of "smart suitcase" that integrate identification technologies, sensing and communication and a management, control and monitoring system for the suitcases.
EVOLVE
The EVOLVE (Evolutionary Validation, Verification and Certification) is an collaboration project, developed by the consortium leader Critical Software SA and the University of Minho, were the consortium defines as major intention the sustained development of innovative know-how throughout the cooperation between R&D institutions and companies appointed for Embedded Systems, co-funded by € 258.335,56 (Two Hundred and Fifty Eight Thousands, Three Hundred and Thirty Five Euros and Fifty-Six Cents) by QREN, under the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors, contracted with ADI throughout the Contrato de Concessão Incentivos Financeiros n.º 2008/001621 with the total amount of investment of € 404.131,97 (Four Hundred and Four Thousand, One Hundred and Thirty One Euros and Ninety Seven Cents) with execution period comprehended between 01-06-2008 and 31-09-2011.
The goal of the EVOLVE project is the creation of a methodological framework for early verification and validation of evolutionary products through the accredited/certified integration of each iteration and/or component in a MDE (Model Driven Engineering) context.
[PT]
O EVOLVE (Evolutionary Validation, Verification and Certification) é um projecto em Co-Promoção, desenvolvido entre a Critical Software SA na qualidade de Chefe do Consórcio e a Universidade do Minho, em que o Consórcio fixa como um dos seus propósitos a expansão sustentada das capacidades de inovação, através do estímulo à cooperação entre Instituições de I&D e empresas designadamente na área de Sistemas Embebidos, financiado em € 258.335,56 (Duzentos e Cinquenta e Oito Mil, Trezentos e Trinta e Cinco Euros e Cinquenta e Seis Cêntimos) pelo QREN, no âmbito do Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade, contratualizados com a ADI através do Contrato de Concessão Incentivos Financeiros n.º 2008/001621 com um montante de investimento global de € 404.131,97 (Quatrocentos e Quatro mil, Cento e Trinta e Um Euros e Noventa e Sete Cêntimos) com um período de execução compreendido entre 01-06-2008 e 31-09-2011.
Tem como principal objetivo a criação de um quadro metodológico para verificação inicial e validação de produtos evolucionários através da integração/certificadora credenciada de cada interacção e ou componente em contexto de MDE (Model Driven Engineering).
- Go to EVOLVE webpage.
- Go to EUREKA-ITEA2 webpage.
- Go to QREN webpage.
- Go to Universidade do Minho webpage.
COMPLETED PROJECTS IN 2010 AND PREVIOUS:
MAGES
MAGES – Mature Applications of Galileo for Emergency Scenarios” project aimed at developing a system to demonstrate the benefits of using GIS, GPS and EGNOS technologies for the management of forest fire fighting activities. In order to accomplish the objectives of the project, Critical Software has established partnerships with Aliança Florestal and AFOCELCA, so as to implement and test a Command and Control Platform, that was tested in two forest fire simulation scenarios.
The Fire Brigades Demonstrations had the following objectives in mind:
- Highlight operational improvements resulting from the use of GNSS devices (GPS and EGNOS) for the management of the lifecycle of the forest fire-fighting activities.
- Analyze the helpfulness and usability of a decision support system for storing, managing and presenting all the information related to the Forest Fire lifecycle.
- Analyze the importance of an integrated system to the management of all resources (human and non-human) assigned or not to active occurrences.
- Assess the importance of having both vehicles and human resources tracked visible in real time by the system, especially during the forest fire-fighting activities.
- Assess the relevance of exchanging geographic information (sketches) by the different command levels during the forest fire operations to complement the voice commands.
- Assess the usefulness of updating the geographic data repository by local individuals, as relevant new geographic information is collected at the Theatre of Operations.
- Appraise the adequacy and efficiency of this integrated System for operational fire fighting activities.”
SPACE AQUA
The PDCTE/EIA/81696/2003 project, called SPACE AQUA - Automated Qualification Framework for COTS Components used in Space Applications, with the Foundation for Science and Technology, Public Institute, with a implementation period comprised between 14/01/2008 and 01/13/2011, fixed as one of its purposes to promote scientific and technological development and had as main objective the development of a Platform for Automated Software Space Qualification of an integrated environment for qualification/certification of software applications for aerospace industry. To that end, the first working contacts were made between CRITICAL SOFTWARE SA acting as Leader Prosecutor, and as well the CENTER NASA IVV, the UNIVERSITY OF COIMBRA and the UNIVERSITY OF WEST VIRGINIA. Wise availability of each of the institutions ensued for execution.
This considered as an object of study the reuse of software components, a common practice in systems development in industry segments such as the demanding areas like aeronautics and space.
With the project SPACE AQUA was possible to develop a framework for the qualification of COTS components used in these environments demands high availability and reliability. This project aimed to expand and further leverage the results of a previous project, referred to as VALCOTS-RT, to allow the creation of a framework with a set of techniques and tools developed to guide and facilitate the qualification of COTS components. These components are regularly used as part of aeronautical and space systems. Besides promoting the results of the first project SPACE AQUA allowed us to develop a tool that implements appropriate techniques for validation of COTS components. Among the objectives of SPACE AQUA is also important to refer to the international dissemination of the work performed at the study of current approaches to classification of software, the definition of software and systems currently used in NASA missions, the implementation of tools to automate and facilitate the qualification of the work, defining and improving a simple methodology and process of creating reusable artifacts and to support the qualification/certification. Financed in € 200,000.00 (Two Hundred Thousand Euros) by the Foundation for Science and Technology and by the Portuguese Government, being the maximum amount of funding provided in the form of non-repayable support comprised of a component of the State Budget.
SARAe
SARA - Assessing Corporate Environmental Liability is co-promoted by E.Value and Critical Software. SARA's first initiative is the project SARAe, approved by the System of Incentives for Research and Technological Development (SI I&DT) of the National Strategic Reference Framework (QREN), co-funded by European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) through the Operational Program Competitiveness Factors (POFC). SARAe aims to support the technical and operational needs of occupational activities covered by Directive 2004/35/CE, of 21 April (ELD - Environmental Liability Directive) in an efficient and flexible way. SARAe's main output will be a software (SARA tech) that supports the environmental liability evaluation process. SARAe is developed between October 2008 and November 2010, with an eligible investment of €570,866.00 (Five Hundred and Seventy Thousands, Eight Hundred and Sixty Six Euros) and a provided incentive of €404,794.00 (Four Hundred and Four Thousands, Seven Hundred and Ninety Four Euros).
ITEV
The INFRAESTRUTURA VE is a collaboration project, integrated in the scope of the Portuguese National Mobility Program (MOBI.E), with the goal to research and develop an integrated and intelligent electric vehicle (EV) charging system, covering not only the interfacing between the EV with the smart grid, but also the intelligent management of all system components. It is developed by the following Portuguese consortium:
- Critical Software SA;
- EFACEC – Engenharia e Sistemas SA as Consortium Leader;
- INTELI – Inteligência em Inovação, Centro de Inovação;
- CEIIA – Centro para a Excelência e Inovação na Indústria Automóvel;
- NOVABASE ENTERPRISE APPLICATIONS – Sistemas de Informação de Gestão Empresarial SA.
Funded in € 1.102.701,27 (One Million, One Hundred and Two Thousands, Seven Hundred and One Euros and Twenty Seven Cents) by the Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER), via the QREN Program - Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade (POFC), contracted by ADI through the Contrato de Concessão Incentivos Financeiros n.º 2010/005726 with a total investment of € 1.857.296,62 (One Million, Eight Hundred and Fifty Seven Thousands, Two Hundred and Ninety Six Euros and Sixty Two Cents) and a planned duration from 01-04-2009 and 30-09-2010. The project main goals are to anticipate new automotive tendencies, by creating a strategic positioning of the Portuguese Automotive industry, which better responds to a new paradigm shift towards the conception, development, production and test of new mobility solutions based on electric vehicles. The project also aims to approach new energy and business models in a broader integration perspective involving all actors and players in the sectors of energy, electronics, communications and systems.
P-FOUND
The GRID/GRI/81809/2006 Project , called P-FOUND - GRID computing and storage and distribution of data and simulations of protein folding and unfolding developed between the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, Critical Software SA, University of Ulster – Scholl Of Biomedical Sciences, University of Minho and the Faculty of Science and Technology oin the University of Coimbra, with an implementation period comprised between 06/01/2007 and 31/12/2010, fixed as one of its purposes to promote scientific research, technological development and aims to develop a prototype in order to meet the following objectives:
- Objective 1 – Creation of a portal that provides easy access and ensuring that any user with proper authorization can take advantage of all features;
- Objective 2 – Development of software to support the portal, which in conjunction with this, allows access to search features, submission of papers and analyzes the data submitted;
- Objective 3 – Installation of Grid middleware, and analysis packages as well as simulations of the scripts for its operation.
This project was supported in € 166,000.00 (Six Hundred and Sixty Thousand Euros) by the Foundation for Science and Technology and by the Portuguese Government, being the maximum amount of funding provided in the form of non-repayable support comprised of a component of State Budget.
PREMFIRE
PREMFIRE – Generic Platform of Emergency Management is a powerful multifunctional decision support in the area of Command & Control, used in emergency management. This is an R&D project, developed by Critical Software SA, in which the main objective is to develop an Emergencies management system that allows:
- Management Hierarchy of Command: Ability to extend the tool to different levels of command, allowing the occurrence at any time, can now be controlled by the player whose responsibility is the most appropriate for that occurrence.
- Management Information associated with the occurrence of different phases: Component management alphanumeric information that expediently, can be configured according to the type of the emergency handle and the way of operation of a particular entity.
- Interoperability: Allows the system to deal with external information systems for emergency response. That is, allows the visualization and processing of data created in external systems.
- Routes Analysis: This component allows the person responsible for managing an event to identify the resources closest to it, allowing more efficient allocation of resources. It also allows any user to get the route between his position and any other location.
Financed in € 72,731.72 (Seventy Two Thousand, Seven Hundred and Thirty One Euros and Seventy Two Cents) by QREN, under the Operational Competitiveness Factors Programme, contracted with IAPMEI through the Financial Incentive Grant Agreement n. º 2009/6602 with a total investment amount of € 150,825.03 (One Hundred and Fifty Thousand, Eight Hundred and Twenty Five Euros and Three Cents), with an implementation period comprised between 24/09/2009 and 09/30/2010.
WISE
WISE is an individual R&D project, developed by Critical Software SA pointed that the main purposes for the creation of a general solution be able to support different operations based on high maturity processes. As secondary objectives and support the main stand out a survey and analysis of the solution requirements, design of the architecture, functional specification, technical specification, development and validation of the solution according to the identified requirements and the architecture designed, financed in € 73,171.45 (Seventy Three Thousand, One hundred and Seventy Five and Forty Euros and cents) for QREN, under the Operational Competitiveness Factors Programme, contracted with IAPMEI through the Financial Incentive Grant Agreement n. No 2009/6637 with a total investment amount of € 290,529.57 (Two Hundred and Ninety Thousand, Five Hundred and Twenty Nine Euros and Fifty Seven cents), with an implementation period comprised between 01/09/2009 and 31/12/2010.
REUSE & ESTIMATION
Critical Software executed Reuse & Estimate project which aimed at identifying strategies, defining processes and developing tools to allow efficient software reuse and estimation methodologies.
Additionally, it focused on developing knowledge on Software reuse and estimation, through research and experimental development, in order to create new processes and systems to improve Critical Software's planning, design and software development activities.
Reuse & Estimate project has an overall investment amount of € 1.016.485,47 (One Million, Sixteen Thousands, Four Hundred and Eighty Five Euros and Forty Seven Cents) between 01/05/2008 and 31/12/2010, being a project co-funded by QREN, under the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors.
UAVs
Critical has been researching & developing capabilities on the operational simulation of Unmanned Aeronautical Vehicles. UAVs are a key, enabling technology and market driver on the Defence & Aeronautics market sectors. Its applications actually go far beyond those markets, with Homeland Security, Environment Monitoring and Precision Farming being just a few examples. The advantage in simulated flight of UAVs is to reduce costs in the development phase, due to testing and validation of subsystems and ground control systems. Besides, it allows the definition and assessment of mission scenarios as well as the training of UAV operators.
