The EU-funded project SOPHIA – Socio-physical Interaction Skills for Cooperative Human-Robot Systems in Agile Production – aims to create a new generation of core robotic technologies for socially cooperative human-robot systems. The project’s objectives were to achieve a reconfigurable and resource-efficient production and improve human comfort and trust in automation in hybrid human-plus-robot manufacturing environments.

SOPHIA core intelligence will enable timely, natural, and human-in-command interactions between humans and robots on both social (e.g., geometric reasoning and situation assessment; knowledge models for human-robot mixed teams; natural and multi-modal dialogue; and human-aware task planning) and physical (e.g., sharing physical loads) levels, representing the new concept of socio-physical interaction. Additionally, the design and development of novel under-actuated wearable exoskeletons and collaborative robots with high payload and advanced loco-manipulation capacities were central to the mechatronics developments of the SOPHIA project. 

SOPHIA had a clear focus on standardization of its advanced technologies at a European level. It included a large network of Digital Innovation Hubs for agile manufacturing (Trinity, DIH2, Flanders Make, DIH Umbria) and healthcare (DIHero) to ensure that its core technologies are “compliant by design” to standards in the field of human-robot interaction and collaboration.

The project cooperated closely with the ISO/TC 159/SC 3/WG 4 and European mirror committee - CEN/TC 122.

The CEN Workshop Agreement CWA 17938 Guideline for introducing and implementing real-time instrumental-based tools for biomechanical risk assessment was developed in close cooperation and published in November 2023.

In addition, project results were shared with the standardization community through commenting on the ISO/TR 7015 by a project partner.

For further information please go to: https://project-sophia.eu/

Project duration

12/2019 - 11/2023, extended until 05/2024

Project coordinator

- Istituto italiano di tecnologia

Project partners

- Istituto Nazionale Assicurazione
- Hidria
- University of Twente
- Universite Montpellier
- Universita di Pisa
- Vrije Universiteit Brussel
- Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
- Volkswagen Sachsen
- Imk automotive
- Hankamp Gears

Project Funding

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871237.