• 13 SME-led experiments, carried out in collaboration with industrial end-users, are advancing real-world human-robot interaction (HRI) solutions across 7 countries.
  
  
• Solutions are tested in real-world industrial and healthcare scenarios, validating ARISE’s open-source middleware and SSH framework through practical proof-of-concept demonstrators.
  
  
• Testing and Experimentation Facilities (TEFs) provide large-scale environments to validate outcomes and inspire future innovation models, ensuring practical, scalable, and industry-ready modules.
  
  
• A tailored mentoring programme supports SMEs in technical integration, human-centric design, and business development.
  
  
• First shareable modules — open-source, reusable building blocks for industrial HRIare expected by March–April 2026, enabling faster, cost-effective adoption across European industries.

The ARISE project, funded by the European Union under Horizon Europe, has entered a decisive phase. Following its successful first Open Call, 13 innovative experiments led by SMEs are now being implemented across seven countries, demonstrating the industrial added value of AI-powered robots in accelerating safer, more efficient, and inclusive industrial workplaces.

These experiments showcase the potential of the ARISE all-in-one middleware open, standards-based, and real-time enabled while validating the AgileHRI concept: combining agility, openness, and human-centric design to accelerate industrial adoption.

At the heart of ARISE are its Testing and Experimentation Facilities (TEFs). These living labs serve as controlled, large-scale environments where HRI solutions are tested, validated, and demonstrated under real-world conditions. TEFs ensure that ARISE outcomes are not just conceptual, but practical and scalable, while also laying the foundation for the ARISE Community of Practice (CoP), a long-term ecosystem for collaboration, knowledge sharing, and innovation transfer.

Through ARISE’s 12 month mentoring programme (2 rounds), each SME experiment benefits from targeted guidance in integration and interoperability, the development of reusable open-source modules, human-centric design, and business exploitation planning. This structured approach ensures innovations are technically robust, ethically sound, and market-ready, bridging the gap between early adopters and mainstream industry uptake.