As part of the Galicia Open Future initiative, spearheaded by Telefónica and the Galician regional government (la Xunta), the Ceit-IK4 Technology Center, along with the company Siali, is co-winner of the Citic Censa award. Through this award, the jury recognizes the joint capacity of Ceit-IK4 and LinqCase to solve problems that arise when drilling through flat pieces that are manufactured by the metallurgical industry for mining centers across the globe.

Researchers Diego Borro, Aiert Amundarain, Ibon Iribarren, Javi Pérez and Angel Iglesia are the authors of the winning project. As the problems that arise in drilling flat metal pieces are associated with surface irregularities, their proposed solution is a vision system that is integrated in the head of the drilling machine. During drilling, the system detects surface irregularities and uses the new information to modify the drilling machine’s control program.