LABEIN Technological Centre is a private, independent, non-profit foundation. It was created in 1955 and is currently managed according to the Law of Foundations 12/94 of the Basque Country.

LABEIN offers services to both the Private and Public Sectors, and to the Society in general, through the innovative application of its advanced technological knowledge and experimental facilities, in order to increase the competitiveness and satisfy the technological demands of its customers. In order to fulfil such an objective.

LABEIN carries out the following activities:

• Projects for scientific and technological research, financed through public R&D funds under specific programmes or agreements;
  
  
• Projects and services for scientific and technological research, dissemination and technology transfer under contract with Industry or the Public Administration;
  
  
• Technical support services such as Tests and Certification services, quality control, standarisation, analysis, etc.;
  
  
• Training.

LABEIN is a member of the Management Committee of ENAC and ESI, and member of EUROLAB, EACRO,AENOR, FEDIT and EITE. It is also a member of the TECNALIA corporation. Moreover it has a good experience in carrying out collaborative projects at European level from different European RTD and TT & innovation programmes (more than 100 up to now) such as: GROWTH, SMT, CRAFT, IST, Environment, Innovation, ECSC-Steel, SPRITE, RECITE, etc.

Currently, LABEIN is the co-ordinator of the Basque Country network on virtual and augmented environments (TARVITEK).

The ENABLED project will be developed by the Virtual Prototypes group within the Mechanics Unit. This group has a large experience in software development for engineering applications as well as strong expertise in carrying out RTD projects in the areas: geometric modelling, audio-haptic interaction, assembly and maintenance simulation, distributed environments and virtual heritage. During the last years, LABEIN has been working in the integration of a geometric modeller developed by themselves with different haptic devices, developing a library of force feedback control algorithms to allow the user to interact with 3D virtual objects.

Two are the main application fields:

• Simulation of assembly and maintenance operations of mechanical components.
  
  The latest work in this area was the European DIVIPRO project. There a distributed application over Internet for simulating the aeronautical design process, including haptic interaction, was developed.
  
  
• Accessibility of visually impaired people to the 3D graphic computer world and its applications through the sense of touch and with audio help.
  
  Currently, LABEIN is the co-ordinator of the GRAB IST project, where a new Haptic & Audio virtual environment (using a new two-finger Haptic interface) and new applications for blind people are being developed. This group has a close contact with ONCE (Spanish Blind National Organsisation). This organization will provide feedback to the ENABLED project and will be essential in the evaluation activities within Spain.

Key Personnel:

• José Ignacio Barbero is Mechanical Engineer form the University of Navarra. He joined LABEIN in 1989 and currently is TASys Product Manager, a [new window] Tolerance Analysis System developed by LABEIN that is being sold worlwide. He was Manager of the Virtual Prototypes Group until 2001. Where he has coordinated projects related to haptic applications for blind people. His main research interests are focused on Tolerance Analysis, Virtual Prototypes, Haptic interaction, visualisation techniques for engineering analysis and HPCN (High Performance Computing and Networking). He has participated in multiple national and European research projects and has co-ordinated the ESPRIT HIPERTTN project, within the HPCN TTN (Technology Transfer Node) Network.
  
  
• Teresa Gutiérrez graduated from the Basque Country University in 1989 in Mathematics. Since 1990 she has worked as a researcher at the Mechanics Unit at LABEIN. She is currently Manager of the Virtual Prototypes Group. She has participated in multiple national and European research projects focused on the implantation of advanced CAD/CAM/CAE techniques in the industry. Her main activities are related to: visualisation and geometric modelling techniques (non-manifold topological structures, intersection algorithms, Boolean operations) and its integration with virtual reality tools (glasses, navigators and haptic interfaces) in different fields: simulation of mechanical assemblies and applications for blind and visually impaired people.

Top Page