The embedded systems domain increasingly needs of a reality capable to carrying out a continuous technological transfer to the companies. In particular, with the development of new control and sensor technologies, it is easier to have off-the-shelf components that offer advanced features. In fact, only after the maturation of embedded systems, now sophisticated and highly reliable, has started their wide adoption in the development of technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things), Smart Automotive and Pervasive Computing.

The integration of software and hardware technologies, that allow the reconfiguration and the autonomous operation of industrial components, is the key point for the evolution of embedded systems. Nowadays it is crucial knowing how to use the product families and the development chains to develop complex projects and exploit the advantages of hardware and software components development. This requires to quickly learning how to manipulate the new components and to efficiently composing them. In the industrial domain, the spread of these technologies and their continuous progress allow to innovate the production processes, which usually evolve with much slower rates. The strength of embedded technologies allows innovating and implementing increasingly sophisticated and "intelligent" solutions. The "Smart Manufacturing" is an important example of their innovative drive, because, thanks to the application of embedded systems, it is possible to improve the efficiency and productivity of manufacturing companies, as also envisaged by the Italian national innovation plan, "Industria 4.0".

The industries play the challenge of their competitiveness on a new way of producing and working, with the aim of speeding up the working process, optimizing costs and saving energy. In fact, still today local companies show understandable difficulties in continuously updating their solutions and processes; this is symptomatic of an incomplete mastery of the new development paradigms and interaction models that the embedded systems can enable. The aim of the National Laboratory of Embedded Systems & Smart Manufacturing is to become a national reference point for basic and applied researches in the field of embedded systems and their application to the smart manufacturing. Therefore, it aims to be a reality with a high innovative content for guidance in the development and in the design of embedded systems, with particular focus on smart manufacturing. This will be true carrying out a continuous exploitation of knowledge and technologies in the domain of embedded systems, through knowledge-transfer activities to regional and national institutions and industrial actors of small, medium and large size. The Laboratory will be a guidance in developing high-tech solutions used in an intelligent factory-oriented industrial strategy, so equipped with cyber-physics-oriented systems, wireless infrastructures, Internt-Of-Thinks and M2M technologies, cloud computing and Human Machine Interface platforms, Additive Manufacturing (3D printing), robots, digital sensors, Big Data Analytics, Wearable Devices and Advanced Automation, to mention the most significant. Doing Smart Manufacturing, however, does not mean use one technology instead of the others, but know of how to orchestrate digital technologies to transform industrial processes.

These same technologies will be used to enrich the functionalities and change the way products are used or to produce new products and services. Moreover, these technologies collect data that can be analysed and made accessible to the management. In an unstable and uncertain market, where the companies have to guarantee the reduction of costs, high service levels and the ability to be flexible to continuously adapt to new needs, data collection and analysis allows to make more informed, quick and effective decisions for the correct business strategies. The Higher Learning is the main mission of the National Laboratory of Embedded Systems & Smart Manufacturing. It will be able to offer and transfer to the industrial world, a wide range of knowledge and skills in embedded systems, through highly specialized scientific and technical figures, coming from the academic world. This will be possible thanks to the close collaboration of Italian universities with the most important industrial companies in Italy and in Europe, operating in different domains such as manufacturing, e-health, automotive, railway, space and environmental.

The CINI Laboratory of Embedded Systems & Smart Manufacturing aims to create synergies within the university network in order to reach a wide critical mass of researchers able to propose actions at national and international level and to help the country to evolve towards a technologically advanced industry (Industria 4.0). The National Laboratory of Embedded Systems & Smart Manufacturing also deals with harmonizing the relationships between academy and industry in national and European project initiatives. The National Laboratory of Embedded Systems & Smart Manufacturing is also involved in technological development activities, preferring open source projects in order to promote its diffusion as a reference reality for research and innovation projects.