The performance and working velocity of the machines has increased nearly tenfold since the early fifties, but there is a series of limitations for further enhancements. As machines are complex mechanical systems, mere experience and optimization employing "trial and error" approaches is not sufficient when we target functional and technical textiles for special applications: the introduction of flexibility requires the reengineering of the machine based on these basic working principles but introducing concepts as distributed electro-mechanical actuations with sensing capability, reducing volumes of components and allowing greater control capabilities.

In line with the Strategic Research Agenda of MANUTEX, NU-WAVE aims at supporting textile machinery SMEs in the design of a new generation of flexible and high-performance machines, with research objectives that are clearly driven from the needs of the market end users: textile producers are looking for increased performances, modularity, resource efficiency and safety to compete in the global market.