Avaliação da maturidade tecnológica em um projeto de P&D por meio do Technology Readiness Levels (TRL)

Abstract

The Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) methodology, originated within the aerospace sector, has been used in highly complex technological projects, mainly in contexts where the domain of technology is still incipient. It has technological level scales ranging from 1 to 9, where the lowest levels are linked to basic technology research and the highest levels are linked to the development of systems and subsystems, with a view to launching the product or technology. Thus, this research aimed to analyze the implementation of the TRL methodology to assess the level of technological maturity of the various stages that make up an innovative Research and Development (R&D) project based on its application in a company in the industrial automation area. The research method adopted to obtain the intended results was the Action-Research, which sought to identify the TRLs of each subset evaluated of a technological development project of an industrial ultrasonic sensor from two iterative cycles. The tool needed to assess technological maturity levels was an IMATEC calculator. One of the reasons for selecting this calculator was because it is available for general use, being accessed on the website of the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB), linked to the Brazilian federal government. As results obtained from both iterative cycles, we have (a) obtaining the levels of technological readiness in each of the stages under analysis and its evolution within the time window studied; (b) what are the technologies that make up the development of an industrial ultrasonic sensor. The analyzes made it possible to validate the proposed study through the application and verification of the results in a real R&D project. Thus, the presentation of possibilities for new applications for the TRL methodology and the proposal of a new process integrated to the management methodology of the company object of study from the implementation of the TRL, which can be extrapolated to other projects, are important contributions of this research.