The test field sites are used for improving the technologies and to develop the innovations within the project. There are 2 companies as partners producing technologies for the drilling: THYSSEN and HYDRA; HYDRA is also a drilling company.

1. Alsfeld, Germany: the new concepts are related to novel technology for the head of the machine: the head is a core technology for the overall drilling machine. As already explained, THYSSEN will develop a more compact head to be set up in the drilling machine as well as the technique to join the shafts in order to transfer in a more efficient way the energy into the tip of the drill bit. In the test field site 1 the innovative head together with the improved solution in joining the shafts will be compared with the traditional technologies in order to check the performance.
2. Molinella, Italy: all the other components of the innovative drilling machine (more compact and modular) will be carried out by HYDRA (Task 2.3). In this field test site the overall innovative machine will be compared with the traditional machine to check the overall performance in terms of time and costs for the drilling.