The 5th Light­weight Con­struc­tion Sum­mit, or­gan­ised by the Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry of Eco­nom­ics and Tech­no­logy (BM­WK), will take place at HAN­NOV­ER MESSE on 23 April 2024. This year's con­gress will high­light the key role of light­weight con­struc­tion con­cepts in the trans­ition to a re­source-ef­fi­cient eco­nomy, fo­cus­ing on light­weight con­struc­tion as a trans­form­a­tion tech­no­logy for the re­source trans­ition. A suc­cess­ful re­source trans­ition aims to ex­tract and use raw ma­ter­i­als in a sus­tain­able way and then re­turn them to the cycle. In ad­di­tion to light­weight con­struc­tion, the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy is also of cru­cial im­port­ance. Six ex­perts will dis­cuss this top­ic in a pan­el dis­cus­sion.

The two key­note speeches will be giv­en by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hol­ger Hanselka, Pres­id­ent of the Fraunhofer Gesell­schaft, and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Markus Mil­wich, spokes­man of the Baden-Württemberg Light­weight Con­struc­tion Al­li­ance. A new fea­ture of the pro­gramme will be five pro­mo­tion­al present­a­tions on light­weight con­struc­tion, in which vari­ous com­pan­ies and re­search in­sti­tutes will present in­nov­at­ive R&D projects in the field of light­weight con­struc­tion.

Dr. Anna Kleiss­ner, Man­aging Dir­ect­or of Eco­n­move GmbH, is cur­rently cre­at­ing a "light­weight con­struc­tion satel­lite ac­count" for Ger­many, com­mis­sioned by the BM­WK and aimed mak­ing the gross value ad­ded and job op­por­tun­it­ies offered by light­weight con­struc­tion more vis­ible and tan­gible for poli­cy­makers, busi­nesspeople and so­ci­ety in gen­er­al. She will give a mo­tiv­a­tion­al speech with a re­port on the cur­rent state of pro­gress.

For more in­form­a­tion, vis­it: ht­tps://ges­chaeftss­telle-leicht­bau.de/5-light­weight­ing-sum­mit

You want to be part of the ac­tion? Fol­low the link to the re­gis­tra­tion page of HAN­NOV­ER­MESSE for your free tick­et.

At the up­com­ing HAN­NOV­ER MESSE, the concept of the All Elec­tric So­ci­ety will be high­lighted for the first time and on a large scale with its own arena. The arena will be or­gan­ized by the ZVEI to­geth­er with well-known ex­hib­it­ors. As stated by Gun­ther Koschnick, Head of In­dustry at ZVEI, "The aim of the All Elec­tric So­ci­ety Arena is to dis­cuss the pos­sib­il­it­ies of an en­ergy sup­ply largely based on re­new­able en­er­gies, and to put them in­to prac­tice." As part of a var­ied pro­gramme of present­a­tions, in­dustry ex­perts, sci­ent­ists and politi­cians will shed light on how the fu­ture will be in­creas­ingly elec­tric. The arena is not only an in­teg­ral part of the daily theme tours. It is also dir­ectly con­nec­ted to the ZVEI stand in the middle of Hall 11, Stand B58.

Koschnick con­tin­ues, "The ZVEI tar­get im­age of the All Elec­tric So­ci­ety rep­res­ents the in­dustry's con­tri­bu­tion to achiev­ing the agreed cli­mate tar­gets." "Dir­ect elec­tri­fic­a­tion of tech­no­lo­gies and pro­cesses, as well as sec­tor coup­ling and in­tel­li­gent stor­age tech­no­lo­gies such as hy­dro­gen and power-to-X, will play an im­port­ant role in this pro­cess. HAN­NOV­ER MESSE is there­fore well po­si­tioned to ad­opt the All Elec­tric So­ci­ety as the en­ergy ef­fi­ciency scen­ario for a car­bon-neut­ral in­dus­tri­al so­ci­ety."

A car­bon-neut­ral in­dustry is an ideal frame­work for all ini­ti­at­ives re­lated to this year's main theme, "En­er­giz­ing a Sus­tain­able In­dustry". Ac­cord­ing to Hubertus von Mon­schaw, Glob­al Dir­ect­or Trade Fair and Product Man­age­ment HAN­NOV­ER MESSE at Deutsche Messe, the All Elec­tric So­ci­ety Arena will demon­strate how the in­dustry can con­trib­ute to achiev­ing cli­mate goals.

The All Elec­tric So­ci­ety Arena at HAN­NOV­ER MESSE is sup­por­ted by DKE, Eaton, Find­er, Hart­ing, Pep­perl+Fuchs, PHOENIX CON­TACT, Rittal, Schneider Elec­tric, Siemens, Wöhner and Deutsche Messe.

You want to be part of the ac­tion? Fol­low the link to the re­gis­tra­tion page of HAN­NOV­ER­MESSE for your free tick­et.

Emerson’s Test & Measurement Business Group (formerly NI), in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA), announced today their collaboration to create the new Open Innovation Laboratory located in Debrecen, Hungary. This facility will help redefine space system development and deployment by introducing advanced test strategies aimed at reducing costs and mitigating risks. This cooperation is also in line with the industrial policy objectives of the Hungarian government.

Located within Emerson’s Test & Measurement offices in Debrecen, the Open Innovation Laboratory is accessible to projects that meet specific criteria established by the ESA’s Navigation Innovation and Support Program (NAVISP). The lab is outfitted with the latest modular instrumentation and application software, ensuring that it remains at the forefront of technological advancements in the space market. 

“The new lab embodies the shared vision of Emerson’s Test & Measurement business and the European Space Agency to accelerate innovation within the space industry,” said Ritu Favre, group president, Emerson’s Test & Measurement business group.  “By focusing on the development of comprehensive test strategies from the early stages of development, engineers can avoid late-stage problem discovery, which can lead to significant cost overruns and delays.”

“We are pleased that the ESA’s NAVISP has supported the establishment of the new Open Innovation Laboratory in Debrecen. This builds on a productive relationship established over several years between our organizations, and I am confident it will pave the way to new market opportunities for innovative Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) solutions and services,” said Rafael Lucas Rodriguez, head of ESA’s NAVISP Technical Programme Office. “The infrastructure for PNT is rapidly evolving, and the laboratory will provide industry with the tools to test and prototype new technologies addressing the emerging market areas such as Controlled Radiation Pattern Antennas (CRPA) to provide resilient positioning to the users.”

Key to the laboratory’s capabilities is the use of Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) test systems, an enabling technology that replicates the operational environment for subsystems under test. The lab is also equipped with modular instrumentation and application software for the company’s Wideband Multichannel Phase Aligned Transceiver (MPA) System, S-Parameters, pulse-to-pulse stability, power added efficiency measurement and capability to emulate a Wideband Satellite Link.

By leveraging Emerson’s modular and scalable approaches, the facility aims to transform the design of complex satellite system-of-systems. This includes a focus on RF/micro-wave payloads based on wideband and active multi-beam antenna, on-board digital processor and regenerative software defined radio.
 

Siemens AG has signed an agreement to acquire the industrial drive technology (IDT) business of ebm-papst. The business, which employs around 650 people, includes intelligent, integrated mechatronic systems in the protective extra-low voltage range and innovative motion control systems. These systems are used in free-range driverless transport systems. The planned acquisition will complement the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio and strengthen Siemens’ position as a leading solutions provider for flexible production automation.

Cedrik Neike, member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG and CEO of Digital Industries, said: “Ebm-papst’s innovative portfolio of mechatronic drive systems and its highly qualified people are an excellent fit for Siemens. The acquisition will enable us to tap new business and customer potential in the rapidly growing market for intelligent, battery-powered drive solutions in intralogistics as well as mobile robot solutions.”

IDT products are intelligent, integrated mechatronic systems, which support the automation and digitalization of production processes. This acquisition will be a strong addition to the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio. Through their use in mobile robots and driverless transport vehicles as well as in the automation of auxiliary processes, such as the retooling of modern production machines, they are an important lever for greater flexibility and productivity. For this reason, high market growth is expected in this market segment.

The integration of the IDT portfolio into the existing automation portfolio and the utilization of Siemens’ global sales network will open up new market access and generate significant business potential in the area of flexible and autonomous factory automation. The transaction is to be completed by mid-2025, subject to the necessary foreign trade and merger control approvals. The IDT business of ebm-papst is located in St. Georgen and Lauf an der Pegnitz, Germany, and in Oradea, Romania. The parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price.
 

IEN Europe: The theme of HAN­NOV­ER MESSE 2024 is "In­dus­tri­al Trans­form­a­tion - En­er­giz­ing a Sus­tain­able In­dustry". How can the event spe­cific­ally help trade vis­it­ors achieve cli­mate and ef­fi­ciency tar­gets of their or­gan­isa­tion?
von Mon­schaw: HAN­NOV­ER MESSE fo­cuses on themes such as auto­ma­tion, di­git­al­isa­tion and elec­tri­fic­a­tion to drive a cli­mate-neut­ral and com­pet­it­ive in­dustry. The event provides guid­ance to vis­it­ors in­ter­ested in these top­ics. Hall 13 spe­cific­ally high­lights the hy­dro­gen in­dustry, with a fo­cus on green hy­dro­gen pro­duced through re­new­able en­ergy sources like elec­tro­lys­is. This of­fers a cli­mate-neut­ral al­tern­at­ive for in­dus­tri­al ap­plic­a­tions. Auto­ma­tion tech­no­logy is a core as­pect of HAN­NOV­ER MESSE, ca­ter­ing to the grow­ing de­mand for pre­ci­sion, ef­fi­ciency, and data trans­par­ency in pro­duc­tion and busi­ness pro­cesses. The ex­hib­i­tion will fea­ture a wide range of solu­tions from ex­hib­it­ors, in­clud­ing ro­bot­ics, drive tech­no­logy, sensor tech­no­logy, AI, cloud, and con­trol tech­no­logy, en­com­passing both com­pact sensors and com­plex auto­ma­tion solu­tions.

IEN Europe: The idea of In­dustry 4.0 was born in Han­nov­er al­most 15 years ago. What do you think will be the fo­cal points for HAN­NOV­ER MESSE and its ex­hib­it­ors in 2024 to con­cretely ad­vance these ideas?
von Mon­schaw: On the one hand, of course, with our ex­hib­it­ors, but we are also or­gan­iz­ing an AI Day on the In­dus­tri­al Trans­form­a­tion Stage in Hall 3 on the Tues­day of the trade fair. Our part­ners from the In­dus­tri­al AI Pod­cast are design­ing the pro­gram. AI in in­dustry is more than just a huge lan­guage mod­el and poses spe­cial chal­lenges. Use cases will be presen­ted and best cases dis­cussed on the stage.

IEN Europe: The event is al­ways char­ac­ter­ised by its com­pre­hens­ive and in­form­at­ive con­fer­ence stages. What will be the fo­cal top­ics this year?
von Mon­schaw: e are cre­at­ing a var­ied and ex­cit­ing pro­gram on our main stages. On the In­dustry 4.0 stage, ex­perts will present the latest trends and in­nov­a­tions – from the ad­min­is­tra­tion shell to OPC UA, ma­chine learn­ing, cloud and edge com­put­ing to data rooms. The En­ergy 4.0 Stage will fo­cus on top­ics re­lat­ing to an en­ergy-in­tel­li­gent, cli­mate-friendly and sus­tain­able fu­ture, the Tech Trans­fer Stage is the com­mu­nic­a­tion and com­pet­ence plat­form for the dis­course between sci­ence, busi­ness and polit­ics, and the In­dus­tri­al Trans­form­a­tion Stage fo­cuses on the trend top­ics of HAN­NOV­ER MESSE across all sec­tors.

IEN Europe: Nor­way is the part­ner coun­try of HAN­NOV­ER MESSE 2024. What im­petus can this part­ner­ship gen­er­ate?
von Mon­schaw: Nor­way will be present­ing it­self at HAN­NOV­ER MESSE as an in­nov­at­ive and re­li­able en­ergy part­ner. The part­ner coun­try's motto is "Nor­way 2024: Pi­on­eer­ing the Green In­dus­tri­al Trans­ition". This un­der­lines Nor­way's goal to play a key role in the de­vel­op­ment of solu­tions in the field of re­new­able en­er­gies, car­bon­neut­ral pro­duc­tion and the di­git­al­iz­a­tion of in­dustry. At the "North Sea En­ergy Hub" con­fer­ence on April 23, politi­cians and ex­perts from Nor­way and Ger­many will dis­cuss the en­ergy trans­ition with a fo­cus on polit­ic­al con­di­tions as well as tech­no­lo­gic­al de­vel­op­ments and ap­plic­a­tions.

IEN Europe: In your opin­ion, what should every trade vis­it­or have seen be­fore trav­el­ling home?
von Mon­schaw: HAN­NOV­ER MESSE is unique with its wealth of in­nov­a­tions. It is im­possible for me to see everything, but I can only re­com­mend that all vis­it­ors take the time to vis­it the trade fair and think out­side the box, be­cause the cross-in­dustry in­ter­ac­tion of dif­fer­ent tech­no­lo­gies is what makes HAN­NOV­ER MESSE so spe­cial.

IEN Europe: Thanks for these in­sights!

You want to be part of the ac­tion? Fol­low the link to the re­gis­tra­tion page of HAN­NOV­ER­MESSE for your free tick­et.

Radar (RA­dio De­tec­tion And Ran­ging) is based on the trans­mis­sion of elec­tro­mag­net­ic waves and the de­tec­tion of their re­flec­tion. This meth­od makes it pos­sible to de­term­ine the dis­tance to ob­jects in the path of the waves - or mov­ing in their propaga­tion range - at prac­tic­ally the speed of light. Pep­perl+Fuchs has de­veloped a series of com­pact sensors that make this ro­bust prin­ciple of meas­ure­ment us­able for safe­guard­ing ma­chine move­ments in the ma­ter­i­als hand­ling and ware­hous­ing sec­tion.

Stable sig­nal­ing, high EMC

The devices use the fre­quency-mod­u­lated con­tinu­ous wave (FM­CW) meth­od, which en­sures par­tic­u­larly stable sig­nal­ing. The fre­quency band of 122-123 GHz en­sures strong res­ist­ance to in­ter­fer­ence such as dust, steam, tem­per­at­ure fluc­tu­ations and weath­er con­di­tions. In terms of elec­tro­mag­net­ic com­pat­ib­il­ity (EMC), the devices achieve val­ues com­par­able to clas­si­fic­a­tion E1 in al­most every cat­egory. Re­li­able meas­ure­ment is there­fore guar­an­teed even in the case of con­duc­ted and high-fre­quency ra­di­ation with high in­ter­fer­ence levels. From the re­flec­ted waves and the de­rived meas­ure­ment data, the devices can de­term­ine the dis­tance, dir­ec­tion of move­ment and speed of ob­jects in the de­tec­tion area with high ac­cur­acy.

The sensors are housed in a cas­ing meas­ur­ing just 40x40x83 mm, so they can eas­ily fit in­to tight spaces. The sensor head can also be ro­tated and swiv­elled so that it can be op­tim­ally aligned to the tar­get area in prac­tic­ally any in­stall­a­tion situ­ation. Equipped with IP68/69 de­grees of pro­tec­tion, the device is also well suited for harsh en­vir­on­ments or con­stant switch­ing between in­door and out­door use. The new product series also al­lows great flex­ib­il­ity when it comes to elec­tric­al con­nec­tions. In ad­di­tion to the stand­ard­ized M12 con­nect­or plug, con­nect­or types such as DEUTSCH or AMP Su­per­seal are avail­able spe­cific­ally for use in vehicles.

In­teg­ra­tion and dia­gnostics with CAN­open

The in­teg­rated CAN­open in­ter­face is re­spons­ible for trans­mit­ting meas­ured val­ues and para­met­er­iz­a­tion com­mands. In­teg­ra­tion in­to an ex­ist­ing CAN bus in­fra­struc­ture is there­fore very simple and pos­sible without com­plex in­di­vidu­al wir­ing. Device para­met­ers and ex­ten­ded func­tions can be ac­cessed either via the CAN net­work or with the help of the FDT frame­work pro­gram PACT­ware and a Device Type Man­ager (DTM). The sensor can thus be ad­ap­ted to the re­spect­ive ap­plic­a­tion with min­im­al ef­fort.

The con­nec­tion via CAN­open also opens up the pos­sib­il­it­ies for de­tailed status mon­it­or­ing. This is an im­port­ant pre­requis­ite for use in safety-rel­ev­ant ap­plic­a­tions, which is pos­sible in con­junc­tion with a fail-safe PLC. Thanks to the fea­tures of the sensors and their dia­gnost­ic cap­ab­il­ity, a single device is suf­fi­cient for safety level PL c (Cat. 2) and SIL 1. When in­teg­rated in­to a safety concept and with a re­dund­ant sensor design, the re­quire­ments for PL d (Cat. 3) and SIL 2 are met. Sev­er­al devices can be used in close prox­im­ity to each oth­er as they do not in­ter­fere with each oth­er's func­tion. A sampling rate of up to 200 Hz can be para­met­er­ized for ap­plic­a­tions with fast re­sponse times.

Ad­ap­ted meas­ur­ing mode

Elec­tro­mag­net­ic waves are not re­flec­ted to the same ex­tent by all ma­ter­i­als; this is most pro­nounced with met­al. With wood or plastic, on the oth­er hand, the pro­por­tion of pen­et­ra­tion clearly out­weighs that of re­flec­tion. De­pend­ing on the type of ap­plic­a­tion, it may make sense to fit corner re­flect­ors made of sheet met­al in the de­tec­tion area. These are avail­able as stand­ard ac­cessor­ies.

However, the radar sensors are also able to largely com­pensate for the dif­fer­ent re­flect­ive prop­er­ties of the ob­jects in the de­tec­tion area or make use of them. For ex­ample, non-metal­lic ob­jects can be spe­cific­ally masked out by set­ting the ap­pro­pri­ate para­met­ers and se­lect­ing the meas­ure­ment mode. In such an op­er­at­ing mode, the sensor then re­li­ably de­tects the ac­tu­al tar­get ob­ject be­hind a par­tially trans­par­ent ob­ject that is loc­ated between them.

The radar sensors of­fer three dif­fer­ent meas­ure­ment modes for fine ad­just­ment:
- "First ob­ject" - ma­ter­i­al-in­de­pend­ent de­tec­tion of the ob­ject closest to the sensor. Ob­jects with­in the ex­ten­sion range or ra­di­us of ac­tion of the vehicle and boom are de­tec­ted in all cases.
- "Strongest re­flec­tion" - de­tec­tion of the ob­ject with the best re­flec­tion prop­er­ties
- In "Fast­est ob­ject" mode - de­tec­tion of the ob­ject that moves to­wards or away from the sensor the fast­est. This meas­ure­ment mode is in­ten­ded, among oth­er things, for path mon­it­or­ing and col­li­sion pro­tec­tion in driver­less trans­port sys­tems.

Ap­plic­a­tion ex­amples

Auto­mat­ic re­duc­tion of max­im­um speed - Fork­lift trucks and oth­er trans­port vehicles may and should drive faster on out­door stor­age areas than in pro­duc­tion halls and ware­houses. However, a re­duced max­im­um speed must be main­tained there. An up­ward-fa­cing radar sensor on the vehicle de­tects the hall roof on entry. The device gives the sig­nal for the auto­mat­ic speed re­stric­tion and for its lift­ing after the exit.

Height con­trol for fork­lift forks - The high­er the forks are, the lower the per­miss­ible speed of the fork­lift truck. The ap­prov­al ra­tio between lift­ing height and load weight is also pre­cisely defined. The radar sensor dir­ec­ted from the fork to the ground de­tects the lift height in "strongest re­flec­tion" mode and sup­presses in­ter­fer­ing ob­jects. The height con­trol can also be used to con­trol the pal­let in­ser­tion in­to the high rack: The sensor sig­nal in­dic­ates wheth­er the pal­let base has reached the ne­ces­sary height.

Col­li­sion pro­tec­tion for over­head crane - In the case of an over­head crane with sev­er­al crane bridges moun­ted on its rails, the sensor mon­it­ors the dis­tance between these ele­ments. Slow travel is triggered when ap­proach­ing and a safety stop is triggered if there is a risk of col­li­sion.

Lika Electronic's AMM33 miniature encoder is equipped with a 6 mm blind hollow shaft and is ideally suited for integration into very small size motors. The SMAR1 off-axis encoder fits perfectly into hollow shaft motors and axes with larger diameter up to 18 mm. 

Energy harvesting technology

The AMM33 is absolute and multiturn and integrates the Energy Harvesting Technology for battery- and gear-less operation. It can be equipped with SSI and BiSS interfaces. The singleturn resolution is up to 18 bits, the number of turns is up to 24 bits.

The SMAR1 has both incremental and absolute outputs (Line Driver, SSI, BiSS, and SPI). Incremental version offers a resolution up to 65,536 PPR and additional UVW commutation signals. The absolute version has a resolution between 16 and 35 bits and additional TTL signals for speed control.

To fulfil specific customer requirements mechanical and electrical characteristics can be customized.

mbo Os­s­wald has de­veloped a new on­line tool for the world of link­ing tech­no­logy: the in­nov­at­ive sleeves con­fig­ur­at­or. This tool was de­veloped to design in­di­vidu­al parts pre­cisely and in line with re­quire­ments and is suit­able for use in very many dif­fer­ent in­dustry ap­plic­a­tions. Sleeves are well known as ver­sat­ile com­pon­ents and are vi­tal when pre­cise spa­cings have to be ad­hered to in com­plex en­gin­eer­ing designs. Sleeves are also of­ten re­ferred to as spacers, spa­cing rings, spacer tubes, bushes or dis­tance rings.

Easy over­view for char­ac­ter­ist­ics and prices

The in­tu­it­ive, easy-to-op­er­ate and user-friendly plat­form al­lows users to ad­apt sleeves to their own in­di­vidu­al spe­cific­a­tions and or­der the cor­res­pond­ing parts. What makes the sleeves con­fig­ur­at­or so spe­cial is its trans­par­ency: users see de­tailed in­form­a­tion about every sleeve char­ac­ter­ist­ic, in­clud­ing product de­tails, a 3D mod­el, tech­nic­al draw­ings, test cer­ti­fic­ates, an ex­press man­u­fac­tur­ing op­tion and dy­nam­ic price spe­cific­a­tions.

Users can choose from a wide range of char­ac­ter­ist­ics, in­clud­ing ma­ter­i­al, sur­face prop­er­ties, shaft dia­met­er, length, col­lar and wall thick­ness. When the user has chosen the re­quired spe­cific­a­tions, the con­fig­ur­at­or im­me­di­ately provides de­tailed in­form­a­tion about the part, in­clud­ing price, de­liv­ery time, a sketch and 3D mod­el. Pri­cing is flex­ible and scaled in the light of the ordered quant­ity and users have full con­trol over con­fig­ur­a­tion and costs.
 

HART­ING has launched the Ha-VIS eCon 4000 M12T1 SPE, a single pair Eth­er­net (SPE) switch with IP67 pro­tec­tion. De­signed to with- stand harsh out­door en­vir­on­ments (tested for rolling stock ac­cord­ing to EN 50155), the rugged met­al hous­ing provides se­cure com­muni- cations. The trans­mis­sion is pro- tec­ted against shock and vi­bra­tion and op­er­ates over a wide tem­per­at­ure range (-40 to +70°C). The switch is ex­tremely com­pact (191 x 60 x 42 mm), of­fers eight ports and is avail­able in two dif­fer­ent ver­sions. The eCon 4017GBT-BXT has a Gig­abit up­link to the Eth­er­net net­work (M12 X-coded) and in­teg­rates up to 7 SPE devices via 100BaseT1. The eCon 4035GBT- BXT has a Gig­abit up­link and provides five 100BaseT1 and two 1000BaseT1 ports as SPE in­ter­faces. Auto­mat­ic mas­ter/slave con­fig­ur­a­tion is a new fea­ture for an un­man­aged switch. The mas­ter and slave roles are auto­mat­ic­ally defined between the com­mu­nic­a­tion part­ners when a con­nec­tion is es­tab­lished. The Ha-VIS eCon 4000 M12T1 switches are ideal for rail­way, gen­er­al vehicle and auto­ma­tion ap­plic­a­tions. They provide Eth­er­net data trans­mis­sion in harsh en­vir­on­ments. Ap­plic­a­tions in­clude pro­duc- tion lines, cam­era-based qual­ity as­sur­ance, pas­sen­ger and driver in­form­a­tion sys­tems, video sur­veil­lance and tick­et­ing sys­tems.

A tech­ni­cian looks at his smart­phone: a con­vey­or belt of a beer bottle dis­charge sys­tem con­tains a fixed flange bear­ing that is ap­proach­ing its wear lim­it. Pre­vi­ously, the prob­lem might not have been de­tec­ted and cause an ex­pens­ive sys­tem fail­ure. Today, however, the tech­ni­cian can simply re­place the bear­ing dur­ing a break in pro­duc­tion know­ing def­in­itely that the hun­dreds of oth­er bear­ings also com­mu­nic­ate with him.

Flange bear­ings trans­mit their status wire­lessly

And this is how the new In­dustry 4.0 bear­ings work: ig­us in­teg­rates an ab­ra­sion sensor in­to the poly­mer spher­ic­al ball: a thin cir­cuit board close to the run­ning sur­face. There is also a bat­tery for the power sup­ply without cables. This means that the bear­ing for spher­ic­al lev­el­ling can con­tin­ue to move in­de­pend­ently. Wear in­ter­rupts the con­duct­or paths of the cir­cuit board. If the elec­tron­ics lose the sig­nal of a con­duct­or path, they know that the wear has reached a cer­tain level. The sensor trans­mits a di­git­al sig­nal via a long-range net­work (LoRa), a wire­less stand­ard for the In­ter­net of Things that is known for its en­ergy ef­fi­ciency. The re­ceiv­er is the i.Cee switch cab­in­et mod­ule, which ana­lyses the data. The as­so­ci­ated soft­ware now knows that the con­duct­or path is worn out, and in­fers the per­cent­age of ab­ra­sion. Over time, the sensor it­self wears away lay­er by lay­er - par­al­lel to the bear­ing's run­ning sur­face. It con­tin­ues to send out sig­nals that al­low con­clu­sions to be drawn re­gard­ing the bear­ing's con­di­tion. Users can see the re­main­ing ser­vice life and when main­ten­ance is due on a web-based dash­board, which they can ac­cess from any­where in the world with a PC, tab­let or smart­phone.

Lux­em­bourg's na­tion­al rail­way com­pany is the first pi­lot cus­tom­er

The new fixed flange bear­ings are cur­rently in the pro­to­type phase. However, they have already con­vinced one pi­lot cus­tom­er: the Société Na­tion­al des Chemins de Fer Lux­em­bour­geois (CFL). Lux­em­bourg's na­tion­al rail­way com­pany op­er­ates a 200-metre wash­ing sys­tem that cleans loc­al and long-dis­tance trains every day. In the past, gear­box mal­func­tions on the wash­ing trol­ley re­peatedly led to costly sys­tem fail­ures. The op­er­at­or there­fore aban­doned lub­ric­ated stand­ard ball bear­ings and in­stead used the net­worked spher­ic­al balls from ig­us in the UC bear­ing hous­ings. The ad­vant­age is that the spher­ic­al balls made of high-per­form­ance plastics are cor­ro­sion-free, res­ist chem­ic­als and en­able low-fric­tion and main­ten­ance-free dry op­er­a­tion thanks to in­cor­por­ated sol­id lub­ric­ants.

At this year's Han­nov­er Messe, Siemens is present­ing Siemens Xcel­er­at­or for Di­git­al Driv­etrain, its com­pre­hens­ive and in­teg­rated di­git­al­iz­a­tion of­fer­ing along the driv­etrain value chain com­prised of two areas: Driv­etrain Design (di­men­sion­ing and sim­u­la­tion) and Driv­etrain Health (con­nectiv­ity and op­tim­iz­a­tion). Driv­etrain Design in­cludes en­gin­eer­ing and sim­u­la­tion tools for the ef­fi­cient di­men­sion­ing, val­id­a­tion, test­ing, vir­tu­al com­mis­sion­ing, and op­tim­iz­a­tion of driv­etrains in the design phase of a ma­chine or sys­tem. 

Driv­etrain Health of­fers hard­ware- and soft­ware-based sensor and con­nectiv­ity solu­tions for data ac­quis­i­tion as well as co­ordin­ated ana­lys­is soft­ware tools. These tools provide in­sights in­to the be­ha­vi­or of the driv­etrain and en­able power­ful con­di­tion mon­it­or­ing. Siemens is thus demon­strat­ing how cus­tom­ers can com­bine the real and di­git­al worlds of drive tech­no­logy to achieve ef­fi­ciency and sus­tain­ab­il­ity along the en­tire driv­etrain value chain.

For ef­fi­cient se­lec­tion, val­id­a­tion, vir­tu­al com­mis­sion­ing, and op­tim­iz­a­tion of drive sys­tems

In the area of sim­u­la­tion and vir­tu­al com­mis­sion­ing, Siemens is launch­ing DriveSim En­gin­eer, the suc­cessor to DriveSim Ad­vanced. DriveSim En­gin­eer makes it pos­sible to cre­ate a di­git­al twin of the drive in a vir­tu­al en­vir­on­ment with all the para­met­ers and con­fig­ur­a­tions that cor­res­pond to the real drive. In ad­di­tion to the new SI­N­AM­ICS S210 series, the new SI­N­AM­ICS G220 fre­quency con­vert­ers are now also avail­able in the tool. The di­git­al twin tech­no­logy and in­tu­it­ive user in­ter­face al­low users to sim­u­late, com­mis­sion, and op­tim­ize the be­ha­vi­or of drive sys­tems in a vir­tu­al en­vir­on­ment be­fore in­stalling them in the real world. This sig­ni­fic­antly in­creases ef­fi­ciency and pro­ductiv­ity in the en­gin­eer­ing of drive sys­tems and ma­chines. Thanks to its in­teg­ra­tion in TIA Portal (Startdrive), DriveSim En­gin­eer is a seam­less part of (vir­tu­al) com­mis­sion­ing and makes train­ing in ad­di­tion­al tools su­per­flu­ous. Users be­ne­fit from short­er com­mis­sion­ing times, more ac­cur­acy in de­tect­ing and resolv­ing po­ten­tial prob­lems with drive sys­tems, and real-time in­sights and ana­lyses for im­prov­ing the over­all per­form­ance of drive sys­tems.

In­tel­li­gent con­di­tion mon­it­or­ing for a healthy driv­etrain 

Siemens is present­ing two in­tel­li­gent solu­tion pack­ages for high-per­form­ance con­di­tion mon­it­or­ing: a cloud-based solu­tion and a PC-based solu­tion. The two com­ple­ment each oth­er and can be used ac­cord­ing to re­quire­ments. With Driv­etrain Ana­lyz­er Cloud, Siemens com­bines the two ap­plic­a­tions Ana­lyze MyDrives and Sid­rive IQ Fleet in­to one in­nov­at­ive app. In ad­di­tion to a new user in­ter­face, Driv­etrain Ana­lyz­er Cloud of­fers users the op­tion of con­nect­ing vari­ous drive com­pon­ents such as fre­quency in­vert­ers, mo­tors, or oth­er ro­tat­ing ma­chines to a driv­etrain and mon­it­or­ing the driv­etrain’s status. An­oth­er new product is the Con­nec­tion Mod­ule IOT (CM IOT), which can be in­stalled and put in­to op­er­a­tion in just a few minutes. High­lights in­clude the im­proved, ad­di­tion­al sensor tech­no­logy, the new al­tern­at­ive en­ergy concept via an ex­tern­al 24 V con­nec­tion, and a hous­ing and com­pon­ent up­date. The mod­ule meas­ures raw data and auto­mat­ic­ally trans­fers it to the cloud. Driv­etrain Ana­lyz­er Cloud provides im­me­di­ate in­form­a­tion about an­om­alies and spe­cif­ic er­ror pat­terns such as bear­ing dam­age, im­bal­ances, or mis­align­ments, thereby help­ing to pre­vent un­planned down­time. The cost-ef­fi­cient solu­tion com­bines con­di­tion mon­it­or­ing with de­car­bon­iz­a­tion by sup­ply­ing the user with im­port­ant ad­di­tion­al data and re­com­mend­a­tions for ac­tion re­gard­ing CO₂ emis­sions, en­ergy con­sump­tion, and en­ergy costs. An­oth­er new fea­ture is pump ana­lyt­ics, which Driv­etrain Ana­lyz­er Cloud can use to cal­cu­late and ana­lyze sys­tem ef­fi­ciency and spe­cif­ic pump para­met­ers.

In ad­di­tion to the cloud solu­tion, Siemens is also present­ing an­oth­er new product, a PC-based con­di­tion mon­it­or­ing solu­tion con­sist­ing of three com­pon­ents: the new VIB (Vi­bra­tion) and FPP (Fast Pro­cess Para­met­ers) (CM FPP) con­nec­tion mod­ules, the Driv­etrain Ana­lyz­er X-Tools soft­ware, and the cor­res­pond­ing sensors and sensor cables. The CM VIB and CM FPP con­nectiv­ity mod­ules re­cord vi­bra­tion and ana­log sig­nals at a sampling rate of 96 kHz. All sensor in­form­a­tion can be re­cor­ded and trans­mit­ted syn­chron­ously. Now users can also ana­lyze high-speed, in­ter­mit­tent ma­chines such as auto­mot­ive presses, cranes, or ma­chine tools with two syn­chron­ous axes. Driv­etrain Ana­lyz­er X-Tools is an ex­pert tool for highly dy­nam­ic data ac­quis­i­tion up to 192 kHz as well as for manu­al data ana­lys­is. Be­cause X-Tools can con­nect to al­most any data source, users can ideally use X-Tools as an ana­lyt­ics tool­box to link their own ana­lyt­ics with ele­ments of a pre­con­figured lib­rary. For ex­ample, the soft­ware can be used to mon­it­or bear­ing tem­per­at­ure, hous­ing vi­bra­tions, and oil lub­ric­a­tion, mean­ing pres­sure and flow, in heavy ma­chinery equipped with plain bear­ings. In this way, Driv­etrain Ana­lyz­er X-Tools and the new con­nectiv­ity mod­ules con­trib­ute to high­er ma­chine avail­ab­il­ity, bet­ter per­form­ance, and a longer sys­tem ser­vice life.
 

The LoRa Al­li­ance®, the glob­al as­so­ci­ation of com­pan­ies back­ing the open LoR­aWAN® stand­ard for the in­ter­net of things (IoT) low-power wide-area net­works (LP­WANs) presents solu­tions of its mem­bers Hall 14 Stand H06 at Han­nov­er Messe 2024. The LoRa Al­li­ance will also host a pan­el titled “Flex­ib­il­ity in Con­nectiv­ity for In­dus­tri­al IoT (II­oT): Driv­ing the Re­volu­tion of In­dustry 5.0 with LoR­aWAN” on Thursday, April 25, at 2:15 p.m. on the 5G & In­dus­tri­al Wire­less Con­fer­ence Stage in Hall 14.
 
At the show, the LoRa Al­li­ance and mem­ber com­pan­ies co-ex­hib­it­ing on the stand will il­lus­trate the role of con­nectiv­ity in in­dus­tri­al di­git­al trans­form­a­tion. In­dustry 5.0 rep­res­ents the next evol­u­tion­ary phase of in­dustry, which fo­cuses on the in­teg­ra­tion of ad­vanced tech­no­lo­gies with hu­man in­genu­ity to en­hance both pro­ductiv­ity and work­er well-be­ing. LoR­aWAN fa­cil­it­ates these ad­vance­ments to en­hance as­pects such as work­er safety, en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion and emer­gency pre­pared­ness. Onsite, LoRa Al­li­ance mem­bers will show how LoR­aWAN op­tim­izes in­dus­tri­al op­er­a­tions, in­teg­rates with ex­ist­ing in­fra­struc­ture and cre­ates syn­er­gies with com­ple­ment­ary tech­no­lo­gies to max­im­ize the value of II­oT solu­tions.
 
“The over­all theme for this year’s Han­nov­er Messe is ‘En­er­giz­ing a Sus­tain­able In­dustry,’ which em­bod­ies how LoR­aWAN sup­ports in­dus­tri­al IoT and In­dustry 5.0,” said Donna Moore, CEO and chair­wo­man of the LoRa Al­li­ance. “Today, en­ter­prises are seek­ing in­sights in­to labor prac­tices, devices, sup­plies and equip­ment in their factor­ies and cam­puses, as well as in­to fa­cil­ity con­di­tions, and ap­ply­ing ad­apt­ive in­tel­li­gence to the data to drive be­ne­fits like ef­fi­ciency, im­proved safety, in­creased pro­ductiv­ity and en­hanced work­er util­iz­a­tion. This is where LoR­aWAN shines: be­ing able to provide ac­cess to data that en­ables con­tinu­ous op­tim­iz­a­tion of pro­cesses, equip­ment and the work en­vir­on­ment it­self, which ul­ti­mately drives sus­tain­ab­il­ity and work­force well-be­ing in sup­port of people, plan­et and busi­ness profits.”
 
The Al­li­ance’s “Flex­ib­il­ity in Con­nectiv­ity for II­oT” pan­el will fea­ture ex­perts from Actil­ity, Brow­an Com­mu­nic­a­tions, Dis­rupt-X, TWTG, and ZEN­NER dis­cuss­ing the value of the LoR­aWAN open stand­ard and high­light­ing its role in fa­cil­it­at­ing end-to-end solu­tions, scalab­il­ity and in­ter­op­er­ab­il­ity, backed by real-world ex­amples. Speak­ers will also show­case how data-driv­en in­sights lead to op­er­a­tion­al ef­fi­cien­cies and quan­ti­fi­able ROI, us­ing com­pel­ling case stud­ies as ex­amples.
 
In ad­di­tion, the Deutsche Messe fair­grounds has a LoR­aWAN net­work that will fea­ture live use cases dur­ing the event, in­clud­ing a dash­board of LoR­aWAN de­ploy­ments. Live sensor data will be avail­able at this pub­lic dash­board. LoRa Al­li­ance mem­bers Mul­ti­Tech, Con­nec­ted In­ven­tions, MOKO Tech­no­logy and TWTG’s live sensor-based demos are fea­tured:

• MOKO’s LW007-PIR sensor us­ing LoR­aWAN will be placed in the lock­er room of the arena for mo­tion de­tec­tion, while its LW009-SM will be used for park­ing de­tec­tion. Ad­di­tion­ally, the LW008-MT will be util­ized for vehicle track­ing near the In­dus­tri­al Wire­less Arena.
• Con­tinu­ous, per­man­ent leak-de­tec­tion sensors from Mul­ti­Tech us­ing LoR­aWAN are de­ployed by fa­cil­ity man­age­ment tech­ni­cians in the In­dus­tri­al Wire­less Arena, mon­it­or­ing wa­ter dam­age and ex­cess­ive waste from wa­ter leaks un­der sinks, by toi­lets, in wa­ter pump areas and in a dif­fi­cult-to-reach cable shaft covered by a steel lid un­der the Hall 14 expo area.
• TWTG will show­case a live use case fea­tur­ing its NEON Tem­per­at­ure Trans­mit­ter. This device will mon­it­or tem­per­at­ure changes and ex­tremes in the fair­ground pond loc­ated south of Hall 2.

Sev­er­al booth demos from LoRa Al­li­ance mem­ber com­pan­ies will demon­strate the pos­sib­il­it­ies of the stand­ard for in­dus­tri­al and in­fra­struc­ture ap­plic­a­tions. 
 

While cop­per already uses large quant­it­ies of sec­ond­ary raw ma­ter­i­als, LAPP is now work­ing in­tens­ively on the sus­tain­able op­tim­isa­tion of sheath ma­ter­i­als and is fur­ther pro­mot­ing the use of bio-based plastics.

Last year, LAPP already presen­ted the first pro­to­types of cables with bio-based sheath­ing. There was a great deal of in­terest, al­though through more com­plex pro­duc­tion pro­cesses the cost for the cables are high­er. LAPP is now go­ing in­to series pro­duc­tion with the ETH­ER­LINE® FD bioP Cat.5e. The data cable con­sists of a par­tially bio-based sheath ma­ter­i­al. The sus­tain­able vari­ant with a bio-based out­er sheath con­sists of 43 per cent re­new­able raw ma­ter­i­als (in ac­cord­ance with ASTM D6866). The product prop­er­ties are the same as for the stand­ard vari­ant made of purely fossil raw ma­ter­i­als. This re­duces the car­bon foot­print by 24 per­cent com­pared to the fossil-based TPU sheath.

For de­mand­ing ap­plic­a­tions

Both the fossil and bio-based vari­ants are suit­able for patch cable as­sembly up to a cable length of 60 m in par­tic­u­larly de­mand­ing ap­plic­a­tions: for ex­ample, for con­stantly mov­ing use in cable chains, in mov­ing ma­chine parts or also for Eth­er­CAT and Eth­er­NET/IP ap­plic­a­tions. Thanks to its Cat.5e per­form­ance up to 1000 Mbit/s, the ETH­ER­LINE® FD bioP Cat.5e en­ables fast in­form­a­tion ex­change and is used to trans­mit ana­logue and di­git­al sig­nals in the fre­quency range up to 100 MHz. In ad­di­tion, the cop­per braid­ing with a high de­gree of cov­er­age guar­an­tees op­tim­um pro­tec­tion against elec­tro­mag­net­ic in­ter­fer­ence. Halo­gen-free and flame-re­tard­ant ma­ter­i­als re­duce the pos­sible haz­ards in the event of a fire. In ad­di­tion, the Bio-TPU out­er sheath is in­sens­it­ive to min­er­al oil-based lub­ric­ants and is chem­ic­ally res­ist­ant in many cases. The highly flex­ible Cat.5e Eth­er­net cable has been suc­cess­fully tested in LAPP’s own test centre for over 1 mil­lion bend­ing cycles in the cable chain. The UL/CSA cer­ti­fic­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with the tech­nic­al data also al­lows the product to be used in North Amer­ica.

Next pro­to­type in the pipeline

The next more sus­tain­able vari­ant is the ÖLFLEX® CLAS­SIC FD 810 in the pipeline. An ini­tial pro­to­type was re­cently un­veiled.  The chal­lenge: it is not yet tech­nic­ally pos­sible to pro­duce polyvinyl­chlor­ide - PVC for short - en­tirely on the basis of bio-based raw ma­ter­i­als. One start­ing point is there­fore a par­tially bio-based sheath made of PVC com­pound, the bio-based con­tent of which is 42 per cent ac­cord­ing to ASTM6866. 
 

The new Turck M12Plus con­nect­ors trans­fer the con­di­tion mon­it­or­ing of highly stressed cables dir­ectly to the con­nec­tion tech­no­logy. The con­nect­ors, which are equipped with voltage and cur­rent mon­it­or­ing and a Bluetooth chip, en­able the wire­less trans­mis­sion of meas­ured voltage and cur­rent val­ues to a con­trol­ler.

40 meter range in­doors

By com­par­ing in­put and out­put val­ues, prob­lems such as cable kinks, cable breaks or power fail­ures can be de­tec­ted early. Thanks to the in­di­vidu­al MAC ad­dress of each con­nect­or, the user can identi­fy any cable at risk in ad­vance and re­place it im­me­di­ately. The Turck Auto­ma­tion Suite (TAS) visu­al­ises the meas­ured val­ues of the M12Plus via the Cable Mon­it­or ap­plic­a­tion, thus en­abling con­di­tion mon­it­or­ing and oth­er II­oT ap­plic­a­tions. The latest design of the M12Plus fea­tures a four-core cable (4 x 0.34 mm²) of the TXL series with a ro­bust poly­ureth­ane out­er sheath and is spe­cially de­signed for use in drag chains. A-coded M12Plus con­nect­ors are fit­ted to both ends of the cable. The meas­ured val­ues are trans­ferred to the data in­ter­face via BLE (Bluetooth Low En­ergy) at a fre­quency of 2.4 GHz. The max­im­um range of this is 40 m in­doors and up to 100 m out­doors. When screwed tight, the M12Plus is pro­tec­ted to IP69K and of­fers out­stand­ing res­ist­ance to chem­ic­als and oil. It is flame res­ist­ant, res­ist­ant to weld­ing sparks and is par­tic­u­larly wear res­ist­ant.

The AX8820 uni­ver­sal re­gen­er­at­ive unit from Beck­hoff is used to feed re­gen­er­at­ive en­ergy back in­to the grid. It is suit­able for use with the AX8000 multi-ax­is servo sys­tem, AX5000 di­git­al com­pact servo drives, and third-party devices. The en­ergy is re­gen­er­ated si­nus­oid­ally, pre­vent­ing the grid dis­tor­tions that are com­mon with block-shaped re­gen­er­a­tion. The AX8820 is de­signed for a nom­in­al sup­ply voltage of 400 to 480 V AC, nom­in­al out­put of 7 kW, and a max­im­um DC link voltage of 848 V DC. For ef­fect­ive en­ergy man­age­ment, the re­gen­er­at­ive en­ergy is ini­tially stored in the DC link. The AX8820 only starts feed­ing power back in­to the grid just be­fore the over­voltage threshold of the con­nec­ted devices is reached. Sev­er­al AX8820 re­gen­er­at­ive units can be op­er­ated in par­al­lel to op­tim­ally ad­apt the re­gen­er­at­ive power to the needs of the ma­chine. 

Dia­gnost­ic data use for op­tim­ized res­ults

No com­mu­nic­a­tion via Eth­er­CAT is re­quired to carry out en­ergy re­cov­ery. However, ex­ten­ded para­met­er­iz­a­tion – to ad­apt the voltage levels to the con­nec­ted devices, for ex­ample – is pos­sible via Eth­er­CAT. With the help of the ex­ten­ded dia­gnostics via Eth­er­CAT, the cur­rent re­gen­er­at­ive en­ergy can also be ana­lyzed. The on­line data can be used to re­cord the tim­ing of the ma­chine pro­cesses. This means that an in­vest­ig­a­tion to see wheth­er the ef­fi­ciency of the ma­chine can be in­creased by stag­ger­ing the ma­chine pro­cesses can be per­formed.
 

Softing Industrial has expanded the functionalities of its OPC UA C++ SDK (Software Development Kit) with the new version 6.30. Data transmission using OPC UA Pub/Sub (Publisher/Subscriber) via MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) is now possible in addition to the previously available UDAP protocol (Universal Data Augmenting Processor). The new implementation supports both the widely used MQTT version 3.x and the new version 5.0. 

Data security is guaranteed by encrypting the communication using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). Easy data evaluation at the application level is possible because OPC UA JSON coding (Java Script Object Notation) serves as the transmission format.

Data transmission with Pub/Sub via MQTT offers many benefits to users. These include:

• Scalability: Pub/Sub via MQTT can be easily scaled to a large number of devices or subscribers without compromising performance.
• Efficiency: The protocol overhead with MQTT is low, which makes data transmission efficient and resource-saving.
• Reliability: MQTT provides mechanisms for Quality of Service (QoS), which make it possible to control message delivery and ensure that messages are delivered reliably depending on the requirements of the use case.
• Flexibility: Thanks to the clear separation of publishers and subscribers, MQTT enables flexible and dynamic communication between different devices and applications, which is particularly suitable for distributed systems or the IoT.

The development kit is available for Windows, Linux, and VxWorks. It offers developers, system integrators, and device and control manufacturers an easy and fast way to integrate OPC UA into their automation and Industry 4.0 applications. A comprehensive collection of libraries with a concise, clearly documented programming interface as well as corresponding sample applications, and test and simulation tools are included in the software package and enable a fast time to market. All SDKs have the OPC UA Testlab certification. Users can therefore be sure that they are choosing the safest and fastest way to compliant, robust, and high-performing OPC UA products. A demo version with full functionality and a limited runtime as well as detailed release notes and technical data sheets are available for download on the Softing Industrial website.

Ro­bot­ics is a key theme at HAN­NOV­ER MESSE. Ro­bots of all shapes and sizes - from in­dus­tri­al ro­bots and co­bots to autonom­ous mo­bile ro­bots - are on dis­play throughout the ex­hib­i­tion grounds. A spe­cial high­light this year is the Ap­plic­a­tion Park in Hall 5, which has a strong part­ner in the Ger­man Ro­bot­ics As­so­ci­ation (DRV). The DRV's mis­sion is to pro­mote and sup­port the use of ro­bot­ics in Ger­many. There is un­doubtedly po­ten­tial in this area, giv­en the short­age of skilled work­ers in Ger­many, which ranks fifth in the world be­hind China, Ja­pan, Korea and the US.

"With the ro­bot­ics ex­perts from DRV, we have part­ners at our side with whom we will fur­ther build on the top­ic of ro­bot­ics, in con­junc­tion with that of auto­ma­tion, at HAN­NOV­ER MESSE. There is no bet­ter place in the world to show­case the di­verse ex­amples of ro­bot­ic ap­plic­a­tions," says Hubertus von Mon­schaw, Glob­al Dir­ect­or HAN­NOV­ER MESSE at Deutsche Messe AG. 

En­gage with new tech­no­lo­gies

Young ro­bot­ics com­pan­ies and start-ups in par­tic­u­lar will be demon­strat­ing the wide range of ap­plic­a­tions for ro­bots and the in­ter­ac­tion between hu­mans, ma­chines and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence in the Ap­plic­a­tion Park. Vis­it­ors will be able to see and try out ro­bot­ic auto­ma­tion for them­selves. One of the high­lights will be driver­less trans­port sys­tems, which will demon­strate how many activ­it­ies will no longer re­quire a driver in the fu­ture. 

"This ex­hib­i­tion plat­form of­fers vis­it­ors to HAN­NOV­ER MESSE a unique op­por­tun­ity to en­gage with new tech­no­lo­gies and learn how ro­bot­ics, AI and auto­ma­tion can help solve the enorm­ous chal­lenges fa­cing in­dustry," en­thuses Helmut Schmid, CEO of the DRV. 

For OM­RON, this year's Han­nov­er Messe is all about vir­tu­al twins, ro­bot-sup­por­ted auto­ma­tion and in­creas­ing the com­pet­it­ive­ness of in­dus­tri­al com­pan­ies: To­geth­er with Dassault Systèmes, OM­RON will use vari­ous sta­tions to show how vir­tu­al twin tech­no­logy sim­pli­fies the pro­cess from fact­ory plan­ning to op­er­a­tion, in­creases ef­fi­ciency and im­proves flex­ib­il­ity.

3D Plant plan­ning and vir­tu­al com­mis­sion­ing

Pro­duc­tion lines and man­u­fac­tur­ing sys­tems in ex­ist­ing factor­ies can be planned in ad­vance in 3D for great­er ef­fi­ciency and short­er in­stall­a­tion times. This al­lows work pro­cesses to be op­tim­ized with the help of mo­bile ro­bots and factors such as the flow of goods or ma­ter­i­al sup­ply to be planned in ad­vance. This al­lows er­rors or bot­tle­necks to be iden­ti­fied and rec­ti­fied at an early stage. The 3DEXPERIENCE plat­form from Dassault Systèmes sup­ports the use of as­set ad­min­is­tra­tion shells (AAS), which helps com­pan­ies to op­tim­ize their value chains. Vir­tu­al twins sup­port pro­to­typ­ing, for ex­ample, or sim­u­late ma­ter­i­al and re­source sav­ings in new cir­cu­lar con­cepts.

Ro­bot fleet man­age­ment and pre­dict­ive main­ten­ance

The lar­ger a fleet of mo­bile ro­bots is, the more com­plex the mon­it­or­ing and man­age­ment. A spe­cif­ic vir­tu­al twin, in­di­vidu­ally tailored to cus­tom­er re­quire­ments, en­ables data-based, sus­tain­able and pre­dict­ive main­ten­ance. Sensor data is ana­lyzed us­ing ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and ma­chine learn­ing to de­tect and rec­ti­fy po­ten­tial fail­ures at an early stage.