Sustainable Production

The transformation of existing production systems towards more sustainable and digital design and manufacturing systems is one of the core challenges of Industry 4.0. In the real-world laboratory for sustainable production systems, we want to shape and implement this transformation process together with our partners. Product design and conception as well as product disassembly are an essential building block for achieving a more sustainable future for the manufacturing industry.

Model factory with deactivated...
...and with activated HoloLens for augmented reality-supported process control and monitoring

Research fields of the laboratory

The research fields of the real-world laboratory can be divided into three basic areas:

  • Design and composition of products in the sense of the circular economy
  • Automated disassembly and repair of products
  • Monitoring and lifecycle assessment of products to extend usage cycles

In order to address these research areas, various technologies are being developed and used in the real-world laboratory. These include

  • Digital twins for storing product data and monitoring system parameters
  • Robotic systems for the automated disassembly of products and product data acquisition
  • Artificial intelligence to support product design and the disassembly planning of products

 

Robotic arm for training...
...and testing of reinforcement learning models

Extracts from the Real Laboratory

Automated recording of product properties by robots
Digital information systems for production