Already at the FAPS Spring Summit 2019, the possible “cell separation” of the former research sector Efficient Systems was indicated, now the idea has been implemented: The extensive competencies of the research sector, which was previously staffed by around 20 colleagues, have been re-clustered and divided into two independent, thematically focused research sectors.

Research Sector Automated Production Systems (A|PS)
The newly founded research sector A|PS will in future deal with the manifold challenges of sustainable automated production systems. Two interdependent goals will be pursued in particular:

• The optimization of efficiency with regard to the factors resource usage, costs, quality, etc.
• Increasing the flexibility of production systems

In order to achieve these goals, the research sector A|PS aims at the further development of relevant technologies from the industrial as well as the customer environment for the implementation of modular, autonomous, where necessary self-sufficient and independently interacting production systems. An essential aspect is the service orientation in production and, above all, the technical development of existing production approaches and systems to individual value adding and production networks. The integration of people as decision-makers and the support of users in mastering system-inherent complexity permeates all research activities. The focus is on various technologies, architectures and design patterns from computer science and the Industrial Internet of Things and Services (IIoTS):

• Wired and radio-based communication technologies for industrial (real-time) communication
• Smart services and service-oriented architectures
• Application of the methods of artificial intelligence and machine learning
• Data Analytics for plant and process monitoring
• Semantic interaction and ontologies for knowledge representation
• Cloud based platform solutions

The research sector A|PS is directed by Jonathan Fuchs and starts with a total of ten employees. Further content and information can be found on the website of the research sector A|PS.

Research Sector Engineering Systems (E|Sys)

The research sector E|Sys pursues the overall goal of mapping complex mechatronic systems completely digitally within the framework of efficient and continuous engineering. An interdisciplinary approach, which includes the entire virtual planning, design, simulation and control from the idea to the initial commissioning, serves to realize and optimize automated production systems. The current main topics include:

• Consistent engineering in Product Lifecycle Management (PLM),
• Simulation of production systems as well as intralogistic facts,
• Development of digital process chains,
• Process automation in interdisciplinary engineering,
• Human-machine interaction using virtual and augmented reality (VR, AR),
• Engineering of resource-efficient production systems.

Continuous engineering requires a coordinated tool chain that accompanies the process from requirements specification to virtual commissioning. The research work in this area focuses on the combination, adaptation and extension of existing software solutions, based on experience in knowledge management and the semantic description of interdisciplinary engineering processes and plants. On this basis, the automation of existing processes is also investigated and the use of machine learning methods in planning and engineering is evaluated. By means of the virtual safeguarding of complex mechatronic systems, automated machine operations are developed and optimized on the one hand and manual assembly processes are designed on the other hand, thereby ensuring ergonomic conditions. In addition to the human-centred design of systems, the development of resource-efficient production systems and domain-integrated software is advanced by extending or redesigning existing engineering tools.
The research sector E|Sys is directed by Matthias Brossog. For further information on the focus and research topics please visit the website of the research sector E|Sys.

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