LAB17

The production of the future requires maximum flexibility and adaptability, as markets become increasingly volatile and products increasingly individual. In order to meet these requirements, future production facilities must have a flexibility comparable to that of software. Industry 4.0 and software-defined manufacturing (SDM) approaches already offer initial possibilities here, but they are limited to firmly defined hardware and do not have the necessary adaptability. 

An autonomous configuration initiative is intended to make it possible to configure processes and machines autonomously and individually for each product from predefined modules of a construction kit.

In order to be able to carry out this research project, the research infrastructure of the University of Stuttgart and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology will be enabled.

Aim, approach and benefit

The Future Lab supports the joint project SdManu7 in expanding the research infrastructure of the participating institutes.

The  overall goal is to enable production plants to adapt autonomously and optimally to changing product requirements, ultimately leading to autonomous and evolving (re-)configuration.

Enablement is achieved in particular through the procurement of individual measurement systems, a robot with suitable interfaces for test series and the upgrading of test facilities at the individual institutes, enabling research questions to be addressed in a targeted manner.

The upgraded laboratories of the individual institutes will be used jointly, resulting in a closely networked and shared research infrastructure between the institutes and the companies involved.