Press Releases

When science fiction heroes communicate, they don‘t use landlines or cell phones. The caller simply appears in virtual form in the middle of the room; full sized and three dimensional. For researchers at Fraunhofer, this vision is already within reach: At the trade fairs IFA in Berlin (Hall 11.1, Booth 3) and IBC in Amsterdam (Hall 8, Booth 8.B80) they will show a new technology technology called "3D Human Body Reconstruction".

On a technological behemoth like a ship, in many cases the crew, or “human element“ get little attention when planning the design and operations – a mistake, as statistics show: most accidents at sea can be traced back to human error, not technical error. The CyClaDes project brought the industry together and showed how more consideration can be given to the human operators and their contexts in the shipbuilding and operational process.

Diesel engines vibrate. This produces tremendous stress on the components of ships. Adaptronic systems effectively reduce these vibrations. At the maritime trade fair SMM, Fraunhofer researchers are presenting a simulation tool that allows these systems to be developed efficiently: The “Mechanical Simulation Toolbox“ is now available on the market and easy to use.

Children with congenital heart defects often undergo a battery of strenuous examinations and interventions. In the EU CARDIOPROOF project, Fraunhofer researchers have developed software to simulate certain interventions in advance. Preliminary results point to a reduced need to perform numerous interventions.

Medical products, packaging and food can be safely and efficiently sterilized with electron beams. In the future, Fraunhofer researchers also plan to use accelerated electrons to eliminate germs from tissue transplants and to change the properties of the organic material in the process.

Food allergies have been on the increase for years. There is currently only one solution for patients: avoid allergy-triggering products. Fraunhofer researchers are making an important contribution to consumer protection by developing methods to specifically and reliably detect allergenic substances in foods. In addition, they are helping to establish processes that reduce the allergy-triggering properties of food ingredients. Their research work focuses on soy.

Machines are taking over more and more tasks. Ideally, they should also be capable to support the human in case of poor performance. To intervene appropriately, the machine should understand what is going on with the human. Fraunhofer scientists have developed a diagnostic tool that recognizes user states in real time and communicates them to the machine.

On August 1st, 2016, Dr. Peter Knott and Prof. Dirk Heberling step in as joint heads of the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR. Together, they are taking over from Prof. Joachim Ender, who is retiring after successfully leading the institute since 2003.

Hovering at around 20 percent, the relative humidity in aircraft is kept very low to keep condensation from building up in the cabin. The downside for passengers and the crew is that this dries out the mucous membranes. Now a vortex ring generator will direct humidified air to passengers, increasing the humidity of the air they breathe without causing the overall relative humidity to skyrocket.

The wireless data transmission via mobile communication is reliable and affordable. However, data volume per user is rising exponentially. Causes are not only the continuously growing number of smartphones, but also trends as car-to-car (C2C) or machine-to-machine (M2M) communication – cars and machines need to communicate in high speed with each other. From 2020 the 5G mobile standard is aiming to transmit data rapidly and energy-efficiently. For that purpose Fraunhofer is developing new power amplifiers based on the semiconductor gallium nitride.