Virtual and augmented reality are already firmly established in the video-game industry. But industrial development is also taking advantage of this technology, not least in light of an increasingly shorter time-to-market. The use of computer-based simulation techniques is playing a key role here. Fraunhofer researchers are developing simulation solutions in the fields of production and logistics, industrial processing, component behavior and fluid mechanics.
Europe`s biggest 3D mixed reality laboratory is located in Magdeburg. Four meters high and sixteen meters in diameter, the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation IFF‘s Elbedome resembles a hemisphere. It affords companies the opportunity to bring models of machines, systems, factories and even entire cities to life with impressive realism. We interviewed with Elbedome manager Steffen Masik about the lab’s distinctive features.
Virtual engineering methods and tools can integrate the digital description, modeling, simulation and optimization of a product throughout its entire life cycle – from the design development and manufacturing of a product up through its use. Product features can be validated at an early stage. The linkage with manufacturing planning can be used to optimize product and manufacturing costs. Users of equipment and systems can be trained on virtual models at an early stage. This reduces development times and costs drastically and minimizes development risks.
Industrial production is moving away from serial mass production towards individual products and industrially-manufactured small series. Their profitable production is enabled by the fourth industrial revolution. After water and steam power, electrical energy as well as electronics and information technology, sensor networks and simulation are now entering the factory halls.
Today, industrial processes are mechanized, electrified and digitalized. The products of the future are intelligent and know at any time where they are, know their history, their current state and the production stages they still need to complete to become a finished product.
Working under the open sky – it sounds enticing, but it’s seldom really a practical option. Now, a dynamic luminous ceiling brings the sky into office spaces by creating the effect of passing clouds. This kind of lighting generates a pleasant working environment.
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
