More and more varieties of automotive models are penetrating the market, product lifespans are getting shorter, and energy costs are soaring. Above all, the protracted ramp-up time in auto body assembly are causing problems for manufacturers: They have to adapt production systems to each of the new parts and assemblies, which is highly time-intensive.Fraunhofer researchers are working on reducing the ramp-up times in order to ensure a faster and more efficient production process.
The Automobile Production Center of Excellence was formed in 2008 in response to the need to increase productivity, reduce defects and improve energy and resource efficiency in automobile production processes. The Center focuses on research projects with the objective of developing, testing and optimizing innovative production technologies, facilities and equipment for car body production. Our main challenge, as well as the success criterion for the project, is incorporating the results of the project into industrial mass production processes as soon as it comes to an end. The key areas are tool making, the press plant and car body construction.
The cooperative research environment “ARENA2036” develops competitive production models for the next generation of automobiles. Whereas today’s automobiles are manufactured in sync with the production line, tomorrow’s manufacturing systems will be decoupled, fully-flexible and highly-integrated.
Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA, the University of Stuttgart and also representatives from companies, such as Daimler and Bosch, are working on new methods for producing and assembling lightweight vehicle structures as well as evaluating their suitability for use in practice. The environment also serves as a motor for promoting young talent, vocational training and equal opportunities.
The Green Car Body Technologies Innovation Alliance is a technology-related production initiative on the part of automobile manufacturers, suppliers and outfitters, the steel industry and the three Fraunhofer production technology Institutes tasked with researching efficient and sustainable production processes for car bodies.
Virtual vehicle development is becoming increasingly important. Researchers at Fraunhofer are offering a system that takes into account realistic environmental influences like road surface, weather and driving maneuvers in driving simulations.
In computer aided vehicle engineering, you need accurate data on various environmental influences. This is the only way developers can conduct tests that simulate the experience of a real car. At the Hannover Messe, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute are presenting a quick and inexpensive system that collects real data at normal driving speeds and processes this data in real time as fine-grained and coarse-grained data for 3D driving simulations.
Making smart data out of big data: Presswork 4.0 takes data that today is rarely or never evaluated and integrates it using an analysis and feedback system. This is then connected to create new knowledge, such as solutions for specific problems. The information is then made available to staff, for instance using smart devices, or sent directly where it is needed.
It costs companies a lot of money to have machines out of operation due to failure. This applies to press shops, too, the focus of Fraunhofer’s Presswerk 4.0 project. Researchers want to employ targeted data networking in manufacturing to help employees recognize and correct failures more quickly – and reduce failure-related downtimes by at least half. Smart, connected machines balance out disturbances so that material that normally lands in the scrap pile can be processed.
Experimental psychology tests of typical latencies are conducted on the “tactile interaction” augmented reality simulator.
Vehicles in logistics centers will be more intuitive to steer in the future, thus making work easier and safer. “Tactile” handles being developed by Fraunhofer researchers will make this possible: They employ pressure sensors to detect the direction in which a user is pushing or pulling the cart. Whenever there is a risk of a collision, the cart stops immediately.
The work at the "Fraunhofer Project Centre Wolfsburg" concentrates on the three major topics: "Textile manufacturing chain", "Hybrid materials with metallic matrix" and "Components for electric vehicles".
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
