2019

After the successful start of the partnership between ASAM e.V. and the Saxon Ministry for Economic Affairs, Labor and Transport in the year 2017, the ASAM International Conference was once more held in Dresden this year.  

In a special lecture session, Dr. Torsten Gründel, head of the Intelligent Transport Systems department at the Fraunhofer IVI, introduced Saxony's  »Synchronized Mobility 2023« research initiative. Afterwards, the results of the individual projects were presented in detail by the scholars responsible.  

In the adjoining exhibition area, the many guests had the opportunity to view not only an automated fast charging system, but also the latest technological developments for cooperative driving currently being tested on the Dresden digital testbed.

Among others, these included the demonstration of networked driving scenarios realized by combining microscopic traffic simulations, road lights, roadside units, highly automated vehicles and test support, which are visualized on displays inside the vehicles.

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After extensive research and development work, automated driving is becoming an everyday image on our streets. On the 9th of October, the Saxon energy agency SAENA invited major collaborates such as REMAS, HarmonizeDD, SYNCAR and AULA to join them in the Dresden airport conference room. 

Link to the press release (in German)

In his keynote speech, Fraunhofer IVI Department Head Dr. Torsten Gründel gave an overview on the »Synchrone Mobilität 2023« research initiative and the Dresden Test Bed. In addition, he answered the journalist questions.

Furthermore, the event demonstrated the outcome of automated driving on the Dresden Airport corridor, so that the experts could admire the newest technology. The accompanying exhibition enabled an in-depth insight of the extensive test planning and the monitoring of the experimental vehicles.

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The Fraunhofer IVI used the opportunity to present a newly developed automated charging system, which can be used in private households. In addition, the AULA project improved its developed technology for automatized recharging. The new version allows the consumer to install the recharging station in his or her very own garage and uses the identical interface in the vehicles’ floor (see picture).

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On September 2-6, 2019, the first »Fraunhofer Pioneers Challenge« was held in the German Lausitz region under the motto »Managing Change Actively – Biological Transformation of a Post-Mining Landscape« in the form of an innovation camp. Three teams – consisting of two Fraunhofer researchers and four students each – worked on the topics residence, living, and creating value in rural areas. What made the event special was not only the inspiring location – the barren site of a former coal-mining facility – but also the composition of the teams. While the Fraunhofer employees contributed their expert knowledge on technology, the students‘ competencies lay in the fields of architecture, design, and art.

A special Highlight of the event was the visit of Prof Dr. Reimund Neugebauer, president of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. He engaged with the different topics by taking part in the discussions and contributing his own ideas.

On Friday evening, the teams presented their visions in front of the backdrop of the autartec^® house located on Lake Bergheide and in the presence of members of the Fraunhofer Science, Art and Design Network. The jury made up of five external jurors evaluated the results according to the following criteria:

• Degree of innovation,
• Functionality and form,
• Feasibility,
• Ecological compatibility
• Presentation and concept.

In the end, team residence won first place in the competition. But it was obvious that everyone was a winner: people who had been strangers before celebrated together as friends. And they had good reasons to be happy because they had managed to explore and experience the symbiosis of engineering and creative thinking.

Further information about the event (in German):

https://www.art-design.fraunhofer.de/de/programme/innovationscamp.html

The »Mobility Data Space« Project initiates the building of a national mobility data ecosystem. To this end, the Mobilitäts Daten Marktplatz (Mobility Market Place, MDM) of the Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen (Federal Highway Research Institute, BASt) will be connected to additional regional platforms for transportation data platforms. This way, regional data can be both provided and exploited on a national level. The project receives a total of 3 million Euros from the Förderrichtline Modernitätsfonds (mFUND) funding program established by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI). By expanding the data platforms with the help of data space concepts, it will be possible for the first time to safely and independently provide and process mobility data while data sovereignty remains with the data providers. Due to this fact, the platforms will gain a higher level of trust and become more attractive as a data provision option. Another aim of the project is to acquire new regional traffic data and nation-wide mobility data from vehicle fleets and mobile networks, and to provide this data on the platforms for safe processing.

Fraunhofer will contribute their experience in the field of mobility data and platforms to the project, as well as their expertise on the Industrial Data Space. Furthermore, they will support their partners in developing and improving data platforms and data products. It is planned to distribute the Mobility Data Space via the international Data Spaces Association, in which over 100 members from science and economy work on topics concerning the application of data space concepts.

On August 28, 2019, the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft invited the project partners and their funding bodies to the Fraunhofer Institute Center Birlinghoven in St. Augustin for the official project kick-off, which was held under the leadership of the Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems IVI.

• More information (in German)

About mFUND by the BMVI:

Since 2016, the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) has been funding R&D projects related to digital data-based applications for Mobility 4.0 with a research initiative called mFUND. mFUND not only provides financial assistance but, with different event formats, it fosters networking between stakeholders from the political sphere, as well as the business and the research communities. It also promotes access to the mCLOUD data portal. You can find more information at https://www.bmvi.de/EN/Topics/Digital-Matters/mFund/mFund.html.

When it comes to the sustainability of eletcric vehicles, the origin of the electricity and the conditions of battery production are the decisive factors. The German blog »umschalten.de« asked Claudius Jehle about their environmental footprint in a recently published interview. As group manager at the Fraunhofer IVI, he is responsible for the development of battery and vehicle diagnosis systems, primarily for commercial vehicles. 

• Read the whole article (available in German language only)

The new Machine Automation Lab of the Fraunhofer IVI was launched last Thursday with the signing of a cooperation agreement and the ceremonial unveiling of the logo. This working group is a joint project of the institute and its long-standing research partner Sensor-Technk Wiedemann GmbH (STW) with the objective of bundling infrastructure and know-how to develop new technologies and products for autonomous working machines and commercial vehicles. 

With the strategic cooperation of this working group, the Fraunhofer IVI is granted early access to R&D topics that are relevant to the market. Furthermore, the institute is introduced to potential clients for new technology developments. In return, STW will benefit from the scientific expertise and infrastructure of the Fraunhofer IVI for their pre-development of highly automated products.

• Press release by STW

June 21, 2019

The signing of a cooperation agreement in the presence of the Saxon State Minister of the Interior, Prof. Dr. Roland Wöller, has further consolidated the long-term collaboration between the Police Office of Administration, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and the Fraunhofer IVI. The subject matter of the agreement is the development, implementation and improvement of a police messenger system for the regular police service in the Free State of Saxony.

This innovation is built on the »SE-Netz«, a system for communication and operational command for special police forces, based on the latest IC technologies and developed at the Fraunhofer IVI under the management of Dr. Danowski. The system has been used in Saxony since 2014 and it has by now also become established as the nationwide standard for special forces.

The project will be completed by the end of 2024. The Fraunhofer IVI will receive about 3 million Euros of funding to support the mobile police work with groundbreaking technologies.

Prof. Dr. Reimund Neugebauer, President of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and one of the signatories of the agreement, emphasized in particular the continuity of this highly successful partnership: »From this exemplarily close and trustful cooperation between the State Office of Criminal Investigations, the Fraunhofer IVI and the police forces, systems for communication and operational command for the effective collaboration across borders and authorities have emerged, supporting security authorities on federal and state level in the digital world. I am pleased that these systems have now become established as the federal standard and that we can sign an agreement for a new long-term cooperation with the Saxon Police Force today«.

• Press release of the Saxon State Ministry of the Interior (in German)

On June 17, 2019, the Saxon State Minister for the Environment and Agriculture, Thomas Schmidt, officially launched the »SIH test and demonstration field«. Located in an area with an extent of approximately 2000 square meters between the towns of Köllitsch, Lommatzsch and Nossen, groundbreaking developments in agriculture and forestry – based on novel 5G technologies – will be tested and demonstrated there.

The public event took place at the teaching and research farm in Köllitsch and offered a variety of presentations, showcases and workshops in the fields of communication infrastructure in rural areas, digital plant cultivation, robotics in livestock farming, digital fruit growing and viniculture as well as digital villages.

The scientific partners of the project are the Saxon State Office for the Environment, Agriculture and Geology and two institutes of the TU Dresden – the Institute of Natural Materials Technology, Chair of Agricultural Systems and Technology, as well as the Vodafone Chair for Mobile Communications Systems – and the 5G Lab Germany. Several agricultural enterprises in the region complete the project team.

Fraunhofer contributes a number of competencies and experience from past and present research projects, such as »Digitale Dörfer« (digital villages). The recently launched lighthouse project »Cognitive Agriculture« (»COGNAC«), coordinated by the Fraunhofer IESE, addresses several of these topics. In addition to sensors for soil analysis and automation, an Agricultural Dataspace (ADS) is being developed together with the Fraunhofer institutes IVI and IKTS, enabling the interoperable use of data while meeting high security requirements. The »SIH test and demonstration field« offers ideal conditions to carry out extensive trials of the platform.

• Press release of the Saxon Sate Ministry for the Environment and Agriculture (in German) 

Under the motto »Wissenschaft statt Kissenschlacht« (Stop pillow fights and do science instead!), numerous presentations, experiments and tours attracted an interested crowd to visit the Dresden Science Night, which took place for the 17^th time on June 14. Along with Dresden’s universities and science-related companies, the Fraunhofer IVI and Fraunhofer IIS/EAS participated in the evening event.

The versatile program included a demonstration of the electric bus ColumBus, taking the visitors for a test ride. Many were also impressed by an electric truck that drives completely autonomously in gated areas such as harbors or factory sites, and features real-time maneuver planning and high-precision driving. A special highlight of the evening took place on the test track, where two BMWi3 demonstrated how connected cars exchange all kinds of information during cooperative driving, for instance at traffic lights and critical narrows. The visitors also took the opportunity to learn about the Fraunhofer IVI Accident Prevention School (FAPS). They used tablets to take the perspectives of different road users and thus gain more sensitivity towards the dangers of traffic. A Bobby car race and various options for painting and handicrafts made the evening perfect for the little ones.

The harbor at Lake Bergheide now accommodates its first inhabitant. The floating autartec^® house – developed within a growth core project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) – is designed to enrich the Lusatian Lake District with its unconventional look and a multitude of implemented novel technologies.

• Link to the press release
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On March 22-24, the 2019 Safety Days were held at Universität Paderborn. The interdisciplinary convention had the motto »Informationstechnologie trifft zivile Gefahrenabwehr« (Information Technology Meets Emergency Response) and offered the opportunity for decision makers, practicioners as well as scholars, IT professionals and amateurs to discuss opportunities and challenges arising from the use of new technologies in the field of emergency response. 

The special highlight of the Safety Days was a 48-hour hackathon, during which users and IT professionals worked together to create relevant solutions. One of the Fraunhofer IVI researchers participated in both the convention and the hackathon. He and his team worked on integrating the alarm messages of the Paderborn fire department into their geodata service. The results of the hackathon were presented in front of an expert audience.

February 8, 2019

The additive production of components, also called 3D printing, allows higher degrees of freedom in the design of components. However, there is still no standardization that guarantees that a component will functionally survive the entire life cycle of a product. Especially in aviation, with life cycles of many decades, however, this safety must be guaranteed.

In order to solve this problem and create a highly complex certification process for this novel sample component manufacturing process, the consortium of the AMCOCS (Additive Manufactured Component Certification Services) project met on February 5, 2019 to kick off the project. At the site of the consortium leader Elbe Flugzeugwerke (EFW), a joint venture of Singapore Technologies and Airbus, the project-executing agency DLR was given an understanding of the complexity of the research project and during a plant tour, the relevance of the necessary project output was explained on the basis of the Airbus body conversion from passenger to cargo aircraft – in this segment, EFW is the world market leader.

In addition to the consortium leader, the Fraunhofer IVI, with its expertise in the areas of Big Data processing and AI analytics, is the idea generator and implementation partner within the research project. Other project participants are Software AG, IMA Materialforschung und Anwendungstechnik GmbH and the Institute for Aerospace Technology at the TU Dresden.

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February 6, 2019

Everybody is talking about clean mobility solutions. The demand for innovative electric propulsion concepts is increasing. This is the perfect moment to expand the bus market by an attractive offer 'made in Germany'. For this new vehicle series, the Berlin-based ELO Mobility GmbH is collaborating with fuel cell manufacturer HyMove (Arnheim), the vehicle engineers of WS Consulting (Augsburg), the Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems (Dresden) and BTS Bus Trailer Service (Oberweira), among others. The project is led by the Engineering Center of ELO Mobility in Berlin.

»I really appreciate our diverse and highly specialized team of developers. By combining the hydrogen fuel cell technology with tried and tested yet highly innovative bus concepts, we are able to offer electromobility on the highest level«, says Dr. Henning Heppner, CEO of ELO Mobility. Depending on the local operational demands, transport providers will have different vehicle lengths and energy storage systems at their disposal.

»The international demand is high. However, all project partners would like to see their vehicles operating not only internationally but also in German public transport«, adds André Stephan, Head of Business Development of ELO Mobility. »The project constitutes a special chance for our industry location.« Because of very high customer interest in the pre-series production stage, the team of developers was able to start their work on vehicles of the first model year to be delivered in 2021/22. There is only a small remaining capacity for further commisions in this delivery period.