2021

The external appearance of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is not only characterized by the cross-institute corporate design and sophisticated product and communication design of the technologies developed at Fraunhofer. Life and work at Fraunhofer, collaboration with research partners and customers, and the framework conditions for implementing complex research infrastructures are all significantly shaped by the architecture of the institute and administration buildings, technical centers, and even complete research factories.

The building envelope in particular plays a decisive role, as many different specialist trades and design disciplines are involved here. In addition to static and building physics tasks, the facade represents the appearance of the building user and directly and indirectly conveys an effect on its status and corporate profile (e.g. economic success, respectability, innovative strength, creativity, etc.).

In cooperation with the institutes as well as the building department of the headquarters, selected buildings were recorded and described. The framework for this was provided by the accompanying scientific research conducted by the Design Faculty of Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts on the effect of architecture in human perception. The result is the second volume of a book series that- based on »Designed by Fraunhofer« - deals with design, architecture and art in the context of research work at the Fraunhofer institutes.

The project was funded within the framework program of the Fraunhofer network »Science, Art and Design«. The decision was made by internal and external members of the program committee.

• book »Architecture by Fraunhofer«  (German)

A heavy-duty truck weighing 18 tons and equipped with a 3.5 kilowatt-peak photovoltaic system is now driving on Germany's roads. The commercial vehicle with integrated high-voltage photovoltaic system and feed-in to the 800-volt traction battery has been approved for road traffic. The solar power produced directly on the vehicle can cover 5 to 10 percent of the truck's energy needs. In the Lade-PV project, the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, with its project partners from industry and the Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems IVI, has developed solar PV modules and power electronics for integration in commercial vehicles. This truck, the first equipped with these PV modules, has now passed the technical inspection, marking a milestone towards more climate-friendly road freight transport.

The project, which was kicked off in Juli 2019, has a three-year term and is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi).

• press release
• project website

Together with industry partners, the Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Internet Technologies CCIT is advancing automated driving in cities on the occasion of the ITS World Congress trade fair: A Smart Intersection in Hamburg's city center records the movements of road users and processes the information in a trustworthy manner that partially automated vehicles can navigate safely through the intersection. Visitors to the ITS World Congress can get an idea of how the cognitive Internet technologies used work via direct connection.

The Fraunhofer Institutes for Applied and Integrated Security AISEC, for Telecommunications, Heinrich Hertz Institute HHI, for Integrated Circuits IIS and for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems IVI are involved, contributing their expertise in the areas of cyber security, broadband communications, radio and satellite communications and intelligent transportation systems.

press release
CCIT Website

Federal chancellor of germany Dr. Angela Merkel: 

»We have created the Mobility Data Space for the sovereign, self-determined exchange of mobility data on the basis of clear rules. Our aim was to have it in place in time for the ITS ​World Congress, and we succeeded.«

Smart Infrastructure for the Digital Testbed Dresden

The construction of a Smart Intersection has raised the Digital Testbed Dresden to a higher level. For the first time, the state capital's infrastructure is assisting highly automated driving in complex situations occurring in public traffic. An intelligent roadside sensor system detects trajectories, converts them into a digital dynamic object map and transmits the current traffic situation to all traffic participants via Car2X communications. Not only does this kind of traffic detection improve the flow of traffic, but it also increases the safety of all participants substantially. Innovative algorithms are used to provide security against the risk of possible manipulation of cognitive functions. Thus, integral consideration is granted to measures for the protection of critical infrastructures.

The expansion of the Testbed in Dresden effects the transition from cooperative, intelligent traffic (C-ITS) to cooperative connected and automated mobility (CCAM) and is an essential prerequisite for the development and testing of new mobility solutions.

• Smart Intersection within the Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Internet Technology
• Synchronized Mobility

Looking back on a successful week of promoting young research talents

In the week of October 4-8, 2021, Fraunhofer IVI and MINT-EC (Society of mathematical and scientific excellence centers at schools) held a talent school at the institute. Ten students from all over Germany aged 16 to 18 had qualified as participants in the event by going through a general selection process. 

For the first time, the teenagers had the opportunity to get involved in scientific research, work on real problems and draw their own conclusions from it. Their task was to develop a concept for making mobility safer for children and teens as pedestrians, bikers and e-scooter drivers. As a first step, the many dangers of road traffic were brought to their attention. They discussed the opportunities and risks of alternative propulsion systems and worked with real accident data from an accident database. Digital media and 3D-animated sequences were used to support their investigations. The teenagers were especially excited about the opportunity to explore real accident scenarios with the help of VR glasses. At the end of the course, the students independently developed recommendations for the improvement of traffic safety. They then used their findings as a basis to create a concept for vulnearable road users. Finally, the students presented their results in front of accident researchers and traffic psychologists.

• MINT-EC Website (German)
  

Innovative research at the Köllitsch Teaching and Research Farm

The 5G campus network has been put into operation at the Köllitsch Teaching and Research Farm of the Saxon State Office for Environment, Agriculture and Geology (LfULG). The new digital infrastructure enables the testing of technologies based on 5G and real-time data transmission. Innovative solutions for communication between humans, machines and sensors can be tested in order to align agricultural processes even more specifically with the needs of plants, animals and the environment. The 5G campus network is part of a cooperation with the Technical University of Dresden and Fraunhofer IVI and is integrated into the federally funded experimental field »LANDNETZ«. The aim is to jointly advance research into future technologies for agriculture.

press release (German)

Looking back on a very successful day at the Test Track in Jeversen, Germany

On the 28th of September, the long anticipated final event of the AEROFLEX project was held at the ZF Test Track in Jeversen, Germany. During the packed day, over 80 guests attended the event live at the ZF location and another 100 to 200 guests from all around the world joined online. During this hybrid event, several presentations about the processes of the project and the project results were shared with the audience. 

• AEROFLEX website

Expert Day 2021 »Testing Cooperative Driving Maneuvers«

Numerous guests attended the event in Ingolstadt on September 28, hosted by the Application Center »Connected Mobility and Infrastructure« of Fraunhofer IVI and the Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt (THI) with the Research and Test Center for Vehicle Safety CARISSMA together with AB Dynamics Europe GmbH and GeneSys GmbH. Experts in the fields of automotive testing and connected driving discussed future innovations by combining the two areas.

After the presentations in the morning on the state of the art as well as on test scenarios and their implementation, the afternoon was dedicated to the presentation of test environments and platforms. The highlight was a driving test with a connected automated vehicle and a steerable carrier (pedestrian target) with Vehicle-2-X (V2X) communication, where V2X communication is part of the test scenario. In addition, CARIAD, the automotive software company of the Volkswagen Group, demonstrated one of its series functions based on V2X communication. The integration of V2X communication into conventional automotive test platforms is considered an important step towards safe and efficient testing of cooperative driving maneuvers, such as Euro NCAP tests envisage in the future.

Participants included AB Dynamics, ADAC, Arnold Messtechnik, Audi, Bertrand, BMW, Bosch, CARIAD, Daimler, Fraunhofer IVI, GeneSys, Porsche, Volkswagen and WTD 41. 

Demonstrations included:

• »Testing Cooperative Driving Maneuvers with Launchpad and V2X« AB Dynamics Europe GmbH
• »C-V2X test environment« CARIAD SE
• »High Accuracy Localization« GeneSys GmbH
• »Road Traffic Monitoring« Fraunhofer IVI Application Center Ingolstadt, Germany.
• »Cooperative environment perception with V2X communication« Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt / CARISSMA

presentations

The field day »LANDNETZ meets Feldschwarm^® - Agriculture of tomorrow, experience today« presents new digital applications in agriculture and the results of the Feldschwarm^® growth core, which concludes with this event.

Since 2019, scientists from TU Dresden, together with the Saxon State Office for Environment, Agriculture and Geology (LfULG) and Fraunhofer IVI, have been researching new technologies for area-wide wireless data transmission and networking as a fundamental prerequisite for Agriculture 4.0 as part of the LANDNETZ experimental field. At today's field day, the project partners present the current status of applications that have already been introduced at the Raitzen estate in Naundorf, Saxony.

»The combination of state-of-the-art mobile technologies with autonomous field robotics, as developed in the Feldschwarm^® project, opens up new migration paths for resource-saving, highly efficient agricultural technology. Digitalization in agriculture thus becomes tangible in the truest sense of the word,« said Institute Director Prof. Dr. Matthias Klingner.

• Feldschwarm^® project website  (German)
• press release (German)

Within the scope of his annual »Kreativwirtschaftstour« (creative economy tour), Martin Dulig, Minister of the Saxon State Ministry for Economic Affairs, Labor and Transport SMWA paid a visit to Fraunhofer IVI. His main interest lay in the Fraunhofer »Science, Art and Design« Network. In his role as speaker of the network’s design department, institute director Prof. Dr. Matthias Klingner presented the network along with its activities and programs. During the subsequent discussion, consideration was given to establishing similar formats in Saxony, including design expenses in grant applications in the future, and to create a special category for »best design in science« at the Saxon Design Awards. As a result, design aspects could receive higher recognition both in enterprises and scientific institutions.  

The Fraunhofer »Connected Mobility and Infrastructure« Application Center in Ingolstadt is making an appearance at the newly created IAA Mobility 2021 trade fair. Together with Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt and the CARISSMA research and testing center, Fraunhofer IVI Application Center is presenting challenges and solutions regarding the mobility of the future at the Mobilitätsregion Ingolstadt joint booth (Hall A1).

One of the key issues in the field of connected automated mobility is realizing comprehensive and reliable environmental perception. Increasing numbers of vehicles are equipped with sensors, such as cameras, Radar and Lidar, but due to unfavorable weather conditions and view restrictions, these sensors are often unable to monitor traffic sufficiently in all occurring traffic situations. By additionally equipping the road infrastructure with sensors, the range and reliability of environmental perception can be improved. The main challenges to this approach are the networking of all agents, as well as the processing and fusion of data stemming from different sensor types.

The booth showcases an automated vehicle and a roadside unit that monitor their environment and detect fair visitors with the help of their individual sensors. The vehicle and the roadside unit are networked, fuse their data in real time and provide a live display. This demonstrator is a prototype of the system that is currently being set up within the Ingolstadt Digital Testbed for connected and automated driving. In the future, it will be used to test solutions for automated traffic. 

• IAA Mobility 2021 website

The growing world population and the associated increase in global food demand are leading to the use of ever larger and heavier agricultural machinery. Due to their weight, these vehicles compress the subsoil, which in the long term lowers soil fertility and encourages flooding. Seven companies and four research institutes, including Fraunhofer IVI and Fraunhofer IWU, are working on a solution in the innovative regional growth core Feldschwarm^®. The idea is a completely new type of machinery for agriculture: a swarm of autonomously or semi-autonomously operating field robots, each unit smaller, narrower and lighter than the machines used today. Operated individually or in tandem, they preserve the soil while obtaining the same yield and increase the quality of the harvest due to tailored soil cultivation. Another object of research is a robust human-machine interface that allows users to operate and monitor their field swarm, which consists of several field swarm units operating simultaneously, safely and easily.

The aim of Feldschwarm^® is to establish Central German agricultural machinery manufacturing on the global market and to build up a leading position in the development of autonomous agricultural machinery by bundling the key competencies of the project partners and exploiting technological change in agricultural engineering. In addition, a significant contribution is made to sustainable agricultural technology and resource-saving arable farming.

• project website (German)
• article in the Fraunhofer magazine

For more than 15 years, the MobiKat® system has been making an important contribution to the management of large-scale emergencies. Originally established in Saxony after the severe flooding in 2002, it is now regularly used in a wide variety of operations, including extreme weather situations, large-scale operations by fire and rescue services and a wide variety of major events, but also in everyday operations in Germany.

In the context of the current flood disaster in July 2021, both the Leipzig Fire Department and the German Red Cross District Administration of Dresden also used the system. In Rhineland-Palatinate, the system was primarily used to control the Saxon forces on site and to document the measures carried out. Thanks to the networked operational command, the forces remaining in Saxony could also be included in the command and control process.

The camera system installed in eastern Saxony to monitor river levels proved its worth once again, providing decision-makers and emergency forces with real-time information on the flood situation and the hazardous situation on several rivers. 

MobiKat® website

At a mobility day on the topic of »Automated Driving«, the first driverless automated shuttle called FLASH was presented at Schladitzer Bucht. It can transport up to 21 people the four kilometres from Rackwitz train station to Lake Schladitz and features a hybrid control concept that allows a smooth transition between automated and manual operation. Initially, the bus will travel with a safety driver who can intervene and take over the wheel if necessary. As of now, the shuttle is running in application mode, where FLASH learns difficult traffic situations without passengers. Pilot operation with passengers will subsequently start next year. These two final project phases are funded with a grant of 988,000 euros. The project partners of the district office are the district-owned Omnibus-Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH »Heideland« (OVH), Fraunhofer IVI, the Chemnitz location of IAV Automotive Engineering and TS Fahrzeugtechnik GmbH in Weida.

project website (German)

The Lusatian Lakeland and the Elbe-Elster region have gained another attraction. The Fraunhofer IVI’s floating autartec^® house  has already stood as a symbol of progress and innovative technology since 2019, and now  Lake Bergheide in the municipality of Lichterfeld-Schacksdorf has another highlight to offer.

On the initiative of the chairman of the EUROS Foundation, a solar-powered conference ship was built in close cooperation with the Fraunhofer IVI, which in the future will enable events and conferences to be held on the water against the impressive backdrop of the former overburden conveyor bridge F60. The official inauguration took place on June 22. The ship’s maiden voyage opened completely new perspectives for the interested guests.

The first design drafts for the seminar boat as well as the technical conception of the electric drive were defined by the Fraunhofer IVI in close exchange with the experienced executing company, Jacko Schiffsbau und Yachtservice.

At the shipyard in Storkow, the production of the trimaran’s three floats along with the steel construction took place first, before the work was continued directly at the harbor of Lake Bergheide from July 2020.

The trimaran measures 16.5 meters in length and seven meters in width. The interior offers space for 30 to 60 people, depending on seating. In addition, there is a walk-on upper deck.

Powered by two 25-kW electric motors, the ship, which weighs around 40 tons, reaches a speed of more than ten kilometers per hour. 

An essential prerequisite for digital agriculture is wireless communication, which is currently neither available nationwide, consistently nor reliably.

The LANDNETZ project addresses this challenge and develops and tests strategies for complete networking as well as adequate data exchange as a fundamental condition for Agriculture 4.0. The aim of the project is to create a digital experimental field with a focus on necessary communication and cloud infrastructures for researching and testing technologies for nationwide wireless data transmission using 5G in rural areas as well as the networking of farms and the use of data hubs in a selected model region of Saxony.

The white paper LANDNETZ Impulse provides information on current networking solutions used in agriculture and presents an alternative solution approach for digital applications in agriculture in the form of mobile cellular campus networks. It also addresses the issue of data sovereignty and highlights trends and opportunities for the secure processing and exchange of collected data.

whitepaper (German)
project website (German)

MAGPIE project receives nearly 25 million euros from EU funding along with 10 other projects

An international alliance of 45 companies, knowledge institutes and port authorities, headed by the Port of Rotterdam Authority, will be using this grant to execute 10 pilot projects and demonstration projects that focus on sustainable and smart logistics in port operations with the help of clean energy. The European Commission has made a budget available within the Horizon 2020 Green Deal program for research into opportunities to increase the sustainability of logistics operations in sea ports and airports, reserving approximately 25 million euros for this consortium. The results of the various pilot projects and studies will be shared with other European ports, knowledge institutes and companies.

One of the abovementioned 10 projects is the MAGPIE research project (sMArt Green Ports as Integrated Efficient multimodal hubs), which will run for five years. The goal of the project is to develop a master plan that describes how transport in, to and from ports can be made carbon-free by 2050, and to prepare the necessary steps to achieve this in the coming decades. The project is a collaboration between the port authorities of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, DeltaPort in Germany, HAROPA PORT in France, and Sines in Portugal in partnership with 10 research institutes and more than 30 companies from various countries.

press release

Safety on the road is one of the promises that autonomous driving must fulfill. In every driving situation. Not just on the highway or during parking. However, complex traffic developments, such as at an inner-city intersection with heavy mixed traffic, could overwhelm the detection capabilities of powerful vehicle sensors. A smart infrastructure should therefore actively support self-driving cars: with information and recommendations for action about the traffic situation from a bird's eye view. The Fraunhofer test intersection shows how this works.

PAPS-XR (“Public Accident Prevention School with eXtendedReality”) is the title of an innovative project with the aim of helping children to better detect dangerous traffic situations. Within the project, VR glasses are used to simulate the origins of traffic accidents. In a computer generated 3D environment, the children can assume the points of view of different parties, such as bike riders, pedestrians or car drivers, involved in specific accidents. This way, they can experience how different parties interact in a dangerous situation.

How can high-automation driving be made safe in the future? And which scenarios will drivers as well as highly and fully automated vehicles have to master so that tomorrow's traffic is less dangerous?

These and other questions were addressed during the past three years by a consortium made up of project partners form Saxony within the SePIA research and development project . The starting point for their investigations was the fact that as of yet there are no suitable and accepted testing concepts for the homologation and field testing (including regular technical service) of  vehicles equipped with functions for highly automated driving. Measures guaranteeing these functions' appropriate performance need to be undertaken during the entire development period and especially during the full lifecycles of automated vehicles.

It still takes significantly longer to charge the battery of an electric car than to fill fuel into the tank. This is due to not only charging stations or batteries, which have to be gently supplied with power, but the main reason is the interface between the car and the power grid, meaning  charging via cables and plugs. In order to achieve an approximate maximum current flow, the contact surfaces of the plug contacts must be pressed together as well as possible, but the contact points are never absolutely flat on a microscopic level. This results in resistances and thus strong heating, and a higher current flow is not possible.

The solution developed at Fraunhofer IVI is face contacts that use a significantly larger, defined contact area than classic plug connections. This connection allows the transmission of a multiple of the current with only slight heating. And because the system can initiate the charging process automatically, operators could offer a kind of drive-in refueling process in the future. In this case, a compact shaft system with a bollard is sunk about 80 cm into the ground of a filling station. The bollard lifts thanks to a small motor, then connects magnetically to the interface on the underbody of the vehicle and the current flows. With the help of this technology, the charging speed can be increased almost tenfold in the future. Installation for cars and trucks is also inexpensive and uncomplicated, making a comparable system with lower charging power conceivable in almost any garage at home in the future.

Long-distance freight transport on roads contributes significantly to the still growing CO2 emissions in the transport sector. The electrification of just a few vehicles would already have a major impact in this regard due to the high mileage of individual vehicles.

As part of the new eHaul project, the consortium headed by TU Berlin is now commissioning two electrified trucks that will then be used by two logistics companies in regular operation. In addition, a battery changing station is being set up in south Berlin which the freight forwarders can use for over a year as part of real-life delivery operations. The goal is a fully automated battery change. Together with IBAR Systemtechnik GmbH, Robert Bosch GmbH, Unitax Pharmalogistik GmbH and Urban Energy GmbH, Fraunhofer IVI is supporting the BMVI-funded project, which will run for three years until the end of September 2023.

Due to the steadily growing volume of passenger and freight traffic – especially in urban areas – the existing infrastructure is increasingly reaching the limits of its capacity. Autonomous and connected driving is considered a promising approach to optimizing the flow of traffic, but it raises safety-related issues due to the complexity and the variety of different road users. In the ALBACOPTER lighthouse project, six Fraunhofer institutes are therefore developing a scalable, flying experimental platform combining the VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) capability of a multicopter and the aerodynamic advantages of a glider, which is to be approved for test and demonstration flights.

Following successful validation of the system concept at economically viable scales, an innovation platform will be created for experimental testing of the aircraft concept. This project will provide Fraunhofer for the first time with an experimental aircraft that can be used not only to test a wide range of high-tech developments for urban air mobility, but also to present them to the public in an effective way.

The use of hydrogen enables emission-free mobility and is considered to be an essential element for the attainment of climate goals of the German federal government as well as crucial in the transition towards clean energy. ELO Mobility and the Fraunhofer IVI are jointly developing a new generation of revolutionary city buses with hydrogen drive technology. These new types of buses will consume significantly less hydrogen, so that the optimization potential in terms of range and operating costs will be significantly improved compared to currently available vehicle technologies. Support is thereby also provided by the partner company HyMove B. V. from the Netherlands. Using the findings from the project, the »Go4City« partners are planning to produce a new generation of high-performance hydrogen buses from the year 2022 on.

»Go4City« receives funding by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure within the National Innovation Programme Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology (NIP). 

• press release

Since there is still no consistent testing and certification process for additively manufactured components, a large proportion of the samples must be tested destructively. In order to simplify and accelerate the approval process for such components in aviation in the future, a self-learning, Big Data and AI-based platform for digital testing and certification processes is being developed in the CertiFlight project (»Consistent digital quality assurance chains for innovative approval processes using the example of additive manufacturing technologies«). The virtual kick-off meeting with all project partners took place on January 26.

In CertiFlight, the analysis of all process steps and the use of artificial intelligence methods are intended to identify the quality-relevant process parameters in order to subsequently certify not only a component, but the entire production process. The aim is to use the Fraunhofer AI to develop various modular data analysis components in order to analyze the data generated during this process in its entirety, and to be able to make statements regarding the quality of the additively manufactured components.

In the project, Fraunhofer IVI focuses on Big Data analysis based on parallelizable AI methods. The interdisciplinary consortium also includes two other scientific partners (TU Dresden and BTU Cottbus Senftenberg) as well as three industrial partners (IMA Materialforschung und Anwendungstechnik GmbH, Inquence GmbH and AM Metals GmbH). Thus, the entire value chain from the machine manufacturer to the licenser to the user is covered. With a planned duration of 51 months, the project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy is to be completed by the beginning of 2025.