Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems IVIIntroduction
Automation has been an ongoing mega-trend in literally all industry domains for decades – the motivations for use are always similar: improving efficiency, safety, quality and scale. Starting in well-defined environments, automation has expanded to increasingly complex applications and environments. Currently, it is used for mobile machines in agriculture, mining and factory yards. This trend toward automating mobile machines will continue for decades. More and more use cases will be covered as algorithms, sensors, communication, actuation, control, safety and regulations are improved step by step. In many cases, disconnected or isolated robots and mobile machines are only half the job – you also must operate them efficiently. This is where our technologies come into play.