Press Releases

Saarland’s Minister President Tobias Hans and the President of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Prof. Reimund Neugebauer, signed an agreement today to establish the Fraunhofer Center for Sensor Intelligence. It will address the entire innovation chain in the pioneering field of intelligent sensor technology, bring together core areas of expertise from the regional research landscape and develop them further. The center will be housed in a new building on the campus of Saarland University as part of a joint project between the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering IBMT and the Fraunhofer Institute for Nondestructive Testing IZFP. Please read more ...

Good things come to those who wait, as the saying goes. But wait no more! Shorter product development timeframes not only save time and money, but also improve competitiveness. This can be achieved with faster and more efficient testing processes. Fatigue tests [Ermüdungsversuche (EF)] on completed aircraft take up a significant portion of the time spent on aircraft development and certification. The aim is to reduce the time between the start of the project and certification from around eight years down to five. The ”F-REE” (Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft RapidEF Enablers) project is working to develop and optimize innovative AI processes for use in industrial environments. Its main focus is on accelerating and significantly improving the reliability of testing processes. Doing so will also circumvent the time-intensive process of manually interpreting recorded data. Please read more ...

In the attendance of numerous high-ranking guests, the 50th anniversary of Fraunhofer IZFP was celebrated with a large ceremony in the auditorium of Saarland University. Around 130 guests from politics, business, industry and research accepted the invitation. Please read more ...

In a joint appointment process between the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and Saarland University, Bernd Valeske was selected for a dual role: After his recent appointment as the executive director of Fraunhofer IZFP in Saarbrücken, he has now also been awarded the professorship for cognitive sensor systems at the university. Both measures are intended to strengthen collaboration between both institutions and to advance joint projects in engineering sciences. Please read more ...

Time-consuming destructive inspection processes for quality assurance result in huge costs due to damage or destruction of the products. Process deviations that are detected too late can lead to a considerable amount of scrap. Furthermore, clear identification and complete traceability of each object at any time during processing enables the optimization of product quality and resource efficiency, thus being essential prerequisites for the development of self-organizing value chains (I4.0). Fraunhofer IZFP experts will present solutions to both problems at EuroBLECH in Hannover from October 25 to 28, 2022 (Hall 27, Booth E8). Please read more ...

No wall is too steep for them, they walk upside down on ceilings, their fine-haired feet stick better than any professional glue without leaving any traces, and they defy gravity: the feet of geckos! They are of equal interest to researchers in materials science and in AI research. This effect of the gecko's feet is now to be exploited in the joint project “GecKI“ to develop energy-efficient, auto-adaptive and product-independent adhesive pads for robotic gripping systems. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding “GecKI“ with approx. 1.5 million euros. Please read more ...

The German Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture (BMEL) is supporting the SmartPigHome project with 1.6 million euros as part of the Federal Program for Livestock Husbandry. The joint project involves the development of an interactive game system focused on animal welfare, creating a smart barn environment for pigs and optimizing it as the “mood in the barn” changes.

With the SmartPigHome joint project, the consortium is developing an interactive game system focused on animal welfare. The system will analyze the barn environment and then provide digital activities for the pigs. The process will take into account environmental factors such as air quality, temperature and light levels, and sensors installed in the barn will also monitor animal activity, noise and lying patterns. AI-based algorithms trained by vets and farmers are used to connect and interpret the data, forming the basis to actively manage an interactive barn environment. Please read more ...

They are unassuming and can thus almost be overlooked - but in the future they can possibly be used thousands of times in Germany to save human lives. We are talking about intelligent sensors for monitoring wall anchors, which have now been installed in Große Straße in Osnabrück, Germany.

The small gray boxes have now been mounted on the L&T building in Grosse Strasse and finally connected to the wire rope that holds the street lighting in Osnabrück's pedestrian zone, both with the help of a hydraulic lift. The special nature of the boxes can only be seen inside them: A novel sensor system continuously records data on loads and movements of the anchors, transmitting it via the LoRaWAN radio network of the public utility. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Nondestructive Testing IZFP can read this data and determine whether the anchors are still safe. If not, an automatic message is generated. Please read more ...

A sustainable society with climate-neutral processes requires significant adjustments in the value chains, which are only possible through innovations. Seven Fraunhofer Institutes are pooling their expertise in the lighthouse project “Waste4Future“ to develop new solutions for this goal, from the raw material base to material flows and process engineering right to the end of a product's life cycle. In particular, they want to increase energy and resource efficiency in the use of plastics and thus pave the way for a chemical industry that requires fewer fossil raw materials and produces fewer emissions. Please read more ...

Parents-to-be are familiar with them – ultrasound images of their unborn child: Pin sharp and brilliant, they convey an almost photo-realistic level of detail and a deep impression of the child in the womb. The Fraunhofer Institute for Nondestructive Testing IZFP is researching and developing a technology to bring this kind of vivid images to industrial applications: As part of a project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), scientists of the research institute in Saarbrücken have started to develop a novel imaging method that will generate vivid images of microstructural changes and stress distributions in real time. This technology will provide significant information on the load capacity and lifetime of steel components in a completely new way. Please read more ...

The Ilmenau University of Technology is intensifying its research efforts in order to master the rapidly growing amount of data in the course of digitization. The novel idea for ”intelligent” sensors: Record required data for the respective work process at an early stage and thus reduce the quantity to be processed. In order to achieve the ambitious research objectives, TU Ilmenau is planning a new professorship in collaboration with the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, which in turn will intensify the activities of its established research group SigMaSense. The Free State of Thuringia is supporting these activities this year with 150,000 euros. On 21 October 2019, Thuringia's Science Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee at TU Ilmenau also announced further support for the expansion of the research group and its establishment as a branch office of the Fraunhofer Institute for Nondestructive Testing IZFP in Saarbrücken with a total of up to 2.4 million euros from 2021. Please read more ...

Within the framework of a project funded by the ”Arbeitsgemeinschaft industrieller Forschungsvereinigungen” AiF (”Consortium of Industrial Research Associations”), Fraunhofer IZFP scientists investigate the reliability of the automated application of the thermographic crack detection method: After positive validation, this technology is to find better acceptance as an alternative to the established magnetic particle inspection. Using this method, surface-related defects such as cracks in forged parts can be determined quickly, objectively and in a resource-saving manner while the results can be stored and documented in detail. This study is intended to confirm the increased inspection reliability compared to current standard procedures. The resulting optimized economic efficiency of this new procedure will significantly contribute to the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Please read more ...

Within the framework of quality monitoring of lightweight construction components intelligent sensor systems become crucial: In many industries, especially in aerospace engineering and automotive industry, the use of forward-looking hybrid designs based on fiber composites and light metals is steadily rising. Material defects in the final product may result in early malfunction, thus, impairing the safe use of the product. From 25-29 June 2019, at the 14th International Foundry Trade Fair in Düsseldorf, Fraunhofer IZFP scientists will introduce a robot-assisted sensor system for the nondestructive inspection of hybrid cast components, which can easily be integrated into the quality monitoring of production processes (hall 13, booth A34).
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Current developments in the field of industry 4.0 such as the digitalization of production plants and processes provide massive new challenges to nondestructive inspection technologies. Fraunhofer IZFP scientists in Saarbrücken have developed a novel eddy current platform, which is able to operate currently necessary interfaces. As a consequence, the platform can easily be integrated into digitization concepts. As part of a multimodal electronics series, experts from this Saarland research institute present the inspECT-PRO eddy current platform at the 33rd Control in Stuttgart from 7 to 10 May 2019 (hall 6, booth 6301). Please read more ...

Researchers of the Fraunhofer Institute for Nondestructive Testing IZFP in Saarbrücken have developed a sensor system that can detect failures or imperfections in systems and machines quickly and reliably by means of an acoustic noise assessment similar to human hearing. The "hearing" sensor system AcoustiX has already been successfully deployed by John Deere, the American global market leader in the fields of agricultural engineering, to inspect the cutting units of combine harvesters. Please read more ...

In many industrial sectors, material defects in the final product can lead to premature failure and impair their safe use. Intelligent, nondestructive sensor systems play a key role in quality assurance: without damaging the material itself or changing the surface, components or parts can be inspected quickly and cost-effectively during the production process. From 23 to 26 October 2018, experts from Fraunhofer IZFP will present a robot-assisted sensor system providing quality monitoring as integral element of production processes at EuroBLECH in Hanover (hall 11, booth A25). Please read more ...

Notably car drivers are affected: Long traffic jams or reroutings due to protracted restoration works on bridges – frequently even being on too late as some of the bridges yet are in danger of collapse and thus being – in the worst case – subject of demolition. But why not intervening and sanifying at an early state? That’s what engineers of Fraunhofer IZFP have thought about and, as a result, developed an intelligent, modular monitoring platform as a fast and cost-effective corrective to-be. Please read more ...

Safety-critical threaded connections in the energy generation sector, e.g., for wind turbines, on drilling platforms, or in industrial plants pose the highest requirements for reliable and precise status monitoring. Scientists from the Fraunhofer IZFP and the Institut für Werkstoffkunde (IfW) are currently developing a standardized, cross-industry method whose use is expected to significantly improve the inspection of screws installed in the field.  Please read more ...

Collaborating and networking - this is the contemporary response to the technological and scientific challenges of our times, which are becoming ever more complex. This is the reason why the Fraunhofer Institutes for Nondestructive Testing IZFP, for Mechanics of Materials IWM, and for Structural Durability and System Reliability LBF are now bundling their competences. It will allow them to provide a comprehensive portfolio for holistic material characterization of plastics and fiber composites for component design. The collaboration comprises both the scientific approach and the industrial application of the solutions found. The advantage of such networking: clients will be provided with a combined, validated concept for their design and measuring methods instead of getting individual components. In their new collaboration, the three institutes will welcome cooperation with partners with whom they can work on challenging scientific issues in joint projects. Please read more ...