Technologies on Display – A Sneak Preview
Published on : Friday 13-03-2020
Product innovations at Hannover Messe 2020 – 40 companies were part of the Preview meet, offering glimpses of what they have to offer.
At the Hannover Messe 2020 Preview, 40 companies offered a sneak preview of what they are going to bring to the fairgrounds in April. With the theme of Industrial Transformation, digitalisation is going to be the dominant factor, what with the need for reliable data storage and analytics. The 5G testbed infrastructure that premiered last year returns this year in two halls – Halls 3 and 21 – with real industrial examples of networked machines from select exhibitors working with 5G.
Huawei will exhibit under the theme ‘Connecting AI & Gears’ together with its industrial partners, showcasing the latest innovative products and solutions based on disruptive technologies such as 5G, Wi-Fi 6, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), All- flash Storage, edge and cloud computing in order to ride on the current industry mega trends of digitalisation, individualisation and de-carbonisation. According to Huawei's Global Industry Vision 2025, 97% of large enterprises will adopt AI by 2025, with most AI-related applications and technologies expected to revolve around the use of all-digital technologies and intelligent manufacturing systems in Smart Factories. “Huawei enables enterprises to unleash the full added value of ICT technologies to achieve new levels of efficiency, agility, flexibility and cost savings to compete within the fourth industrial revolution. 228 of the Fortune Global 500 companies have chosen Huawei as their digital transformation partner,” says Dr Cesim Demir, CTO of Huawei Manufacturing & Automotive Solutions.
Engineering and industrial software specialist AVEVA, now part of Schneider Electric, will launch its recently unveiled new Discrete Lean Management software to support digital transformation in the discrete manufacturing market. The new offering improves operational efficiency through the digitalisation of lean work management for both manual and automated production lines, effectively helping companies eliminate paper work. The quick- to-deploy and easy-to-use digital tools enable access to production information, KPIs and notifications on dashboards. What is more, the solution is already in use at Schneider Electric’s manufacturing plants, having been successfully deployed in more than 70 smart factories globally resulting a 10% productivity increase due to downtime mitigation and 70% improved response-time due to automated escalation of production issues.
Ziehl-Abegg, one of the world’s leading companies in the field of ventilation, control and drive technology, produces a range of axial and centrifugal fans inspired by nature – bees, whales and owls. These fans designed with bionic insights from nature are offer incredibly efficient flow characteristics, larger air volumes and drastically reduced noise development than in comparable fans. The company has participated in a German Indonesian project for rural development and to avoid food waste, developing a solar-powered machine for the production of ice blocks for the benefit of Indonesia’s small-scale fishermen in disadvantaged regions. While the development began in 2016 and the pilot plant started up successfully in 2018, the first commercial unit will go into operation in Indonesia later this year.
Festo is another company making use of bionic concepts. The company will show its pneumatic robot hand, BionicSoftHand, which could be used for pneumatic lightweight robots. Festo is also focusing on transferring its core competence of factory automation to the AI-supported, digitalised production of tomorrow. Today, algorithms analyse the data from machinery and provide forecasts of failures or prevent them from occurring. Tomorrow, algorithms will monitor, control, navigate, supervise and regulate value flows in a complex network. While they will not replace decisions by humans, they will support them in their decision-making. The company also offers a growing range of digital solutions, making it easy for machine and plant manufacturers as well as machine operators to get started in the digital world.
Motion plastics and energy chain specialist igus will show visitors the next generation of robolink drive elements. In order to generate accurate movement along the 5th robot axis, igus has developed new types of strain wave gears based on its tribo-polymer technology. Due to the use of lubrication-free high-performance polymers, they are not only extremely compact and light but also require very little maintenance and have an especially long service life. Like igus worm gears and planetary gears, strain wave gears are also part of the igus Low Cost Automation product range, which can be used by small and medium-sized enterprises for pick-and-place tasks.
Emerson Automation Solutions will be offering valve technologies, intelligent gateways and automation platforms designed to help manufacturers digitally transform their pneumatic and fluid control operations with ease. Smart pneumatic systems can gather high levels of diagnostic data, not only about their own functionality, but about the components connected to them – particularly when it comes to wear and energy. The AVENTICS Smart Pneumatics Monitor (SPM) provides condition monitoring and energy analysis of pneumatic systems – all without machine control. The AVENTICS AF2 Series Flow Sensor monitors air consumption in pneumatic systems – helping operators take fast action in case leaks are detected. The ASCO G3 Electronic Fieldbus Platform integrates communication interfaces and I/O capabilities into pneumatic valve manifolds – allowing the PLC to more efficiently turn valves on and off, as well as channel data from sensors, relays and other I/O devices.
On the intralogistics front, STILL, with 100 years of experience in intralogistics and electric vehicles as well as 30 years of automation will showcase the iGo Pilot navigation system which automatically directs the vehicle to a previously entered destination or a destination transferred from the warehouse management system as soon as the drive lever is activated. The system is especially useful in narrow aisle warehouses up to storage heights of 18 metres. For maximum productivity, the narrow-aisle truck is automatically navigated to the desired pallet via the ideal route.
AutoStore will present the future of retail through its micro-fulfilment solution, where retailers can operate an extremely efficient eCommerce sales channel including 24/7 Click & Collect service in parallel to a customer-oriented shop. The modular, highly-automated eCommerce fulfilment system is compact enough to be placed almost anywhere in-store, and can consolidate eCommerce orders in less than 10 minutes, and put them back in the system for customers to collect at any time. AutoStore consists of a three-dimensional aluminium grid system of self-supporting bins that are moved to pick stations by independently- operating robots, providing swift and accurate movement of orders.
With over 5500 exhibitors, Hannover Messe 2020 scheduled for April 20-24 at the Hannover Fairgrounds, Germany, is the biggest technology show in the world, offering solutions to the industry for digitalisation, individualisation and decarbonisation.
For more technologies from the Preview, log on to www.industrialautomationindia.in/news