Festo TechTalk: Energy efficiency thanks to smart products
This year, the Hannover Messe will be launched as a virtual trade fair under the motto "Industrial Transformation" – with the main topics of digitalisation, individualization, climate protection and demography. In our Festo TechTalk, four experts from Festo are giving answers how we support our customers in this transformation. In focus: smart products that help companies to produce energy-efficiently, educational measures that empower employees for lifelong learning as well as for the digital working world and, of course, our Bionic Projects 2020. Our Festo TechTalk is available from today on – exclusively for journalists until 5th of July: www.festo.com/opc.
This year's speakers are Dr Frank Melzer, Member of the Management Board Product and Technology Management, Dr Hans-Jörg Stotz, Member of the Management Board Festo Didactic SE, Karoline von Häfen, Head of Bionic Projects, and Marcus Stemler, Product Manager of Festo Motion Terminal.
Digitalisation helps to save energy
Dr Frank Melzer answers in our TechTalk how that works. He explains how we collect, visualize and evaluate data thanks to smart products. "Only those who have process transparency will be able to carry out optimisations in terms of energy efficiency," he emphasizes. Marcus Stemler has a concrete example: he explains how the Festo Motion Terminal, Festo's digital valve terminal, helps customers to reduce their energy consumption. Look forward to a live demonstration: how much savings potential can be realized with little effort? Dr Frank Melzer: "What’s the most energy efficient solution depends on the application. Festo offers pneumatic, electrical and combined solutions".
Know-how is the key to success
The smart products of Industrie 4.0 can only develop their full potential if the employees – also in the plants of our customers – are trained to apply them professionally. Dr Hans-Jörg Stotz explains the approach of Festo Didactic SE. He also has a few examples of digital educational measures in the field of energy efficiency: "With our CP Factory, we reproduce a real Industries 4.0 production environment – apprentices, students and employees can learn in a practical way here". Festo Didactic SE even offers learning material for primary school children: "With our Bionics4Education learning construction kit, we are already getting even the youngest children worldwide excited about technical topics – I'm presenting the Bionic Flower for the first time in TechTalk," he explains.
Bionic Learning Network: Autonomous and self-sufficient assistance system
Karoline von Häfen presents the BionicMobileAssistant, which moves autonomously in space and can independently recognise objects, grasp them adaptively and work on them together with humans. The processing of the acquired information is performed by a neural network that has been trained in advance using data augmentation. The mobile assistance system is modular and consists of three subsystems: a ballbot, an electric robot arm and the BionicSoftHand 2.0 – a pneumatic gripper inspired by the human hand. The animal kingdom served as a source of inspiration as well: as a second project, she is presenting the BionicSwift, an artificial bird that can fly as a flock in a defined airspace using a radio-based indoor GPS.
www.festo.com/opk German session
www.festo.com/opc English session
From 6th of July 2020, the recording will be publicly available in social media as well as at the Festo Virtual Exhibition: 15th – 16th of July 2020.
Festo is a global player and an independent family-owned company with headquarters in Esslingen am Neckar, Germany. Festo has set standards in industrial automation technology and technical education ever since its establishment, thereby making a contribution to sustainable development of the environment, the economy and society. The company supplies pneumatic and electrical automation technology to 300,000 customers of factory and process automation in over 35 industries. Digitalization, AI and the LifeTech sector with medical technology and laboratory automation are becoming increasingly important. The products and services are available in 176 countries. With about 20,600 employees in over 250 branch offices in around 60 countries worldwide, Festo achieved a turnover of around €3.65 billion in 2023. Each year around 7% of this turnover is invested in research and development. In this learning company, 1.5 % of turnover is invested in basic and further training. Festo Didactic SE is a leading provider of technical education and training and offers its customers worldwide comprehensive digital and physical learning solutions in the industrial environment.
