Highly flexible and modular production plants with decentralised automation enable the process industry to react to fluctuations in demand. This is the case in water treatment, in the pharmaceutical, fine chemical and food industries and also in energy generation. Decentralised controllers from Festo are perfect for this. Festo developed the PA-Toolkit for programming these controllers to enable simple application engineering in line with the ...

The growing pace of technological change, political disputes over trade relations and increasingly dismal prospects for the global economy are putting the manufacturing industry under pressure. The corona pandemic was and is a particular challenge, too. How can we succeed in not simply going with the flow but playing an active role in this complex scenario, especially as a medium-sized family company?

Digitalization influences all areas of life. Not only the working environment is changing fundamentally, but also the way people learn. Learning trends such as mobile learning, micro learning, gamification, adaptive learning and virtual reality are also shaping technical education and training.  For this reason, Festo Didactic has developed a digital learning portal; the Festo Learning Experience, in order to be prepared for the future of learning ...

  Festo Didactic presents a new product for the bionics didactic concept of Bionics4Education. What is new: the orientation towards the maker movement approach and the 4Cs. The aim is inspiring learners, finding new ways and solutions, dealing creatively with provided materials, and sharing these experiences with others to prepare them for the digital world of tomorrow.

Thanks to radio-based indoor GPS with ultra-wideband technology (UWB) the BionicSwifts can fly safely and in a coordinated pattern in a defined airspace. To execute these flight manoeuvres as true to life as possible, the wings are modelled on the plumage of real birds. The agility of the artificial birds is not just due to their lightweight design and aerodynamic kinematics, but also to the use of function integration.

Industrial change demands a new kind of interaction between people, machines and data. In the future, operators and robots will work ever more closely together. This is why Festo has been working intensively on systems which, for example, can relieve people of monotonous or hazardous activities while at the same time posing no risk. Artificial intelligence plays a central role here. The BionicMobileAssistant is a prototype of a robot system that moves ...

What can nature teach us about lightweight structures, adaptive control and collaborative working? The “BionicSwift”, the latest bionic concept from Festo, demonstrates what is possible within robotics.

The Festo Motion Terminal VTEM combines digitalisation and pneumatics. Quickly activated Motion Apps are revolutionising pneumatics by increasing flexibility and energy efficiency, and accelerating production processes. This also benefits electronics manufacturing, as demonstrated by the use of the automation platform VTEM in wafer handling.

Protective masks have been in short supply in these times of coronavirus. An innovative containerised production facility that enables businesses and healthcare organisations to produce their own masks to order could solve the problem. Developed in just six weeks by Mikron with engineering support from Festo, the mini factory uses a scalable system that can produce 50-100 face masks per minute.

Leading industrial companies from the automotive, pharmaceutical and food industries have clear CO2 targets for their products. These require machine builders to make significant energy savings in new machine generations compared with previous machines. This is precisely why Festo offers an unrivalled solution in the global compressed air system market with its energy efficiency module MSE6-C2M.

Protective masks are in short supply in these times of coronavirus so why not just produce some yourself?! With a system from Mikron, this is almost within everyone’s reach. This scalable system produces 50-100 face masks per minute, depending on the version. With engineering support from Festo, Mikron managed to develop the system in just six weeks.

Walking and rolling like the flic-flac spider – the BionicWheelBot moves along the ground in astounding ways. Together with the team headed by the discoverer of the spider, Professor Ingo Rechenberg, Festo has taken a very close look at these unique forms of locomotion and has technically realised them. But no magnifying glass was needed for the flying fox: the BionicFlyingFox is an imposing figure with its wingspan of 2.28 metres and its partly ...

With the maintenance software Smartenance, Festo has ushered machine and system maintenance into the digital era. Maintenance teams no longer need paper and pen, and long communication channels are a thing of the past. Festo now offers the software Smartenance with more functions and new licence packages.

A new developer kit from Festo enables system designers and machine builders to familiarise themselves with the functions and application possibilities of the company’s CMMT servo drives.

Compact design for 30% shorter cycle times and 50% less vibration – those are the most important characteristics of the cantilever axis with toothed belt ELCC-TB from Festo. The axis fits in seamlessly with Festo's concept of complete connectivity for its electric automation technology.

Gripping workpieces just as a chameleon's tongue grips insects – that is the operating principle of the adaptive shape gripper DHEF from Festo. This unusual gripper can pick up, gather and set back down again objects of many different shapes without the need for manual adjustment.