Meet the Cognitive Manufacturing Lab
Who we are
Co-Authors: Thomas Bergs (WZL), Andreas Feuerhack (senseering), Christian Gülpen (Time), Sabine Janzen (DFKI), Wolfgang Maass (DFKI), Patrick Mattfeld (WZL), Philipp Niemietz (WZL), Frank Piller (Time) — alphabetical order
What this is
The Cognitive Manufacturing Lab (CML) is a research environment jointly supported by the Chair of Manufacturing Technologies at the Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering WZL of RWTH Aachen University and the organizational unit Smart Service Engineering of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence DFKI. In this research environment innovative concepts of AI-based production environments are investigated from the point of view of Production Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Distributed Ledger Technologies and Business Administration in simulated and productive environments.
What we aim for
The aim is to bring together broad-based, excellent researcher and industrial users under a common roof in order to advance breakthroughs in the application of artificial intelligence in production in an interdisciplinary and collaborative manner and to put them into practice via spin-offs. The CML should thus become an internationally leading driver of the digital transformation of the production industry with regard to industry 4.0 and beyond.
What we do
Our topics are flexible and market-driven. Nevertheless, they will be guided by the following pillars:
- Self-adaptive, modular production environments: Tools and production machines understand their environment and adapt to it
- Trust, security and efficiency through Edge AI in production environments: Data does not leave the production environment
- Resilience management of production environments and networks: Maximum quality under internal and external interference
- Marketplace for Trading Data Products (Economics & Technology): Internal and External Network Effects of Data Products
- Naturally immersive human-machine communication and collaboration: Self-explanatory tools are the wrench of the future
- Safe and intelligent production machines at all times
Who we are
Meet the Chair for Manufacturing Technology
Across the world and for many decades now the Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering WZL of RWTH Aachen University has stood for successful and forward-thinking research and innovation in the area of production engineering. In six different work areas, research activities not only relate to fundamental theories and findings but also to the application of findings in an industrial context. Furthermore, practical solutions are worked out for the purposes of rationalizing production. These activities are being intensified on the RWTH Aachen Campus in the Production Engineering Cluster. The Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering is headed by four professors: Thomas Bergs, Christian Brecher, Robert Schmitt and Günther Schuh.
The Chair of Manufacturing Technology under guidance of Professor Thomas Bergs researches new technologies, develops existing manufacturing processes and brings innovations into practice. We keep process reliability and robustness as well as economic factors in mind. This research area covers the fundamentals of manufacturing technology, process analyses, process monitoring, process modelling and simulation as well as environmentally sound technologies.
Meet the Smart Service Engineering of DFKI
The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) was founded in 1988 as a non-profit public-private partnership. It has research facilities in Kaiserslautern, Saarbrücken and Bremen, a project office in Berlin, a Laboratory in Niedersachsen and a branch office in St. Wendel. In the field of innovative commercial software technology using Artificial Intelligence, DFKI is the leading research center in Germany. Based on application oriented basic research, DFKI develops product functions, prototypes and patentable solutions in the field of information and communication technology. Research and development projects are conducted in nineteen research departments and research groups, eight competence centers and eight living labs.
Smart Service Engineering (SSE) guided by Professor Wolfgang Maaß investigates solutions for systematically designing and developing smart service systems at the interface between technical and economic issues. The research conducted by S2E includes:
- Strategy and development methods for Smart Services
- Edge AI and distributed machine learning
- Resilience Management in manufacturing
- Responsible AI and fairness in natural language dialog systems
Main research aspects are conceptual modeling and systematic development of smart services, application of semantic web technologies and the evolvement of technical smart service platforms.
