Robotics and Manufacturing

There is increased consumer demand for customized, new, and innovative or continuously improved products, which is paving the way for collaborative robotics. This kind of production requires flexibility to cope with rapidly changing consumer preferences. We are working with our partners to develop interaction concepts for end users to customize robot operations.

To increase production and efficiency while lowering greenhouse gas emissions, energy-intensive sectors, including steel, aluminium, cement, and ceramics, rely on technical advancements in waste heat recovery, carbon capture, alternative process chemistries, and utilisation of high-energy processes. Despite the strategic viability, the processes currently in use are inefficient because the base structural materials can only tolerate a limited amount of damage from mechanisms like erosion, corrosion, surface oxidation, and hydrogen embrittlement.

This supports the need for the creation of novel resistant materials. TVS has worked with partners to create a set of highly protective coatings that are both affordable and effective. These coatings will be based on new compositionally complex materials (CCMs), including metal alloys (CCAs) and ceramics (CCCs), and will have the necessary hardness, chemical stability, and gas barrier properties for difficult applications.

Welding is a very classical industrial domain, with the first examples being made already around 6000 years ago. It is involved in almost any kind of industrial manufacturing and is forecasted to be worth over €25 billion by 2024. However, even for such a mature and well-established industrial domain, significant improvements can be achieved in terms of costs, efficiency, environmental impact, and innovation capability. We have developed a highly visible and transparent digital B2B online knowledge base platform that connects end-users with equipment & consumables manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, and technology and service providers.

The architecture will be such that the platform can be used and/or easily transferred to many different industrial equipment domains, i.e., it is scalable and adaptable. The platform will suggest the consumer about specific products, i.e., power source, filler materials, electrodes, shielding gas, safety products etc., utilising the welding recommendation tool and direct them towards the appropriate product catalogue. Different tools, e.g., LCA, cost assessment, etc., will also help the users make the best decision. Knowledgeable users can also directly access the product listings. The users can also procure different welding related services hosted by the platform e.g., different types of computation and simulation, certification, testing etc., through different service providers.