FESTO System Laboratory
On June 20th 2012, the Festo System Laboratory was established at the Automation and Control Institute (ACIN), TU Wien. The shareholder family Stoll initiated and funded the laboratory that is devoted to long-term issues of basic research and applied research. With this, ACIN and Festo AG strengthen their successful long-term cooperation in the field of industrial image processing and decentralized automation.
3D gantry robot, built from FESTO system components
For over 60 years, the Festo brand stands for competence in the factory and process automation. Festo is a leading supplier of pneumatic and electrical automation technology and offers central and distributed automation concepts for production, transport, treatment and disposal of gases, fluids, pasty materials or goods.
With the deepening of the partnership between Festo AG and ACIN, the research topics are expanded in the field of optical measurement technology with intelligent cameras, and mathematical modeling, analysis and optimal control of electro-pneumatic components and systems. Thus, in an interdisciplinary approach, innovative, sustainable and resource-saving concepts and system solutions for the production automation are going to be developed.
Specifically, in the research field of optical measurement technology more accurate and faster measurement methods are developed, which allow a quantitative material characterization and automated manipulation of industrial goods. Powerful model-based control concepts are applied in the area of flexible handling of deformable materials. Furthermore, new control concepts for servo-pneumatic linear actuators using low-cost, fast-switching, electromagnetic valves are designed. The optimal control for accurate point-to-point movement of pneumatic piston actuators by using only low-cost discrete distance measurements represents another focus of our research. Moreover, so-called soft landing strategies for electromagnetic valves are developed to increase the lifetime and to minimize noise.
The objective of the partnership is to transfer the results of basic research at the university to the industry and to further increase the competitiveness of Festo in factory and process automation.
Partner
Related Projects at the institute
Automated Handling of Highly Deformable Materials
Soft Landing strategies for electromagnetic fast-switching valves
Component-based Design of Industrial Control Applications Utilizing Formal Methods