Dürr hosted the kick-off event of the RoX federal research project, aiming to establish a digital ecosystem for AI-based robotics.
The German engineering company Dürr Systems AG has recently announced its participation in the RoX research project, aiming to provide the German industry with its own Artificial Intelligence infrastructure for robotic systems across multiple sectors and consequently establish a digital ecosystem for AI-based robotics.
As a matter of fact, a cloud-based ecosystem will enhance efficiency in manufacturing and development while ensuring greater independence and data sovereignty compared to international competitors. Around thirty companies and research institutes are collaborating in a consortium to develop practical solutions over the next two and a half years. The parties have already identified several use-cases for collaborative development.
The kick-off event was held at the headquarters of Dürr in Bietigheim-Bissingen, welcoming 100 representatives from leading companies in the automotive, chemical, pharmaceutical and aerospace sectors, as well as industry associations and research institutions. The participants introduced the sub-projects, formed working groups and outlined the initial work packages with the respective timelines. The German company is also contributing by working on an intelligent tool to improve and accelerate the development of the painting and coating processes, from the initial planning phases to the commissioning.
The working group of Dürr is in fact configuring an AI tool to assist developers with planning decisions and take on other tasks independently during commissioning. For example, in the future, AI could optimise path programming autonomously, increasing efficiency.
“When configuring a robot cell, developers must make critical decisions early in the development process. The number, space requirements and motion sequences of the robots used, the resulting layout of the system, the assignment of tasks and the possible painting programmes: all of this has to be defined in order to ultimately achieve the required cycle time,” has stated Florian Jaensch, who is responsible for the RoX project at Dürr.
The RoX research project
The RoX federal research project is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection through DARP funds – based on a resolution of the German Bundestag – and also financed by the European Union under NextGenerationEU.
The foundation for the initiative is a knowledge database that consolidates expert and process know-how, enabling AI to use it effectively: by drawing on data and specifications from the knowledge database – including concepts from earlier projects – the AI can generate initial suggestions, such as suitable robot types or layouts, up to the fully configured robot cell with associated process parameters.
The project aims to create tools that might allow developers in industrial manufacturing to primarily define requirements, which AI will then use to automatically generate solution proposals, similar to how large language models like ChatGPT operate today.