Factory of the Future (FOF)

Factory of the Future is an inter-institutional project of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Its goal is the digital transformation of robot-supported production processes in the context of Industry 4.0.

Duration:	2018-01-01 to 2021-12-31
Project partners:	• Institute of Structures and Design • Institute of Data Science • Institute of Vehicle Concepts • Institute of Composite Structures and Adaptive Systems • Institute of Optical Sensor Systems • Institute of System Dynamics and Control • Institute of Transport Research • Institute of Materials Research • Center for Lightweight Production Technology
Website:	factory-of-the-future.dlr.de
Fields of application:	• Customised mass production • Intuitive and safe human-robot-collaboration • Autonomous assembly planning and autonomously reconfigurable robot work cells • Short planning and learning times • Highly flexible mobile robotic systems • Virtual factory environment – digital twin • Additive manufacturing • Digital factory and intelligent factory assistant for digitally assisted production planning

Project details

In the Factory of the Future (FoF) project, the initiative of the DLR is pursuing a comprehensive strategy by investigating future technologies and approaches from research on artificial intelligence and cooperative robots. Its goal is the digital transformation of robot-supported production processes in the context of Industry 4.0. This makes the Factory of the Future a pioneer: The application of state-of-the-art research methods from aerospace enables production processes to be simplified and optimised. Our various robotic systems and applications make it possible to meet the requirements of the future with clear concepts and solution approaches:

Customised mass production, the production of small batch sizes, short planning and learning times, intuitive programming and safe human-robot-collaboration are just a few of the areas on which we are working across ten DLR institutes.