Artificial intelligence offers considerable opportunities for industrial production. Nevertheless, AI technologies are often perceived as being abstract, complex, or hard to apply at many companies – and particularly at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). As a result of this uncertainty, available potential often goes unused. This is where our demo production facility in Dresden comes in. As a practical research environment, it allows researchers to analyze and assess AI-based and digital production technologies across a real-world production process and observe how they interact. As well as making technologies easier to understand, the aim is to explore and evaluate their potential applications by working hand-in-hand with companies.

The environment currently centers around five key stations:

• Smart sensor technology & edge AI
  Condition monitoring of systems improves reliability and can reduce maintenance costs.
• Optical quality control
  AI-assisted image processing identifies defects at an early stage and helps reduce rejects.
• Robotic assembly
  Flexible automation with robots from various manufacturers paves the way for adaptable production processes.
• Robust wireless communication
  AI-based analyses identify faults and help recognize causes of communication failures.
• Digital twin
  Production data is interconnected and harnessed to gain a better understanding of processes and to optimize them.

The demo production environment is designed as an open platform for research and exchange. Companies can present questions arising from their own production, jointly explore and evaluate technologies, and expand on new approaches. This allows them to set out potential applications of AI in more tangible terms and break down potential obstacles to innovation.