On Thursday 28 April 2022, on the occasion of the grand opening of the Testbed for Industry 4.0 at CIIRC CTU, two memoranda of understanding were signed, which pave the way for the further development of a European network of testbeds interconnected within RICAIP. The cooperation was thus confirmed with the University of Mining – Technical University of Ostrava (VŠB-TUO) and with the German institute Fraunhofer IWU. On behalf of the RICAIP Centre, the documents were signed by Dr. Tilman Becker, its director.
The RICAIP Centre connects functionally and institutionally testbeds at the CIIRC CTU in Prague with testbeds in Brno at CEITEC BUT and in Saarbrücken, Germany, which is jointly managed by two leading German research institutes DFKI and ZeMA. Together with these partners, we are thus laying the foundations for a robust European research infrastructure for industrial artificial intelligence and robotics, the only one of its kind in Europe. This is gradually expanding with the addition of the Fraunhofer Institute IWU and the FEI CPIT TL3 Smart Factory testbed being built at VŠB-TUO in Ostrava.
„Deepening cooperation with CTU and our involvement in the joint efforts of CIIRC CTU and RICAIP is a logical outcome of several years of cooperation, which we successfully implement mainly with teams from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering CTU,“ explains Professor Steffen Ihlenfeldt, Director of Frauenhofer IWU.
Fraunhofer IWU also has one of its technical branches in Dresden, where they specialize in research in the areas of additive manufacturing, mechanical and medical engineering on an area of 1,000 m2.
“Our cooperation with RICAIP and CIIRC CTU is not new, as evidenced by the recently submitted joint project for the development of large research infrastructure, which envisages connecting our CPIT TL3 testbed in Ostrava with both RICAIP testbeds in Prague at CIIRC CTU and in Brno at CEITEC VUT. We have also been cooperating with the Fraunhofer IWU for several years on projects, especially in the field of energy management technologies and smart industrial production. It is therefore symbolic that we all met today and officially confirmed these ties,” points out Prof. Václav Snášel, Rector of the VŠB-TUO – Technical University Ostrava.
„We are very pleased that these two institutions are joining the network of our collaborating partners, thus opening up the possibility of further expanding the RICAIP Industrial Testbed Core concept,“ concluded Dr. Tilman Becker, Director of RICAIP.
Complete Photogallery – Visit the CTU website.
