Industrial automation giant Festo has been displaying some of its ongoing research pro- jects and its latest automation develop- ments and products at the Hanover industrial fair from April 7 to 11, as part of its Integrated Automation – The Next Steps theme.

The research projects and products include superconductor magnetic levitation that can be used in ultraclean manufacturing, smarter factory communication, equipment and components, as well as biomimicry and biomechanics projects to improve energy conservation and efficiency, besides others.

Festo education solutions for integrated automation MD Dr Theo Niehaus explains that integrated automation is a key theme and is part of the steps towards industry 4.0, which will result in factories mass-producing individually customised products and parts, enabled by intelligent and adaptable automation and machines.

Another key topic is intelligent networking in factories that improves the flexibility and adaptability of the production process and the machines at each stage of the production process. This will also result in communication moving from bus communication systems to real-time condition-state communication.

The push to improve communication speed while reducing the amount of data that needs to be transferred can benefit from significant insight from studies of biological systems and communities, which function effectively without significant volumes of communication, says Festo corporate head of research Dr Heinrich Frontzek.

“This may include that each component transmits its state and adapts to changes in the conditions of the process and the states of other machines to make the manufacturing process robust and flexible. This will be achieved through several self-sufficient, but complementary, developments by Festo,” says Festo South Africa engineering manager Russell Schwulst.

Incorporating manufacturing condition information into each component being manufactured as it moves along the production chain is one of the ideas, which will enable each machine to adapt itself to the part being manufactured, ensuring mass customisation of parts and robust processes, he notes.

The path Festo has traced, from current indus- trial automation trends and equipment to the integrated and intelligent automated manu-facturing that it forecasts, includes continuing the merging of physical and virtual control systems to create an intelligent, adaptable cyber - manufacturing process that can manage chang-ing process conditions.

Some of the components Festo supplies to customers are already smart capable, such as the CPX integrated electric and pneumatic valve system, says Schwulst.

Further, Festo is also demonstrating its efforts to create a contactless mobile manufacturing surface, which is magnetically levitated using superconductors, which, unlike electromagnets, can be imprinted with a permanent magnetic signature, rather than an induced one such as that of electromagnets. This enables these mobile platforms to be turned at any angle during the manufacturing process, which holds exciting potential benefits for fine-tolerance, automated manufacturing, says Festo strategic corporate development head Georg Berner.

Last year, Festo demonstrated its Bionicopter – a four-winged hovering robot modelled on the dragonfly, which can hover or move backwards or forwards at the same speeds using a counter- beating pairs of wings. This year, it is demon-strating its bionic kangaroo model

“The kangaroo is a very interesting model, owing to the efficiency with which it can move and its storage and recovery of vertical motion when jumping. We use such studies to test mechanical principles and explore their applications in industry,” concludes Frontzek.