The AG WCM offers an application-oriented platform for companies striving for the targeted integration of wireless solutions in their machines, plants and production systems, as well as across the entire company. In a recent press conference, Dr. Reinhard Heister, managing director of the AG WCM, highlighted the number of members – 81 – which includes fortiss, the Research Institute of the Free State of Bavaria for Software-intensive Systems. This illustrated to Dr. Heister the major relevance of employing wireless communications connectivity in the mechanical engineering industry, in both stationary and mobile areas. Mechanical engineering is at the heart of Industry 4.0, where connectivity and interoperability form an increasing foundation. The utilization of industrial-scale wireless solutions in mechanical engineering thus offers new application and cooperation possibilities, such as with the research sector.
fortiss researcher Prof. Dr. Rute Sofia, who is coordinating the fortiss industrial IoT center of competence within the AG WCM, is currently working on an innovative wireless open source network solution for WiFi 6. This solution offers deterministic guarantees in mixed wireless/wired networks for better support of the time-sensitive data traffic in industrial IoT environments. The fortiss TSNWiFi project represents one example of the ongoing activities.
Beyond these concrete measures, fortiss wants to bring additional research results to the AG WCM through knowledge transfer by sharing experiences among the members of the group in order to generate new solutions in the mechanical engineering industry.
