OPTIMUM-project wins „Exceptional ITEA Award of Excellence“ in three categories

Award for innovation, impact on market and standardisation

The research project OPTIMUM (OPTimised Industrial IoT and Distributed Control Platform for Manufacturing and Material Handling) was awarded on September 15th, 2022 during the ITEA Project Outline Preparation Days in Helsinki in all three price categories.

The key aspects of the research project that was started in November 2017, promoted by the BMBF and led by consortium leader DEMAG Cranes & Components were: distributed control systems for automation, indoor localisation of man and machine, cyber security as well as 3D engineering and visualisation.

We, tarakos GmbH, extended our 3D software solutions taraVRbuilder and taraVRcontrol in this successful project. Thereby we provide a tool for engineering and visualisation of crane based material handling systems. The digital twin that was gebnerated during the planning stage enables the integration of lifting devices into the total material flow as well as the analysis and the optimisation of interactions between cranes, manufacturing processes and further intra logistics components.

The market launch took place in August 2022 and new customers from the crane industry as well as from the industrial research have already been acquired. Development focuses of tarakos:

Functions for planning, optimisation and visualisation of crane systems during the planning and sales phases:

Indoor cranes, area gantries:

• parameterizable 3D crane models (shape and behaviour parameter)
• automatical coordination of several cranes on a common crane track
• process description through material configuration (no programming is required)
• use of CAD models for animated product presentations

Intelligent warehouse modules:

• block storage
• coil storage

Results for project presentations:

• animated videos and high-resolution images
• immersive experience by using head mounted displays

Real-time visualisation of crane systems:

• connection of 3D visualisation to (distributed) control system via plug-ins (OPC UA, MQTT, individual interfaces)
• visualisation of:
• cranes, AGVs, workers according to position data
• machine states, e.g. current mode (manual, assistant function)