Research Centre for Mechatronics

The Research area mechatronics addresses the integration of mechatronic components and systems into current product and production technologies. Special attention is focused on the automation of production processes as well as the continuous improvement of manufacturing technology. Innovations in the area of products are enabled by the integration of mechanical design, sensor/actuator system, electronics and technical computer science.

One of the most important strengths and a basis for the economic success in the region is the highly innovative performance of the companies in Voralberg. "Innovative performance mainly focuses on increasing productivity using efficient, highly automated manufacturing processes." For this reason, amongst others, the following interdisciplinary research divisions and key points were emphasized as relevant during the inquiry into the R&D needs of industry in Voralberg: Automation technology, measuring and testing technology, manufacturing technology, as well as electronics and mechatronics.  The companies' innovative capabilities can be further increased by joint projects with academic research facilities and the associated knowledge transfer. For this purpose, the mechatronics research division represents the regional basis at the academical side.

Modeling and simulation (M&S) play a continuously increasing role in the production development process due to the necessary integration of technical innovations. While M&S is already well developed in the individual mechatronics disciplines, system M&S still requires a large development effort. For this reason, the mechatronic research division declared "Modeling and Simulation of Mechatronic Systems" to be its most important research topic. Based on the available technical knowledge in all areas of mechatronics, interdisciplinary coupling and M&S integration is examined based on joint projects with the regional industry.

Key contents:

• Modeling and simulation of mechatronic systems

• Feedback control systems

• Industrial electronics

• Measuring technology

• Robotics

• Image processing

• Real time embedded systems

• 5-axes simultaneous milling

• Dry processing

• High speed cutting (HCS)

• 3-D CAD

• Finite element method (FEM)

• Computational fluid dynamics (CFD)

• 3-D digitalization