Germany and New Zealand collaborate on high tech research

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Germany and New Zealand collaborate on high tech research
A joint New Zealand-Germany workshop to discuss ways of collaborating on research and educational programmes in advanced mechatronics is underway in Auckland this week.
Media Release
University of Auckland
30th October 2013

Germany and New Zealand collaborate on high tech research

A joint New Zealand-Germany workshop to discuss ways of collaborating on research and educational programmes in advanced mechatronics is underway in Auckland this week.

The University of Auckland is hosting the second Auckland-Fraunhofer workshop that involves researchers from the University’s Faculty of Engineering and Uniservices, from Callaghan Innovation, and from German research institutes - the Fraunhofer IPA and the University of Stuttgart’s ISW.

Advanced mechatronics, high value manufacturing, robotics and biomedical engineering are all areas where potential collaborations will be discussed during the workshop.

This continues discussions initiated at the parties’ first collaborative workshop at Stuttgart in July and is intended to finalise some of the initiatives put forward for collaborating in the future.

New Zealand and Germany have a history of scientific cooperation and last year the Director of the Fraunhofer IPA and the University of Stuttgart ISW, Professor Alexander Verl, received the New Zealand Royal Society’s Julius von Haast Fellowship Award – the first time it has been awarded for engineering. The series is funded by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment.

The delegation from Germany includes professors, scientists and officals from the Fraunhofer IPA (an applied research institute for manufacturing, engineering and automation) and the University of Stuttgart’s ISW, (an institute of control engineering, machine tools and manufacturing units).

Professor Verl is the director of both these large scale research institutes that are leaders in their field in Europe with world class researchers. He was also made an Honorary Professor in Mechatronics at the University of Auckland. The exchange is aimed to benefit both countries with New Zealand offering expertise in robotics for several niche markets, including food processing and agriculture.

“They have indicated to us that they would like to help us commercialise what we innovate in New Zealand, so that we can take it to the European market,” says workshop co-chair, Professor Peter Xu, who holds the Chair in Mechatronics at the University of Auckland.

“We are also finding applications in New Zealand for technology developed at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany,” he says. “For example they have developed a flexible, stretch robotics ‘elephant trunk’ that may have applications in fruit picking such as for kiwifruit and apples in New Zealand.”

That low-cost technology is able to be created on a 3D printer and has won a German future technology award for its application in the manufacturing and automotive industries.

Callaghan Innovation is now looking at developing a machine vision system that can be incorporated into the ‘elephant trunk’ system. The University of Auckland is also looking at other applications for these soft robotics, including in the companion homecare robotics recently pioneered in the Faculty of Engineering.

At the University of Auckland’s engineering faculty, the mechatronics group developed a robot that mimics human chewing or mastication, says Professor Xu. This is useful in the development of new food textures and the robot is instrumental in measuring food changes and responses in the chewing process. A small start-up company in Auckland is now marketing the robot.

“The Fraunhofer Institute wants to extend this to dentistry, using the same machine for testing dental implants, and wear testing the artificial tooth material,” says Professor Xu. “They also want to help us identify other commercial applications for the robot, such as in surgery training.”

Speakers at this week’s Auckland – Fraunhofer workshop will include; the University of Auckland’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Stuart McCutcheon; the CEO of Callaghan Innovation, Dr Mary Quin; Professor Verl; the national manager for commercialisation at MBIE, Dr Kjesten Wiig; and the CEO of Auckland UniServices, Dr Andy Shenk. Speakers from Germany will also include professors, scientists, and engineers from the two applied research institutes.

ENDS

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