The thinking factory: General Industry Coverage

With the integration of cognition sensor networks and computer algorithms, machine tools are entering the virtual world. Within that world, Munich Technical University’s Institute for Machine Tools and Industrial Management is conducting research within the framework of CoTeSys (Cognition for Technical Systems), which is funded by the German Research Foundation. “We aim to use the tripartite requirement of ‘detect, deduce, deliver’ to make machines more proactively autonomous than they used to be,” said professor Gunther Reinhart, director of the institute.

He noted that Cognitive Technical Systems differ from other technical systems in that they perform cognitive control, which includes reflexive and habitual behavior in accordance with long-term intentions. “Cognitive capabilities such as perception, reasoning, learning and planning turn technical systems into ones that ‘know what they are doing,’ ” Reinhart said.

Courtesy of CoTeSys/Kurt Fuchs

Within the CoTeSys framework, virtual cooperation enables a robot and human to simultaneously work on the same workpiece.

To move the research from the “ivory tower” down to earth, the university developed the Cognitive Factory demonstration platform—a factory that thinks for itself. Researchers from multiple disciplines, including mechanical and electrical engineering, informatics and psychology, are working on the project, located at the university.