Press releases

Dr. Chiara Lindner, postdoc and employee of Fraunhofer IPM for many years, was honored with the “For Women in Science” Award on November 12, 2024. The award, endowed with 25,000 €, promotes four successful young female scientists from Germany who have distinguished themselves through their work in the experimental natural sciences.

As part of the Pic2Bridge research project, Fraunhofer IPM is working with the Institute of Concrete Structures at TU Dresden and fokus GmbH Leipzig to optimize the bridge planning and maintenance process. This is to be achieved with the help of an automated AI process that can create a 3D bridge model from just a few photos. The project work starts on November 12, 2024 with a virtual kick-off event.

Professor Daniel Carl, Deputy Director of Fraunhofer IPM, took up the professorship of “Production Control” at the Institute for Sustainable Systems Engineering INATECH on October 1, 2024. The focus is on the optimization of production processes by using optical measuring and testing methods.

Modern joining and bonding processes such as welding or gluing can produce very strong and durable connections. However, this is only possible if the corresponding surface areas are very clean – in particular, free of organic residues. The F-Scanner from Fraunhofer IPM detects even the slightest contamination and inspects surfaces across large areas, completely and fully automatically – currently, for example, at three manufacturers of electric vehicle components. Fraunhofer IPM is presenting its F-Scanner at the EuroBLECH trade fair.

Already for the second time, the Photonica Summer School inspired twenty young international scientists. They spent a week gaining an insight into five Fraunhofer Institutes and their research in the field of photonics, traveling from Braunschweig to Berlin via Jena and Dresden. Fraunhofer Photonica was organized by the Fraunhofer Group for Light & Surfaces under the direction of Fraunhofer IPM.

Geotechnik GmbH, a surveying service provider based in Kempen, Germany, has recently started using a mobile mapping vehicle with a completely revised software. The vehicle, which is equipped with a laser scanner and high-resolution cameras, was developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques IPM and delivers 3D planning data for municipal infrastructure planning.

Researchers at Fraunhofer IPM have developed a contactless flow measurement method based on magnetic fields. For the first time, they have been able to show the quantitative impact of the flow profile on the magnetic signal. This opens up new possibilities for improving the measurement method. The results were recently published in the “Journal of Applied Physics”.

How do you establish a building’s energy efficiency? An optical mobile mapping system that is being developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques IPM is expected to provide comprehensive data that will form the basis for planning energy-efficient refurbishments. Its core element is a multispectral LiDAR sensor that measures the geometry of the building and the thermal properties of windows and façades.

Many applications, for example in toolmaking and mechanical engineering, require actuators to convert electrical signals into mechanical motion. If the application requires large forces while using minimal installation space, actuators made of thermal shape-memory alloys are the best choice. Their sole drawback lies in their slow cooling process and the resulting low dynamics. Three Fraunhofer institutes joined forces to develop a new class of high load shape-memory actuators that are the first to quickly switch large forces with minimal size and high dynamics.

A new type of sensor makes it possible to test functional barrier layers on plastic products during production for the first time. The Film-Inspect system was developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques IPM in cooperation with plasma system specialist Plasma Electronic GmbH. The sensor uses infrared measurement technology to detect thin coatings with a thickness of less than 10 nm to 200 nm inline.