Pro2Future: significant contribution of TU Graz

"Pro2Future" – "Products and Production Systems of the Future" – is the key challenge for industry systems of the future reduced to a single word. Industrial enterprises in Styria and Upper Austria, working in co-operation with the leading technical research institutions (Johannes Kepler University of Linz, TU Graz and PROFACTOR) from these provinces as well as international research institutions, have turned this challenge into an initiative to set up the first research centre worldwide dedicated to this specific topic. The project application for the Pro2Future industrial research centre as a COMET K1-Centre was approved last week. The intention of Pro2Future is to create a next generation of industrial information and communication technologies (ICT), cognitive products and industry systems – the catchword being Smart Production. It is all about making products and production systems acquire humanlike cognitive capabilities such as perception, understanding, interpretation, learning, plus the ability to draw conclusions and initiate action accordingly.

The research programme

Pro2Future consolidates the research results of the centre in two key areas – cognitive products and cognitive production systems. In addition, three basic areas of research explore machine perception and awareness, cognitive robotics and shop floors, and cognitive decision-making systems.

Pro2Future is supported by a strategic international alliance of the world’s best technical universities including over 50 associated partners (ETH Zurich, KTH Stockholm, EPFL Lausanne, MIT Media Lab, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon University, Politecnico Milano, Chalmers, University of Ottawa, the Technical University of Munich, the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Kaiserslautern, KIT Karlsruhe, the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Saarbrücken, the University of Stuttgart, Nanyang University and Osaka University among others). The research results achieved on this international level are made available as industry innovations directly to the Upper Austrian and Styrian partner companies.

On the part of TU Graz, the Faculty of Electrical and Information Engineering, the Faculty of Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering and the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Economic Sciences are all involved in Pro2Future.

The approved COMET K1-Centre will be established at the Linz and Graz locations, it is part of the national Industry 4.0 Platform, constitutes an operative research unit at the Linz Institute of Technology (LIT) and links in with the Smart Factories Initiative of TU Graz.