Keynote-Speaker 2023

Mag. Patricia Neumann
CEO Siemens AG AustriaSpeaker 2023

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Markus Fallenböck
Vice Rector for Human Resources & Digitization and University Professor for Technology & Innovation Law at the University of Graz
Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn. Franz Haas
Head of the Institute of Manufacturing Technology (IFT) at Graz University of Technology and Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Economics
Mag. Ulrike Haslauer
CEO compact electric
Ladislav Dvorak
CEO, RoboTwin s.r.o.Program Overview
Building a Greener Future: Exploring the Sustainability Aspects of Additive Manufacturing

FH-Prof. Dr. Mathias Brandstötter
Professorship for Robotics and Mechatronic Systems and Head of the ADMiRE Research CenterPromoting Sustainable Regional Development through Additive Manufacturing: A SI AT Cross-Border Initiative for a Resilient and Circular Economy
Maja Mešl, FTPO, Slowenia
We introduce AddCircles, a project aimed at empowering regional businesses through Additive Manufacturing (AM). This cutting-edge technology perfectly suits our region, allowing us to create high-value, sustainable products. AddCircles’ main goal is to transition our region into a resilient and circular economy by improving resource efficiency in manufacturing, promoting recycling, and using natural materials. This will be achieved through collaborative networks spanning various value chains and two knowledge-sharing pilot projects. It is a transformative initiative for our region, harnessing AM’s potential for sustainable growth. Join us at the talk to learn how you can be part of this exciting journey!
Product Carbon Footprint of Parts Fabricated by Material Extrusion
Matthias Katschnig, Hage3D
The importance of the product carbon footprint is growing fast in industrial procurement. Reasons for that are regulations, market pull and increasing carbon taxes. This talk is about the carbon footprint of 3D-printed plastic parts by material extrusion. Different approaches and scenarios are presented and results are discussed.
Lightweight Biobased Composites for Improved Functionality by Additive Manufacturing
David Kampenhuber, Alpex Technologies
Chethan Savandaiah, Wood K plus
With a strategic vision for the years ahead, ALPEX Technologies GmbH has outlined one of its three key priorities as pioneering research and development in BIO composite component technologies. Acknowledging the increasing global demand for sustainability across diverse markets, ALPEX is committed to addressing this imperative. As a specialized equipment manufacturer focused on tooling for composites, ALPEX is dedicated to facilitating the transition towards more sustainable materials and manufacturing technologies. By aligning its endeavors with the surging interest in bio-based materials, ALPEX not only ensures its relevance in the industry but also positions itself to meet the evolving market requirements and play a pivotal role in advancing eco-friendly manufacturing practices. In the upcoming presentation, ALPEX will showcase its substantial achievements in the BIO composite component technology field and provide a comprehensive overview of prevailing market demands and emerging sustainability trends.
METALS IN BIOMEDICAL ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING APPLICATIONS
Igor Drstvenšek, University of Maribor, Slowenia
Metals in additive manufacturing applications are an increasingly important area in both research and industrial production of complex shaped parts. In medicine, the use of metals can be traced far back in history, when gold was the first metal used to restore teeth. With the advent of AM technologies, many new opportunities opened up for the production of customized medical products and bespoke implants. Therefore, it is not surprising that most of the metals researched and produced for use in the AM industry are metals mainly used in medical products, such as Ti-6Al-4V, AISI 316L, Co-Cr, Ti cp, Ta, Mg and so on. The production of metal powders for use in PBF and DED applications is far from sustainable unless it is done on a large scale in base metal factories, such as steel mills. Nevertheless, the use of the powder material in AM machines brings benefits that exceed the energy and resource losses associated with powder production, so the sustainability of the process should be considered in the overall context of production. To evaluate the sustainability of metal AM processes, we need to consider several important factors, the most important of which are the shape complexity of the parts and the ability to produce parts with functionally graded microstructure.
Automated Navigation in Challenging Unstructured Environments

Assoc.Prof. Dr. Gerald Steinbauer-Wagner
Associate Professor at the Institute for Software Technology at the Graz University of TechnologyOffroad Navigation of Utility Vehicles (tentative)
Prof. Karsten Berns, RPTU – Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität, Germany
Autonomous Navigation of Ground Vehicles in Subterranean and Field Environments
Prof. Jan Faigl, Czech Technical University in Prague
In the talk, selected autonomous navigation solutions developed in the Computational Robotics Laboratory will be presented. The lab is a part of the Artificial Intelligence Center and Center for Robotics and Autonomous Systems at the Czech Technical University in Prague, Czechia. Within the lab, we address robotic information gathering with ground robotic platforms such as multi-legged and wheeled platforms. The talk focuses on deployments in subterranean terrains and field environments where relying on a global navigation satellite system is impossible. The talk will present results from autonomous system deployment motivated by the DARPA Subterranean Challenge (SubT) and the achievements of the CTU-CRAS-NORLAB team. Furthermore, recent deployments in data collection scenarios for communication signal propagation will be presented. Finally, results on autonomous navigation using geometry-based terrain assessment will be shown for a vehicle from 300 kg to 3000 kg weight category.
Navigation in underground mining and tunnelling applications – Demands and current state of the art
Hubert Kargl, Sandvik Mining and Construction G.m.b.H., Austria
Similar to many other technical operations, mining and tunnelling application are striving to develop their operation towards autonomous systems. Main drivers are increased safety – by keeping people out of hazardous areas – and improvement of the operation’s reliability and performance in general. Autonomous navigation is a key component for such a successful setup. Nevertheless, the constraints are special: Operation below the surface, dark and dusty environment, vibrating machine structures and in many cases the need for ATEX-certified equipment are big challenges to establish a successful navigation solution. The presentation will figure out possible concepts, their technical limitations and experience so far.
CHALLENGES OF DUAL USE APPROACH IN OFF-ROAD APPLICATIONS
Ivan Enzo Gargano, IDV Iveco Defence Vehicles, Italy
In the last years a rapid increase in requests for UGVs with off-road autonomous navigation capabilities in both the military and civilian domains has been registered. Due to their peculiar requirements, these sectors require innovations, new approaches and tailored solutions to the problem of autonomous driving.
In this talk, IDV will give an insight on the common challenges and their possible solutions to tackle the new problems coming from the intricate world of off-road autonomous driving. While autonomous vehicles have made significant strides on urban roads, the unpredictable and harsh terrains encountered in off-highway applications pose a unique set of challenges on the hardware, the software, and the legislative and homologation processes. Moreover, integrating these technologies into on-field military missions demands a further step towards the understanding of the rules driving such domain.
Dual-use technologies or commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) systems are crucial to the successfull development of robotic systems. Leveraging onto fast advances of tested and proven COTS technologies on both electronics, computing, software and hardware helps reducig the risks associated with development.
As IDV navigates through these challenges, the goal is to examine how can be possible to perform the technology transfer from the civilian to the military sector and on which sublevels, exposing the need for dual-use autonomous driving technologies.
Industrial Automation

FH-Prof. DI Dr. techn. Udo Traussnigg
CAMPUS 02 University of Applied Sciences, Head of Department Automation TechnologyDue to the constant integration of new technologies, both traditional companies and young start-ups are represented in the scene, which is also shown in this session.
The session reports on the challenges that arise in practice due to the often existing and restrictive framework conditions, how even large companies benefit from cooperation and how young, dynamic companies manage to open up new perspectives through new technologies.
Making industrial complexity visible
Thomas Kaufmann (Co-Founder & CEO), EXARON GmbH
Patrick Gröller (Co-Founder& CTO), EXARON GmbH
EXARON is a technical simulation office specializing in the visualization of complex industrial processes. For this purpose, leading simulation software in factory and production planning is used and combined with industry-standard extended reality (XR) technologies. The digital models created in this way can be visualized realistically and location-independent as well as tested, manipulated, optimized and learned quickly and flexibly – without wasting resources, polluting the environment and endangering people.
Redefining the status quo in programming
DI DI (FH) Markus Gruber (Founder and CEO), Selmo Technology GmbH
Selmo, Sequence Logic Modeling, rethinks machine programming. As a real alternative to manual programming, Selmo offers a programming standard that creates a universally uniform structure in theoperating and programming of machines. For the first time, a uniform operating system for machines is possible, constantly informing about all processes in real-time and ensuring that the machines operate with maximum availability. Selmo stands for the controlled digitization and automation of logical production processes.
PC-based Control with Metris X
Gerhard Schiefer (Vice President GroupAutomation and Digitalization), ANDRITZ AG
Ing. Walter Eichner (MBA,Business DevelopmentManager), BECKHOFF Automation GmbH
Automation and Digitalization plays a tramendous important role in making IoT in an industrial contextpossible. METRIS X (by ANDRITZ) as an unique platform to cover both automation and digitalization hemispheres for various industries and a powerful and scalable hardware (by BECKHOFF) is the key to helpour customer to meet their business requirements.
Overview of different solutions from standard products and individualcustomer solutions
Dr. Florin Sabou, NEOTRONIKAUTOMATION SRL, Romania
Customized solutions depending on the production area andcustomer capacities, Implementing customer requirements based on continually highly expectation.
Sensor Systems and Sensing Technologies in Robotics

Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Hubert Zangl
Professor for Sensors and Actuators, Institute of Smart Systems Technology, Alpen-Adria-University KlagenfurtIn addition to the provision of data by means of sensors, also sensor signal processing and the understanding of sensor data are highly relevant and need to be considered together with the sensors themselves. Classical methods often reach their limits with the large number of input variables recorded as well as the complex interactions, so AI methods are used. AI with all its areas from perceiving and understanding the environment, planning movements and understanding, predicting and reacting to the commands of humans is a core component of every robot as well as many automation systems.
In order to fully utilize the capabilities of the approaches, accurate simulations of sensors in the application scenarios are of interest. The session will address these various aspects of sensor systems and sensing technologies in robotics.
Intelligent Sensor Systems for Piece Picking Robots
Martin Tiefenbrunner, TGW
The robots are coming. The need of industrial robots and cobots in intralogistics paired with high-end sensor systems is becoming higher and higher. While the mechatronic systems are state-of-the-art, in the future it will be more necessary to use smart sensor-systems, AI and intelligent software. This talk gives you somes answers to the “why” and a compact overview of the the robotics world in TGW.
Extrinsic Calibration of a Multiple Radar System for Proximity Perception in Robotics
Barnaba Ubezio, AAU
The simultaneous use of multiple small and low-cost radars has recently become feasible due to their increasing availability and functionality. Calibrating a radar-only system is particularly challenging when dealing with devices having low number of antennas and therefore limited angular resolution; such setup is though beneficial for collaborative and safety-oriented applications in robotics. We present an extrinsic calibration method for a multi-radar system deployed in a robotic cell. The calibration procedure only requires to move a single radar-signal reflector within the perceived area. The method is based on data sequential collection and pre-processing, combined with the closed-form registration of 3D point clouds and uncertainty analysis.
Highly accurate stereo visual odometry for the city and racetrack
Ivan Markovic, FER
Localization constitutes a fundamental building block of any autonomous system. This is especially emphasized for autonomous vehicles that participate in urban traffic and need to maintain highly accurate estimates of their pose for navigation purposes. But besides urban traffic, autonomous vehicles are also making their way to the racetrack, which presents novel challenges – although not plagued by dynamic objects, the scene is often low in texture, visually similar across the track, and captured with velocities above 200 km/h. In this talk we will present a stereo visual odometry solution, dubbed SOFT2, which has been for the past years the most accurate localization algorithm on the KITTI dataset, and its version adapted for rolling shutter cameras and the racetrack.
Time-of-Flight imaging for 3D sensing in robotics
Armin Berger, Infineon
As the number of robots is increasing in all the different markets the demand for more intelligent robotic systems that can act autonomously increases as well. Hence, also the need for interaction between humans and robots is getting more important.
At Infineon we are developing 3D image time-of-flight (ToF) sensors that are capable to provide more detailed and more accurate information on the robot’s surrounding enabling more sophisticated robotic applications for industrial as well as for consumer markets.
This talk will introduce 3D sensing with ToF image sensors and will show on how to use it in selected robotic applications (e.g. SLAM and obstacle avoidance).
Autonomous mobile systems in logistics

Alexander Numrich
Robot 01, GMAR NetworkThe session “Autonomous mobile systems in logistics” will be focusing on advanced industrial solutions.
Accelerated AMR development through multipurpose simulation
Wolfgang Pointner (Research & Development Coordinator), AGILOX Services GmbH
A rapidly growing market presents manufacturers of autonomous mobile robots (AMR) like AGILOX with a difficult challenge: How can new products and functions be implemented and tested quickly and efficiently while meeting the diverse requirements of customers? Simulation environments and toolchains, which are increasingly being used to create digital twins in the intralogistics domain, play an important role here. They can be utilized for many tasks including testing of system components in recreated scenarios, virtual commissioning in greenfield and brownfield applications, as well as the generation of synthetic training data for machine learning methods. For AGILOX, the NVIDIA Isaac simulation environment has proven to be a solution that can fulfill all these purposes.
AMR secure the production of the future
Mag. Gregor Schubert-Lebernegg (Product Management and Sales), KNAPP Industry Solutions GmbH
In times of labor shortage, companies struggle to keep up or extend their production capacities. Automation becomes a key factor to not only be prepared for the future, but also to secure the current state of companies. Autonomous mobile robots represent a flexible, simple and affordable solution for challenges like labor shortage, varying throughputs and changing processes and are the answer to prepare a company for all challenges which lie ahead.
3D Vision in Robotics for Flexible logistics
Mariolino De Cecco (Associate Professor), University of Trento, Italy
3D Vision is an enabling factor in Robotics. Specifically it increases robotic platforms’ perception capabilities. Logistics applications can benefit from augmented perception of Pallet/Load Localization & Shape estimation in order to make the whole workflow more efficient and flexible. In this talk I’ll focus on 3D technologies and applications for automatic pallet identification, localization and picking in large warehouses and automatic truck loading.
Panel Discussion
Safety Aspects and Standardization in Collaborative Robotics

Dipl.-Ing. Dr. techn. Michael Rathmair
Deputy Director of the Institute, Research Group Leader Industrial Robot System TechnologiesDesigning roadmaps for improving intralogistics with AGVs and AMRs
Primož Podržaj, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Rok Vrabič, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
This presentation addresses the problem of establishing efficient intralogistic systems, focusing on the generation of roadmaps and movement constraints on a given layout and the coordination of multiple Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) or Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs). By analysing the system throughput, the optimal fleet size for the system can be determined. The approach is validated through various examples and benchmarked against existing methods in the literature.
Safety and Acceptance Concerns in Human-Centric Manufacturing Technologies for Industry 5.0
Cecilia Scoccia, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy
In contemporary industries, the philosophy of human-centered workplace design and the integration of operator 5.0 concepts are gaining prominence. This paradigm shift involves customizing the operators’ work environment to enhance both their well-being and capabilities, marking a significant stride towards a more personalized and efficient workforce. To enhance risk management, careful attention must be directed towards designing workstations that are not only optimized but also ergonomic, alongside creating favorable environmental working conditions. Within this scope, the prominence of human factors becomes evident, influenced by the array of workforce diversities, including individual abilities, physical capacities, gender, age, and varying levels of confidence in technology. Within this evolving landscape, cutting-edge assistive technologies, particularly collaborative robots and passive exoskeletons , emerge as compelling choices for strategic implementation in production and logistics systems.
Trends and revisions of European standards and directives in the field of robotics
Michael Rathmair, Joanneum Research ROBOTICS, Austria
Clara Fischer, Joanneum Research ROBOTICS, Austria
Safety and security are the most essential requirements for every machine and plant. The Machinery Directive 2006/42/EG regulates the placing of safe, complete, and incomplete machines on the market. At the end of June, the EU-wide machinery regulation was published, which will replace the machinery directive in the future. This innovation is relevant to all areas of the machinery. Especially for robotics,there is currently an intense revision in the field of standardization. In this talk, we will give an in-sight into the current trends and revisions of the Eu-ropean standards and directives relevant to stationary industrial robots and their applications.
Q&A, Discussion