Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA)

Fraunhofer IPA is one of the largest of the 53 Institutes of the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft in Germany.
It provides R&D services in the field of manufacturing engineering and automation to industry. It employs over 200 engineers in the business fields of Corporate Management, Enterprise Logistics, Automation Systems, Manufacturing Automation and Manufacturing Technologies. The aim of the R&D projects carried out by Fraunhofer IPA is to demonstrate to industry the potential of automating and streamlining production, processes and products. This is achieved by developing, testing and implementing methods, components, devices and even whole pieces of machinery and equipment. One main focus of Fraunhofer IPA work is Product Innovation and Development, where various innovative products in the area of industrial manufacturing, control and sensor systems have been successfully developed.

Fraunhofer IPA's Automation Division of Control Systems has a long lasting history of experience in the development and operation of control systems for CNC machines, robots and special purpose production systems. Fraunhofer IPA has been a project initiator and European Co-ordinator of the international IMS research project "HMS - Holonic Manufacturing Systems" with over 50 project partners from Europe, USA, Canada, Japan and Australia. Within HMS a highly decentralised and co-operative control system architecture based on agent control theory has been defined and successfully imple¬mented. Fraunhofer IPA is the leader of I*PROMS Production Automation and Control (PAC) Cluster.
For more information about Fraunhofer IPA visit http://www.ipa.fhg.de