Press releases

In a comprehensive study, the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute VTI conducted a comparison of road surface measurement systems. The study documented the performance of the Pavement Profile Scanner PPS from Fraunhofer IPM.

Harald Böttner, former head of department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques IPM, was awarded the European Thermoelectric Society’s (ETS) award of honor for his long-standing research activities in the field of thermoelectrics and his commitment to the ETS. The award ceremony took place on the occasion of the ETS annual conference in Padua in September.

Impurities adhering to the surface of components can cause problems in later stages of the production process – or even make the entire component useless. A new fluorescence scanner developed by the Fraunhofer IPM allows specialists to inspect metallic parts for residues of grease, machining chips and cleaning agents – for every single item in production cycle. The inline-measuring system will be presented at the Parts2Clean trade show from October 24 to 26, 2017.

Using cameras or laser scanners to detect large structures generates vast amounts of data. For the first time, a newly developed deep learning framework is able to analyze this 3D and image data automatically. Fraunhofer IPM will be presenting the method at the INTERGEO 2017 trade fair from September 26–28 in Berlin.

At this year’s »LASER World of PHOTONICS«, Fraunhofer IPM will be presenting its systems for nonlinear-optical frequency conversion. A wavelength »range extender« will be introduced, which makes mid-infrared radiation visible by using fast silicon detectors. Visit Fraunhofer IPM at »LASER World of PHOTONICS« from June 26 to June 29 (Booth B3.327).

Fraunhofer IPM has partnered with Fraunhofer IWM to develop a new strain measurement system that combines the advantages of optical and mechanical measuring procedures and dramatically accelerates materials testing. This makes the new system a multifaceted tool for quickly performing material tests. The measurement system will be presented at the 8th International Conference on Low Cycle Fatigue LCF8 in Dresden from June 27–29, 2017.

With its “Track & Trace Fingerprint“ Fraunhofer IPM has developed a marker-free system for tracing mass components — an important tool for production and process optimization in the context of digitized production.

Fraunhofer IPM scientists have brought digital holographic measuring technology out of the laboratory and into the production hall, enabling measurement of microstructures at production speed. For their scientific achievements, they received this year’s Joseph von Fraunhofer award.

On April 1, 2017, Prof Dr Alexander Reiterer, Head of Department at Fraunhofer IPM, took up the professorship for »Monitoring of Large-Scale Structures« at the Institute of Sustainable Systems Engineering INATECH at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Freiburg.

SolACES, the solar spectrometer developed by Fraunhofer IPM and installed on the ISS, supplied unique measurement data on solar activity for nine years. As the SOLAR research mission has come to an end, the successful experiment was ceremoniously deactivated on 15 February 2017 at the B.USOC control centre in Brussels.