Automatica 2012: More robots, more halls

The trade fair for automation and mechatronics Automatica starts tomorrow and will last until Friday, May 25th. According to the organizers, the five halls on the grounds of the New Munich Trade Fair Centre will more or less be dominated by robots.

About 720 exhibitors are going to show their products and solutions for the manufacturing industry. Thirty percent of the exhibitors come from outside of Germany, most of them from Europe. The five top exhibitor countries in addition to Germany are (ranked in order) Italy, Switzerland, Austria, the USA and France.

The supporting programme focuses on mega-trends such as energy storage systems, lightweight construction, sustainability and production optimization. On these topics, there are the special exhibitions »Battery Manufacturing and Automation Technology« and »Automated Composite Production« in Hall A2. The visitor forum in Hall B1 is also dealing with the trends of the manufacturing industry and discusses solutions provided by automation technologies for four days.

The »Service Robotics Innovation Platform« in Hall B3 presents state-of-the-art products and prototypes of service robotics for use in industry and everyday personal life. Internationally operating robot manufactures and research institutes are taking part in the special exhibition in cooperation with the Fraunhofer IPA. Hall B3 also contains the robotics exhibition of top-ranking research institutes such as the German Center for Aerospace (DLR) as well as European institutions such as euRobotics and EUnited with brand new robots and results, which will be demonstrated live.

Next to Automatica the biggest German robotics conference ROBOTIK 2012 will take place in the ICM - International Congress Center Munich on 21 and 22 May.

Comments

[Francine]

I agree with the premise that rerfmos are needed in education, but I disagree with the push for more. I think what we need is focused education. We need grassroots rerfmos to our system that would make the university more a la carte. The problem is that right now the average college debt upon graduation is $24,000.Considering this has risen every year for the past decade (and more), but wages have not kept pace, we see that every year college graduates are getting less value for each year of college that they pay for. Increasing the amount of college just further increases debt.I think a more long term solution would be for people to intern at companies right out of highschool. Then the company provides classes and certification (through the university system or others) as the individual progresses. This way, we focus on the skills the worker needs while not overburdening the system with thousands of students who's main purpose is four years of socializing and partying.