Transporting alternative fueled vehicles on roll-on/roll-off ferries. Electric vehicles are booming, with more than a million on German roads as of this year. This, in turn, means that an increasing number of alternative fueled vehicles are transported on ferries. However, there are particular conditions associated with traveling at sea, such as the sea state and closed vehicle decks. This, in combination with the particular characteristics of and risks associated with alternative fueled vehicles, means that shipping companies and ship crews…
Load carriers such as pallets, crates or tanks are indispensable for transporting all kinds of products, but hardly ever get any of the limelight themselves. Fraunhofer researchers have devoted themselves to this topic and have now developed a software to track and make visible the paths of the load carriers. This gives the logistics sector enormous opportunities to improve efficiency. With Logistikbude, the Fraunhofer researchers have even founded their own spin-off. Pallets, crates, containers, racks and tanks play a vital…
Efficiency-enhancing flow-line production of large CFRP components. Automation solutions for aircraft construction: Pioneering mobile holding fixture for flexible clamping, alignment, and transport of components reduces the workload of production processes considerably. As part of the “UniFix” joint project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK), experts in Automation and Production Technology at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials IFAM in Stade, together with cooperation partners and Airbus Operations GmbH (Stade) as…
The Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI) and drone manufacturer Wingcopter have successfully deployed the SUCOM drone communication system on the African continent for the first time, specifically in Malawi. The mobile radio-based system enables safe control of drones, even despite being out of sight of the person controlling them. Wingcopter plans to expand the local delivery drone program into a permanent operation with additional local pilots by the planned completion of SUCOM testing in Malawi at the end of the…
Game-changing technology to design traffic lights that absorb kinetic energy, stopping them from crumpling when hit by a vehicle, will prevent thousands of fatalities and injuries each year and make our roads much safer. That’s the prediction from University of South Australia (UniSA) senior lecturer and research lead Dr Mohammad Uddin, who is partnering with manufacturing company Impact Absorbing Systems (IAS) on a new project to minimise collision-related injuries as well as damage to traffic lights and vehicles. The $640,000…
The Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML is developing a new generation of automated guided vehicles. “LoadRunners” use artificial intelligence and communicate via 5G to organize themselves as a swarm and execute jobs independently. Able to sort large quantities of packages, this high-speed transporter can serve booming online and mail-order businesses well. The coronavirus crisis has given Germany’s e-commerce a big boost. More and more consumers are shopping online to avoid the crowds in stores and minimize the…
UBER driver data helps track and potentially alleviate urban traffic congestion. A new machine learning algorithm is poised to help urban transportation analysts relieve bottlenecks and chokepoints that routinely snarl city traffic. The tool, called TranSEC, was developed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to help urban traffic engineers get access to actionable information about traffic patterns in their cities. Currently, publicly available traffic information at the street level is sparse and incomplete. Traffic engineers generally…
TU Graz algorithm-based method provides a basis for decisions on the correct amount of tamping measures on tracks, thus reducing their life-cycle costs by up to 20 per cent. Train journeys should be safe and comfortable, and track systems are crucial to this. So-called “tamping” (positioning, compacting and stabilizing) of the ballast in the track bed is one of the most important maintenance tasks in the railway industry. Special tamping machines lift the tracks, align them precisely and tamp the…
The services provided at car ports span virtually the entire spectrum of vehicle logistics, from handling and storage to technical services. With 2.1 million…
Nobody ever expected hospitals to be struggling to get hold of the face masks and other personal protective equipment they need. The supply chain had always…
The Technische Universität Dresden and the University of Birmingham have come together and started a research project focused on battery-powered traction…
When delivering parcels, drones often have a poorer energy balance than traditional delivery vans, as shown by a new study conducted at Martin Luther…
Are flying taxis ready for take-off? The Fraunhofer IAO conducted a study in which it performed a reality check and analyzed various factors involved in 3D…
In the LowCarb-RFC project, the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI and its project partners are exploring how European rail freight…
Due to mechanization and automation the amount of physical load work has been progressively reduced. Yet for those working in intralogistics, the manual…
Johns Hopkins researchers have set a new delivery distance record for medical drones, successfully transporting human blood samples across 161 miles of Arizona…
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