Curtains up for the Eurobike 2018 and loads of interesting novelties for the bike season 2019. The 27th edition of the leading international trade fair is once again the ideal platform for mobility-innovations from all over the world. From Sunday, July 8 to Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 1400 exhibitors from 50 countries with present their products and services in Friedrichshafen. At our press conference, we will introduce the programme of the three Eurobike days along with a selection of the bike industry’s latest innovations and current trends. 

The marine planarian, cuttlefish and Nile perch have one thing in common: in order to propel themselves, they use their fins to generate a continuous wave, which advances along their entire length. With this so-called undulating fin movement, the BionicFinWave also manoeuvres through a pipe system made of acrylic glass.

The Global Wind Summit starts in Hamburg on 25 September; it is the biggest and most important meeting of the wind industry worldwide. It combines the world’s leading wind industry expo WindEnergy Hamburg with the global conference of WindEurope to create a high-powered, unique platform for business, networking and information for the onshore and offshore wind industry. These two top events, the expo and the conference, will be held side by side from 25 to 28 September 2018 at the Hamburg Messe site. Exhibitors, visitors and conference participants are expected from some 100 countries.  The advance press conference on May 25, 2018 informed about about the highlights of the world’s leading wind energy expo as well as the of the global conference and newest developments in the wind industry. The main focus of the press conference will be on “dynamic markets”, “efficiency” and “smart energy”. Furthermore first findings of the current WindEnergy trend:index (WETI), a mood survey for the industry, will be presented.

From 4 to 7 September 2018, SMM – the leading international maritime trade fair – will once again welcome 50,000 industry visitors from more than 120 nations to Hamburg. At the Hamburg Messe und Congress (HMC) fair complex, more than 2,200 exhibitors will showcase the entire value chain of the maritime sector. From digitalisation on board and on land and new environmental standards to cost efficiency and new markets, SMM 2018 will provide answers to all key questions facing the industry today, including innovative product solutions and a comprehensive conference programme, plus numerous networking opportunities. Here you can watch the advance press conference from May 25th, 2018.

Superconductors are materials which below a certain temperature can “freeze” the field of a permanent magnet at a predefined distance and can thus hold it in suspension. With its three current SupraMotion exhibits, Festo is further extending the spectrum of possible applications:

•    SupraTransport: movement with a large levitation gap

•    SupraSensor: measuring and weighing without contact

The biological model for the BionicWheelBot is the cyclist spider, which was discovered in the Erg Chebbi desert at the edge of the Sahara in 2008 by Prof. Ingo Rechenberg, Bionics Professor at the TU Berlin. Like other spiders, the cyclist spider can run, but it can also move forwards using a combination of somersaults and rolling along the ground. Since its discovery, Prof. Rechenberg has been working on transferring these movement sequences to technological applications. The kinematics and the drive concept have now been developed together with the bionics team from Festo. The BionicWheelBot rolls along the ground by forming a wheel with three legs on each side of its body. Two more legs, which are retracted during running, are then extended; they push the spider (which is in the shape of a ball) off the ground and propel it forwards in a continuous rolling motion. 

The future-oriented working environment BionicWorkplace consists of collaborative robots that are connected to IT systems from the field of artificial intelligence; these are able to understand and interpret questions spoken by humans. The operator can thus cooperate intuitively with the robot. The learning system can also process and interlink images from the connected camera systems, along with positional data and further information provided by other devices in the working environment. A so-called semantic map is thereby generated, which constantly grows with machine learning. The system then appropriately distributes the tasks to the robot and the other tools in order to provide ideal support for the human in his or her work. 

An elastic, airtight skin stretches from the fingertips to the feet of the BionicFlyingFox – just as with its biological model from nature. The on-board electronics regulate the flight behaviour of the BionicFlyingFox with the aid of inertial sensors and complex algorithms. An external camera system provides the control commands and the positional data required for the flight path planning: two movable infrared cameras are sufficient to keep a constant track of the flying fox, which is equipped with infrared markers.