Solutions for Industry / Intelligent Production - AIT Austrian Institute Of Technology

One of our core tasks is to support domestic industry and Austria as a business location by developing and implementing new technologies and innovations. This is done in close cooperation with partners from science and industry.

Our unique selling point is the combination of high expertise in concrete applications and technologies with cross-sectoral system competence in conjunction with a competitive European research infrastructure. We thus play in the league of the best and support industry as an Ingenious Partner.

Our expertise is bundled in the central areas of strength from the fields of energy, mobility, automation, health and bioresources, digital security, human-machine interfaces and innovation systems.

Reliable wireless communication links with low latency are the "central nervous system" for the digitization of many industrial sectors. Key requirements here include secure operation and minimal energy consumption. Reliable wireless communication systems increase operational safety and reduce the operating costs of public transport systems, e.g. by replacing wired security systems with wireless connections. Furthermore, future manufacturing processes will use reliable wireless communication systems to control human-robot and robot-robot interaction. These capabilities are key to a competitive Austrian business location with improved digital autonomy for modern industrial companies.

Led by Principal Scientist Thomas Zemen, the AIT wireless communications research group based on 5G & 6G has extensive expertise in physical layer design, baseband signal processing, measurement and modeling of radio communication channels, software-defined rapid prototyping, and wireless real-time digital twins.

An important contribution to the sustainability and market strength of energy-intensive companies is the development and implementation of industrial heat pumps, with which waste heat that previously went to waste can be used for production processes. This saves costs, fuel and CO2 emissions. At the same time, heat pumps are an essential element for sector coupling and thus for increasing the flexibility and resilience of energy systems.

AIT's expertise in the field of light metals is also in great demand: By combining experimental research with modern simulations, high-strength aluminum and magnesium alloys are developed, as well as methods for their processing. These are particularly crucial for the vehicles and aircraft of the future.

In battery research, AIT is focusing on the environmentally friendly production of lithium-ion batteries, on the development of new materials for future generations of batteries ("beyond lithium") and on research into solid state batteries in the continuously expanded Battery Lab.

In the field of control and automation, innovative sensor systems and new robot concepts are being designed in cooperation with partners from industry and science. Increasingly, artificial intelligence (AI) methods are being used to enable automated recognition of the environment and complex situations. Moreover, one focus is on the forward-looking design of human-machine interfaces.

AIT is also a strong partner in the medical sector: For example, new biosensor concepts ("lab on a chip") are being researched or tele-health systems, such as for monitoring patients with heart failure, are being developed and rolled out in practice.

AIT's high level of expertise in the field of digitalization plays a central role in all of AIT's activities for corporate partners. The specialists at the Center for Digital Safety & Security in particular have built up an international reputation. The Center is the world's first IAEA Collaborating Centre for Information and Computer Security for Nuclear Security and chairs the national Gaia-X Hub Austria, an alliance of the Austrian data and IT community from research, industry and the public sector (https://www.gaia-x.at/). The Center's experts are working on state-of-the-art methods and tools to design secure digitalization of critical infrastructures and production environments through cutting-edge information and communication systems, new AI-based tools to defend against cyber attacks on critical infrastructures or to detect disinformation campaigns and fake stores on the Internet. Another key focus is on Enabling Digital Technologies - future-oriented technology areas such as energy-efficient and highly accurate optical sensor technologies (photonics), absolutely tap-proof quantum encryption in the context of building a quantum communication network for Europe, as well as reliable 5G & 6G wireless communication links with low latency and minimal energy consumption for secure and sustainable applications of the future.

In the following you will find a number of topics that are covered by us as Ingenious Partner of the industry...

...as well as concrete solutions for our partners and customers, which are implemented in cooperation with industrial companies.