Since October 1, the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology and Automation (IPA) has a new location with several demonstrators for AI-based robotics in the "IPAI Spaces" in Heilbronn. This is reported by a press release on November 5. The institute has reportedly been represented since the beginning of the year through Fraunhofer Heilbronn Research and Innovation Centers HNFIZ in the local ecosystem for artificial intelligence (AI) and is now expected to benefit from the new premises and the network of the large innovation platform.
At the end of September, according to the institute, the signing of the contract for the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology and Automation IPA's membership in the IPAI innovation platform took place. This is regarded as an important milestone for the institute's site in Heilbronn, Fraunhofer
IPA says.
“Our goal is to develop highly flexible automation solutions for material handling and transport and to bring them into industry,” explains Simon Schmidt, head of the business division at Fraunhofer IPA. “The IPAI membership and the thus even deeper anchoring of Fraunhofer IPA in the Heilbronn ecosystem strengthens our strategy to develop AI-based automation solutions together with and for the industry.”
AI-based robotics for production, assembly and logistics
According to the press release, since January 2025 several teams of the research area "Automation and Robotics" have been involved at the Heilbronn site of Fraunhofer HNFIZ and are building there the Research and Innovation Center (FIZ) for AI-based robotics. With moving into the IPAI Spaces and the setup of several demonstrators, companies and interested parties can now experience the
developments themselves.
For Werner Kraus, head of the research area, the new site is a decisive expansion:
“Heilbronn is currently developing into the place to be for the development of AI in Europe. The more important it is, therefore, to be here in person on site from the beginning. With our focus on AI-based robotics, we give AI a body and develop innovative solutions based on humanoid robots and robot hands for production, assembly and logistics.”
Deploy robots flexibly for complex tasks
The overarching goal of the work in Heilbronn is to make robots flexibly applicable to complex and changing tasks. An important lever for this is programming. The involved research teams therefore focus on two focal areas:
- Robot hands: The human hand remains unmatched in versatility, but new software
- from the FIZ should enable the available robot hands to be used more flexibly in production and logistics processes.
- Intelligent mobile manipulation: The combination of grasping functions with mobile or humanoid robots expands their range of action and focuses on technologies with minimal programming effort, such as learning by demonstration or teleoperation as the basis for autonomous task execution.
Moritz Gräter, CEO of IPAI:
“That we can now welcome Fraunhofer IPA, a beacon of applied research, as the newest member of IPAI and in our IPAI Spaces, is a great pleasure, a wonderful milestone and a real gain for the entire community. Fraunhofer IPA provides the direct bridge from excellent research to industry. Together we can now show even better and hands-on what responsible European AI in production or logistics
