B&R Industrial Automation - Experts & Thought Leaders

At this year's SPS event from November 12-14 in Nuremberg, Germany, visitors to Booth 206 in Hall 7 will experience how B&R is helping machine builders, integrators, owners and operators unlock new levels of productivity. More than 150 B&R experts are on hand to show the company's latest innovations – from new AI-assisted coding and cloud-based engineering to interoperable Industrial IoT solutions, AI-enhanced machine vision and a new open approach to safety engineering. Innovation step "Whether you're designing machines or operating them, the ultimate goal is always maximum efficiency and productivity. The tricky part is balancing that with the flexibility and simplicity that have become so essential in a world of accelerating complexity, shifting consumer demands, environmental pressures, and interconnected digital ecosystems," says B&R Chief Technology Officer Florian Schneeberger. "That's why every innovation step we take supports our customers in mastering this balancing act – enabling them to achieve both efficiency and flexibility through our advanced, open and interconnected automation solutions." B&R's commitment The B&R booth at this year's SPS event showcases how B&R's duty to openness helps it connect people The B&R booth at this year's SPS event showcases how B&R's commitment to openness helps it connect people, platforms and products to drive productivity. Connecting a comprehensive machine automation portfolio through a global network of experts and partners enables B&R to offer hardware, software and mechatronics that solve real world needs. Open and interoperable solutions connect the B&R ecosystem beyond boundaries – to existing brownfield architectures, multi-vendor ecosystems and new cloud-based tools. "In all cases," notes Schneeberger, "the focus is on connecting each customer to their best solution." Live and interactive at the B&R booth Visitors to SPS 2024 will be among the first to get their hands on the new version of B&R's automation software. With an all-new interface featuring AI-assisted coding and flexible cloud-based engineering, it promises to elevate the automation engineering experience with more productivity and better collaboration. At the interactive workstations, they can put that claim to the test, as well as try out B&R's new safety engineering experience with an open code base and a variety of new programming options. B&R's latest developments The B&R booth also presents B&R's latest developments in open robot mechanics and mechatronic product transport – including 3D digital twin simulation for conceptual design, capacity optimisation and energy balancing. Also on display are B&R's open and interoperable Industrial IoT and edge solutions with AI-powered apps for live optimisation of performance and energy, predictive maintenance of track systems and more. Over 150 B&R experts look forward to guiding visitors through 20 live demos and seven interactive workstations, where they will experience the power of adaptive manufacturing to fit more flexibility and productivity on a smaller footprint and discover the potential of open standards to deliver more performance, easy scaling and new business models.

At a time when the global manufacturing landscape is more competitive than ever, industry and academia are collaborating to overcome complex new challenges in engineering and at the same time inspire future engineers. The B&R Education Network in India is continuously working as the interface between educational institutions and the automation industry. To help make the next generation of engineers ready for industry, the B&R Education Network partnered with the Dr. D. Y. Patil Institute of Technology in Pimpri-Pune to organise the Open Automation Challenge 2024. Innovative approach and application The event started in June 2024, with over 50 teams across India registering their groundbreaking ideas The event paired engineering students with B&R mentors to bring their ideas to reality using state-of-the-art technologies in the field of automation engineering. The event started in June 2024, with over 50 teams across India registering their groundbreaking ideas.  Fourteen teams were shortlisted based on their innovative approach and application. The selected teams completed training on B&R's Automation Studio engineering software and other B&R technologies to finally execute their projects and bring their ideas to life. Understanding the gap In a fast-paced world, technological transformation leads to better productivity. It is necessary that engineers understand the challenges of the industry. Automation is considered a key element in all manufacturing operations, and the industry expects new recruits to have the required skills in this technology. Moreover, in the era of industrial IoT and Industry 4.0, the evolution of technology is growing rapidly, and the engineering curriculum often struggles to keep pace with it. B&R’s Education Network is a well-structured program of collaboration to improve the industry knowledge of engineering graduates and make them ready for the industrial world. B&R Education Network Open Automation Challenge 2024 offered fresh inspiration for engineering students' innovative minds, encouraging curiosity for creative solutions and courage for big ideas. The emerging engineers explored numerous possibilities, the way automation is changing the world and were intrigued by a presentation delivered by B&R's Regional Managing Director for Southern and Eastern Asia, Mr. Jhankar Dutta.  During the presentation, he highlighted important topics like industry trends, the changing demands, sustainability and how the B&R Education Network is bridging the gap between industry and educational institutes. Building the bridge of knowledge Open Automation Challenge 2024 has seen remarkable milestones with new perspectives Open Automation Challenge 2024 has seen remarkable milestones with new perspectives and a fresh outlook on the projects built by students along with their mentors assigned by B&R. The group of students participating in the challenge embarked on a two-week educational adventure that included project development and training on B&R Automation Studio and related technologies. Their dedication and creativity transformed innovative ideas into reality using advanced software and simulation tools. Open Automation Challenge 2024 On the final day, each team stepped onto the stage, unveiling their meticulously crafted automation projects before a panel of esteemed judges. The students demonstrated not just technical prowess, but the potential to revolutionise sectors ranging from manufacturing to healthcare and agriculture. The top three teams were selected as winners. The right knowledge is a critically important first step and one of the most effective ways to bridge the gap is to mentor the right way. As the automation industry grows across India with rising expectations and demands, engineers are the pioneers of a bright tomorrow. Beyond competition, the Open Automation Challenge 2024 was a celebration of collaboration and learning.

B&R is enhancing its smart camera portfolio with powerful deep-learning functionality. A three-way collaboration with machine vision software specialist MVTec and AI processor specialist Hailo makes the B&R camera a powerful and efficient edge device.  Deep learning At the SPS trade show in Nuremberg, the companies celebrated the first function to come from their joint project. Machine vision algorithms based on deep learning are opening up exciting new ways to improve quality, boost productivity, and prevent waste while making manufacturing more flexible.  Best-performing vision functions "Our collaboration with MVTec gives machine builders access to the best selection of the best-performing vision functions around," says B&R's machine vision expert, Andreas Waldl. "They're an industry leader in both deep learning and classic rule-based algorithms – two complemental approaches that each play an essential role in machine automation." Speed reader Called Deep OCR, it achieves remarkably fast read rates, even on fonts that are otherwise difficult to recognise The first product to emerge from the project is a deep-learning-based optical character recognition (OCR) function. Called Deep OCR, it achieves remarkably fast read rates, even on fonts that are otherwise difficult to recognise. "For many years, we have been working together with B&R to develop machine vision solutions for customers that set technological standards, especially for embedded systems," says Thomas Hopfner, product manager for licensing and interfaces at MVTec. "This goal is also being followed by our latest cooperation. As a result, customers benefit from the advantages of the deep learning technology Deep OCR without having to sacrifice performance." TOPS-per-watt winner High-performance deep learning algorithms require a powerful processor. Yet, implementation as an edge device also made power consumption a critical issue. Machine builders need not just computing speed but also power efficiency, and that is where Hailo comes in: in addition to the world-class performance of 26 tera-operations per second (TOPS), the company's inference accelerators also require remarkably low power consumption. "Hailo helps us put truly groundbreaking speed and intelligence right where our customers need it for their fastest and most adaptive manufacturing solutions," says Waldl. Performance standards "This kind of collaboration is exactly what we had in mind when we started Hailo," says Hailo CEO Orr Danon. "The new B&R camera harnesses Hailo's top-performing AI accelerator, and in combination with their state-of-the-art edge devices and MVTec's advanced machine learning algorithms, we are setting new performance standards that will improve productivity and enhance quality in industrial applications."