Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SMAART (The breakthrough laser machining intelligence as saver of jobs and competitiveness for Europe's manufacturing business)
Berichtszeitraum: 2019-12-01 bis 2021-03-31
To retrieve added value to Europe, particularly manufacturing and machining processes have to be improved to greater efficiency. Driven by the vision of Smart Factories of the Future and Industry 4.0 the European Commission therefore starts a lot of initiatives, like the Digital Single Market in 2016. The EC expects that digitisation of products and services can add more than EUR 110 billion of annual revenue in Europe in the next five years.
A technology predestined for making machining more efficient and for implementing Industry 4.0 in manufacturing is laser technology as processing is contactless, flexible and programmable. Especially the next level of laser machining based on ultrashort laser pulses is relevant, resulting in high precision never existed before. Up to now, existing laser machining systems are fixed to one incorporated laser and therefore limited in the parameter range and applications. This results in the need of having many different laser systems for different applications and in elaborate retooling and alignment times.
For the broad introduction of advanced laser machining in Europe’s manufacturing industry, neoLASE and GFH during this project integrated the prototype of a unique laser amplifier technology in a modular, self-adjusting and self-intelligent laser machining system to reach the next level of manufacturing. This system incorporates versatile seed lasers and optics, all combinable by the amplifier technology, and therefore has the functionalities of a variety of laser systems in only one machine.
This meets actual needs for the economic production of highly specialised and customised products like medical micro components in a unique approach covering all micro machining processes necessary.