TECNALIA shows its commitment to digitalisation in Industry 4.0 at the Transfiere Forum

Malaga, 13 February 2018 TECNALIA research and technological development centre will exhibit the latest innovations in the field of digitalisation for Industry 4.0 at TRANSFIERE, the European Forum for Science, Technology and Innovation which will be held in Malaga on 14 and 15 of February. A digitalisation system for infrastructures, a monitoring platform for predicting failures in machine-tools and augmented and virtual reality technologies for the industrial field will be presented there.

The barrage of new technologies into society and their continued growth has meant a profound change in the way in which we interact with people, machines and products. So, companies have risen to the wave of the digital era and are benefiting from the opportunity afforded by digitalisation with the incorporation of recent technologies to generate business and be more competitive.

One example of this are the digitalisation and sensorisation systems for infrastructures, which help to make them intelligent and optimise their maintenance processes. TECNALIA will present this technology at TRANSFIERE with a bridge prototype model that will verify the capabilities of the different algorithms designed for detecting structural damage; a system which is being developed in collaboration with CEMOSA (Malaga) and MAGTEL (Cordoba) companies.

This same principle applied to machine-tools results in monitoring systems for predicting faults. In this regard, TECNALIA, along with the SPYRO company, has created a new company named VIXION, which aims to create Industry 4.0 solutions and construct advanced services directed at manufacturers and users of machines, as it is a cloud-based monitoring system that automatically registers and analyses data captured by the machines for controlling the manufacturing machines.

With regard to augmented reality and virtual reality for the industrial field, TECNALIA will present an application which, using this technology, guides you step by step through the assembly and dismantling process of a centrifugal filter used in diesel engines.

Other initiatives in areas such as energy, health or sustainable materials

TECNALIA will also show new initiatives relating to energy, health or sustainable materials. In the field of energy, the research centre will present a micro-reactor for obtaining biofuel or high value-added chemical products for the sectors within the chemical, petrochemical and biorefinery industries.

In health, one of the objectives of TECNALIA is to provide healthier foods which favour a higher quality of life as well as active and health ageing, through the food industry. To do so, they will show some technological breakthroughs in the field of natural ingredients such as colourants, proteins, polyphenols, carotenoids, etc. with antioxidant and functional activity.

Using sustainable materials, along with the French company KEEY Aerogel, it has developed an aerogel thermal superinsulator, recognised in Europe with the Business Idea Competition for Innovation prize, for significantly reducing energy consumption and achieving better use of resources.