The Josef Ressel Centre for Intelligent and Safe Industrial Automation (ISIA) will begin operations at the FH Salzburg in July 2022. Experts from science and industry gathered at the FH Salzburg for the ceremony and symposium on 10 October. The keynote was held by Wittgenstein Prize winner Herbert Edelsbrunner from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria. The new Ressel Centre is part of the Department of Information Technologies and Digitalisation and, in addition to its relevance for the economy, is also an important pillar for linking research and teaching at the department.
In July 2022, the Josef Ressel Centre for Intelligent and Safe Industrial Automation (ISIA) began operations at FH Salzburg. Over the next five years, research will be conducted at the highest level. For the team, centre director Stefan Huber was able to draw on research colleagues from the Department of Information Technologies and Digitalisation as well as many well-trained graduates from the IT degree programmes at FH Salzburg.
The team is researching the basics for digital assistants for industrial machines. "The digital assistant should be able to relieve and support human operators by providing assistance in monitoring and controlling machines. In very concrete terms, this applies to people who operate injection moulding machines, milling machines, lathes, labelling machines or filling machines, for example," says Huber, summarising the long-term goal for practice.
The JR Centre focuses on three research fields: system architectures, artificial intelligence and cyber security. The team works together with three leading companies in automation: B&R Industrial Automation, COPA-DATA and SIGMATEK.
Bridge between teaching and research
In addition to networking with the business community, the Ressel Centre also brings great added value for the students of the Department of Information Technologies and Digitalisation (IT). Teaching and research at the cutting edge, as Department Head Gerhard Jöchtl points out: "We are very proud that we have been able to set another very important milestone with the third Josef Ressel Centre at the Department. Application-oriented research together with top companies that are extremely successful on the world market are an important cornerstone for a high-quality and future-oriented university education. The close integration of application-oriented research and teaching at the department benefits not only the researchers, but also the students, who receive cutting-edge knowledge and can actively contribute to exciting topics such as AI-supported systems, novel system architectures or OT security in the form of bachelor's or master's theses.