The Minister President of Saarland, Tobias Hans, personally picked up a shovel for the extension to the Fraunhofer Institute for Nondestructive Testing IZFP in Saarbrücken. Together with the managing director of the institute, Prof. Dr. Randolf Hanke, his deputies and other guests of honor - including Fraunhofer board member Prof. Dr. Alexander Kurz and the architect Stefan Krüger - he symbolically launched the construction work for the extension of the Saarbrücken research institute: A research and development environment for around 87 employees is expected to be created on a total area of 1,700 square meters by 2021. The investment volume of around 17 million euros is being funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the state of Saarland and the European Regional Development Fund.

With the new construction and renovation measures for the structural development of the Fraunhofer IZFP, the transformation of the Saarland institute into a research facility for cognitive sensor systems that are used in the value chains and life cycles of materials and products is being systematically continued.

"Modern research laboratories, communication zones and family-friendly offices and workspaces will offer our employees optimal conditions and create working conditions that match the internationally outstanding standing of our institute," explains Hanke.

Cognitive sensor systems - efficient processes
The Fraunhofer IZFP is an internationally networked research and development institute in the field of applied, industry-related research. Its activities focus on the development of cognitive sensor systems for the non-destructive monitoring of industrial processes and value chains. The institute's understanding of technical testing and sensor physics is complemented by technologies and concepts from AI research, which are used to develop sensor systems for the NDT of tomorrow. In addition to pure production processes, R&D activities focus equally on processes from materials and product development, maintenance, servicing and recycling of materials.

Current research topics concern the development of sensors that are able to record production-related microstructure patterns and combine them into a kind of "product THEN" in the sense of an individual fingerprint. In the future, these digital product files will open up completely new approaches for optimizing the individual areas of a material and product cycle. as