One of the highlights at this year's Sensor+Test in Nuremberg: Test driving Continue reading

We've suspected for a long time that modern cars don't have to burn ten litres or more per 100 km, no matter how snobby their drivers are. Finally, Bosch seems to have come to the same conclusion, even though they hardly mention mundane stuff like petrol. According to Bosch it's not about saving petrol but CO2 - and those two aren't too closely related. However, Dr. Volkmar Denner, the chairman of the board of management, is confident that the EU fleet emissions targets of 95 grams of CO2 per kilometer are technically feasible. In all vehicle segments, the company sees... Continue reading

Dear Readers, the Renewable Energy Blog is back. After EPN Europe unfortunately has ceased publication, my blogs on Renewable Energy, Industrial Automation and Automotive Electronics are back in business now. And you'll find my personal mixture of business and product news as well as clever or weird developments right here... Continue reading

Dear Readers, the Industrial Automation Blog is back. After EPN Europe unfortunately has ceased publication, my blogs on Renewable Energy, Industrial Automation and Automotive Electronics are back in business now. And you'll find my personal mixture of business and product news as well as clever or weird developments right here again - enjoy! Continue reading

Dear Readers, the Automotive Electronics Blog is back. After EPN Europe unfortunately has ceased publication, my blogs on Renewable Energy, Industrial Automation and Automotive Electronics are back in business now. And you'll find my personal mixture of business and product news as well as clever or weird developments right here again - enjoy! Continue reading

Thermodynamics and quantum physics pose certain limits to the efficiency of solar cells, but current technology doesn't even come close to those. There is a lot of potential for optimization but for the moment the recently achieved value of 24.7 % for ultra-thin cells isn't too bad. Actually, it is... Continue reading

One of the reasons - apart from pigheadedness - for the continuing existence of traditional fieldbuses is the lack of determinism in ethernet networking. Even industrial variants rarely show the reliability required by extremely timing-critical systems. There are ways to overcome this, e.g. by tweaking networking protocols and fine-tuning software. A wholly deterministic and specialized operating system could do the trick as well. That's just what Belden promises with HiOS, the new operating system for its Hirschmann switches. In addition to management and diagnostic functions, HiOS is supposed to provide precise time synchronization compliant with IEEE 1588v2 plus a variety... Continue reading

A new threesome has formed: Daimler, Nissan and Ford have agreed on a partnership to accelerate the commercialization of fuel cell electric vehicle technology. That's good news for alternative engine technology since it seems obvious that there is a limit to the number of huge Lithium-Ion Batteries that can be put on the highways of the world. The goal of the collaboration is to jointly develop a common fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) system while reducing engineering investment costs. According to the three-way agreement, each company is going to invest equally. By 2017, the companies intend to launch affordable, mass-market... Continue reading

At the Intersolar 2013 trade show there will be a new category of the »Intersolar AWARD« - so if you've got a really good project going on, it's time to apply! Documents may be submitted from February 1 to March 28. The award in the new category Solar Projects was... Continue reading

Among the problems with alternative engines and fuels, the lack of standards may just be the biggest obstacle for success. The number of different plugs for electric vehicles easily brings to mind the typical English hotel room from the 1970s with at least three different and totally incompatible wall plug types. Hydrogen and compressed natural gas networks pose similar difficulties. A new EU initiative is supposed to impose continent-wide standards - a step long overdue. On January 24, the European Commission announced an ambitious package of measures to ensure the build-up of alternative fuel stations across Europe with common standards... Continue reading

Reading the ICS-CERT security alerts on a daily basis can make you despair, even though most of the vulnerabilities and attacks in and on industrial systems aren't actually world-shattering. However, a few of them do stand out - for example when the target is in use extremely often or the vulnerability is fairly easy to exploit. The »ICS-ALERT-13-016-02« easily meets both conditions - it's about the »Siemens S7« system and a brute-force password cracking method that shouldn't actually work on any modern IT-related system, much less on a safety and security critical part of many industrial installations all around the... Continue reading

Another one of those market studies that »unveils« something that's obvious - but there are some interesting and unexpected details. On the face of it, the »Strategic Analysis of Global Machine Safety Market« by Frost&Sullivan states that »with the introduction of stringent safety requirements in developed countries, demand for machine safety solutions is expected to rise significantly« (Really?). More interesting are the implications on developing and emerging markets. The report finds that the market earned revenues of over 1.27 billion US-$ in 2011 and estimates this to reach 1.75 billion US-$ in 2016. »Safety systems monitor health of plant equipment... Continue reading

Currently the green-energy industries in both Germany and Canada have a globally recognised leadership role. In order to stay ahead of the field, closer ties between researchers may be a good idea. Fraunhofer and the the University of British Columbia are now trying joint scientific projects for the energy changeover.... Continue reading

Just after the announcement of China’s National Energy Administration to install 10 GW additional photovoltaic capacity during 2013, Beijing reported a new pollution record this weekend. Arguably, a centrally planned economy may have its benefits, but even this enormous addition of renewable energy is going to be just a drop... Continue reading

The world market for industrial robots seems to be growing, and according to a study recently published the share of small payload robots is growing stronger than the rest. Where do all those robots go to in times of economical troubles all around the world? One might never have guessed: Like practically every other growing market it's growing in China. And robots are not going there from Europe and Japan, where the majority of industrial robots still are manufactured, an increasing number even stems from there. CAGR of industrial robot production 2011 - 2016 by location. Source: IMS Research According... Continue reading

From a technical point of view there's not much difference between different vehicles from different brands in one price range, and thanks to uninspired product designers many are only distinguishable by the manufacturer's logo. If you've ever despaired connecting your new smartphone to a new car infotainment system, you know what's really important in a new vehicle. »ConnectedDrive« is what BMW calls its in-vehicle platform of which infotainment is an important part. In the core of it works an infotainment unit by Harman that combines wireless connectivity, navigation and productivity applications that are supposed to transform the car into a... Continue reading

»Power« and »France« in a single sentence usually add up to »nuclear«, but not always: there is even some renewable energy around. Besides water, sun and biogas, wind power take a sizeable share. A large part of that had been installed by the Spanish Iberdrola group. They however are troubled... Continue reading

For a US state, Nevada is quite fascinating, not only because of Las Vegas. However, getting a fun car and cruise up and down the Strip is an experience of its own. Even though traffic usually is slow, for us tourists this is fairly dangerous since the city changes its face every few months and there are so many new things to gape at every time. Now Nevada is getting a new kind of attraction which may in future even allow ALL occupants to lean back, sip some Gin Tonic and take a look at the latest megalomanic casino and... Continue reading

Despite all the opportunities the »energy turnaround« or »Energiewende« provides, the German PV market is in turmoil. A good reason for a big participant to try to gain a foothold in one of the largest potential markets, China. »Over the next few years, China will become the largest photovoltaic market... Continue reading

Driving around the world by car is difficult even under the best of circumstances, since there is so much water around. Doing it with a solar-powered vehicle is even more challenging. Nevertheless, the car has reached its destination, and it took 414 days. The »SolarWorld Grand Turismo« has crossed a total of 16 countries - surprisingly few, considering the total number of 193 (give or take a dozen, depending on who's asking) - and various climate zones in 414 days. After starting out in Australia, the car then passed through New Zealand, the USA, Italy, Monaco, France, Luxembourg, the car’s... Continue reading

In order to optimize manufacturing processes and improve the tasks of the production workers, a new strategic partnership of Daimler and Kuka focuses on human-robot cooperation. The technical background is the introduction of lightweight robots, originally designed for use in outer space, to an industrial environment. Employees of both companies are jointly conducting field tests to explore processes such as assembly and in-vehicle screw application. They are also developing systems concepts to make cooperation between humans and robots safe. Dr. Wolfgang Bernhard, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG, Manufacturing and Procurement Mercedes-Benz Cars & Mercedes-Benz Vans, claims:... Continue reading

It is unclear whether Berlin's new airport will open in 2013, 2014 or ever, but among the potential ruins an interesting renewable energy project might prevail. Five project partners combine photovoltaics, a wind farm and hydrogen technology to an environmentally sensible mobility solution. The planning of the new Berlin Brandenburg... Continue reading

When talking to company officials in charge of standards and norms one can get the impression that AUTOSAR is only being endorsed because any standard seems better than none. In terms of implementation, many companies interpret the »S« in AUTOSAR not as »System« but solely as »Software« -understandable, since this part of any system causes the most trouble. The recently published roadmap for the near future accounts for that interpretation. The AUTOSAR (AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture) development partnership has defined its goals for post phase III organization beginning in 2013. To enable the transition from phase III at the end... Continue reading

The requirements for Programmable Logic Controllers are increasing continuously, and today's PLCs don't have much in common with their predecessors of a few years ago. The higher complexity brings potential risks that have to be fought off with even more new functions. With the newest member of the S7 family, Siemens tries to bring it all together. Initially, the »Simatic S7-1500« controllers portfolio comprises of the three CPU types »1511«, »1513« and »1516« for the medium performance range, each also available as a F-version (failsafe) for safety applications, with graded performance features. These differ, for example, in the number of... Continue reading

Conventional photovoltaic technology is being installed worldwide on a large scale, but their manufacturing is fairly expensive, and every progress in efficiency costs even more. There are some alternatives to the normally used, expensive semiconductor processes but unfortunately they lack efficiency. A special technology using carbon only also can't compete... Continue reading