Minister President Bouffier visits robotics laboratory at the University of Kassel

Minister President Volker Bouffier was welcomed by the President of the University of North Hesse, Prof. Dr. Reiner Finkeldey. Finkeldey highlighted how well the university's research achievements have developed in recent years, not only in the breadth of scientific disciplines, but also at the top. An example of excellent Kassel research was then presented by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ludger Schmidt, Head of the Department of Human-Machine Systems Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Scientific Center for Information Technology Design. In 1982, the department was the first university institution in Germany in which scientists systematically dealt with human-machine systems research. In the department's robotics laboratory, occupational scientist Ludger Schmidt and his interdisciplinary team showed the guest from Wiesbaden how the interaction of humans and robots in the working world could look under the sign of increasing digitalization. Among other things, Prof. Schmidt presented the Minister President with a ground-to-air service robotics system for inspection tasks in industrial production halls. Employees also demonstrated human-robot collaboration using a mock workstation where humans are assisted by a robot and augmented reality data goggles in assembling a gearbox to improve efficiency and ergonomics.

Minister President Bouffier was impressed by the research work of the robotics lab and thanked the university president and the scientists for their presentation: "What the workplaces of the future will look like with the influences of digitalization and robotics is also being impressively researched at Hessian universities. This shows what excellent research is being done in this field and what is already technically possible today, for example in industrial assembly. The important thing is that the focus is on people and the benefits for society as a whole - that's progress with a promising future."

Contact:

Sebastian Mense
University of Kassel
Communications, Press and Public Relations
E-mail: presse@uni-kassel.de
Tel: +49 561 804-1961