Measurement technology is making its way into almost all areas of life. Whether in manufacturing, medicine, environmental technology or safety technology, physical, chemical or biological parameters need to be measured. By doing this, the industry can, on the one hand, optimize manufacturing processes and medicine can, on the other, monitor healing processes. In production engineering, optical measuring systems are an essential part of Industry 4.0 concepts, for which Fraunhofer ILT is developing compact and robust solutions. The spectrum ranges from plasma-based material analysis to interferometric geometry measurement and even surface temperature analysis, which is used, for example, in additive manufacturing.
In cooperation with equipment manufacturers, Fraunhofer ILT is also developing systems for inline process control to optimize process parameters and to ensure manufacturing quality. This allows a 100% control of the components and compliance with very low tolerance limits.
In material analysis, pulsed laser radiation can be used to determine a material’s chemical composition without contacting it. The possible applications of laser-induced breakdown spectrometry range from quality inspection in metal production through material input control in metal processing all the way to rapid material recognition in recycling processes.