The ground-breaking developments in microprocessor technology over the last few decades and the initiatives for the development of miniaturised sensors and actuators, which have been supported by the EU with large amounts of funding, have led to completely new possibilities for process control in forming technology. These developments bring the forming processes closer to the goal of being able to control and possibly even predict the properties of the workpiece in terms of microstructure and dimensional accuracy within narrow limits in both sheet metal and solid forming in the long term. Against this background, the Institute of Forming Technology has been working for many years on the integration of physical and software-based sensors in forming tools and forming machines and also on the further development of actuators that can be adapted as close as possible to the process in or on the equipment.
In recent years, the development of suitable controller structures for selected sheet metal and bulk metal forming processes has accelerated, with the result that feed-back and feed-forward controller structures are increasingly being used today. Cloud-based process control, real-time database and assistance systems have also been successfully implemented in initial applications in forming technology in recent years. With the institute's latest projects, the research team's work is moving further in the direction of offline and online learning from various simulation and production data: Process data from the run-in phase of series production, process data from the time phase of re-installation of the forming tool and process data from ongoing series production.