Accompanied by Andre Boschem, Managing Director of Essener Wirtschaftsförderung, Thomas Kufen, Lord Mayor of the city of Essen, visited the ifm group of companies at their trade fair stand in Hanover.

On 26 April 2018, Michael Marhofer, Chairman of the ifm group of companies, welcomed the Lord Mayor of Essen, Thomas Kufen, and Andre Boschem, Managing Director of Essener Wirtschaftsförderung, at the trade fair stand of the ifm group of companies in Hanover.

From 23 to 27 April 2018, ifm are presenting their latest product highlights and innovations at the world's most important industrial fair. The Lord Mayor of Essen and the Managing Director of Wirtschaftsförderung used this opportunity to discuss current trends in the industry, such as Industry 4.0, with Michael Marhofer. ifm's solution is to offer system solutions instead of individual components in order to optimise their customers' production processes and to pave the way for digitisation.

Miniature depth sensors

The two visitors from Essen were particularly fascinated with the virtual reality glasses with an integrated 3D camera built by the ifm subsidiary pmdtechnologies AG. The chip installed in the 3D camera enables users to access context-sensitive information in the virtual reality just by reaching for it. This is very useful for condition-based maintenance.

Visitors can also experience this 3D camera technology in the virtual factory. The virtual factory is not tied to a location, and the 3D models can be presented anywhere and simulate, for example, the production of car rims.

The applied hardware is the ASUS ZenFone AR that has a much better performance than the smartphone used last year.

The 3D depth camera inside is a product from pmdtechnologies AG as well.