Gestalt Robotics automating industry

Start-up area at EMO Han­nover 2019 pre­sent­ing many excit­ing newcomers

Frank­furt am Main, 03 sep­tem­ber 2019. – Start-ups are sought after. Many estab­lished com­pa­nies are look­ing to make con­tact and coop­er­ate with them and/or invest in them. Thomas Staufen­biel, one of the three founders of Gestalt Robot­ics GmbH in Berlin, is just such a sought-after busi­ness­man. At EMO Han­nover, the com­pa­ny is pre­sent­ing its tai­lor-made automa­tion and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) soft­ware on the start-up stand of the Fed­er­al Min­istry of Eco­nom­ics and Tech­nol­o­gy in Hall 9.

The soft­ware is used, for exam­ple, in indus­tri­al image pro­cess­ing and work­er assis­tance as well as in autonomous trans­port and intel­li­gent robot sys­tems. All of which sounds very abstract. And so we decid­ed to shad­ow Thomas Staufen­biel at work. A typ­i­cal research project that he and ten oth­er employ­ees are cur­rent­ly work­ing on is a work­er assis­tance sys­tem. It is designed to facil­i­tate assem­bly work by using aug­ment­ed real­i­ty to inform the assem­blers of the next steps and the best way of get­ting to them. “The aim is to sup­port the work­er and improve the qual­i­ty of the prod­uct,” says Staufen­biel. The final imple­men­ta­tion of the assis­tance sys­tem has not yet been decid­ed: 3D glass­es or a dis­play sys­tem. The sys­tem itself, how­ev­er, is being devel­oped as part of a research project in which such deci­sions are con­sid­ered in detail beforehand.

Research projects pro­vide access to estab­lished busi­ness partners

“Win­ning a con­tract to par­tic­i­pate in a research project is not as easy as it sounds,” admits Staufen­biel. “But it’s worth it if we get to become part of a con­sor­tium with estab­lished play­ers and can prove our exper­tise.” Espe­cial­ly with assis­tance sys­tems, it is also cru­cial to gain the accep­tance of the peo­ple they are intend­ed to sup­port. Work­ing out how to achieve this is part and par­cel of such projects.

Tak­ing part in trade fairs is anoth­er good way of rais­ing pub­lic aware­ness and get­ting peo­ple talk­ing about your com­pa­ny. The man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­try is a key mar­ket for Gestalt Robot­ics. The com­pa­ny is par­tic­i­pat­ing in EMO Han­nover 2019 to raise its pro­file in this field. “We’re keen to estab­lish con­tact with research and devel­op­ment man­agers in larg­er man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies and to under­stand the strate­gies of poten­tial users of our soft­ware,” says Staufen­biel, explain­ing the rea­sons for sign­ing up for EMO Han­nover. The com­pa­ny has already tak­en part in a num­ber of trade fairs.

Gestalt Robot­ics was found­ed in 2016 by a rock­et engi­neer, a robot­ics expert and a vision expert. The orig­i­nal idea was to devel­op soft­ware for mecha­tron­ic sys­tems. Robot­ics was then added, includ­ing cam­eras and image recog­ni­tion sys­tems. “Gestalt is all about vis­i­ble form, out­line or appear­ance. A lot of what we do is con­cerned with per­cep­tion, and so the name seemed appro­pri­ate to us,” explains Staufenbiel.

The com­pa­ny plans to dou­ble its turnover in the cur­rent year. “There is great demand from indus­try at present, so we’re con­fi­dent of achiev­ing our goal and, nat­u­ral­ly, we’re hop­ing that this growth will con­tin­ue,” says a self-assured Staufen­biel. The cus­tomers are main­ly from the auto­mo­tive sec­tor and are robot­ics users or com­po­nent sup­pli­ers look­ing to enhance their pro­duc­tion. He does not see any major prob­lems with per­son­nel devel­op­ment at present. “We’re an attrac­tive prospect for young peo­ple because we have a broad base, and employ­ees get to refine and devel­op their skills in var­i­ous projects,” says com­pa­ny-founder Staufenbiel.

Author: Sylke Beck­er, Size: around 3521 char­ac­ters includ­ing blanks