Fraunhofer IPA opens robotics external office in the IPAI Spaces in Heilbronn

© IPAI

© IPAI

Since October 1st, Fraunhofer IPA has a new location with several demonstrators for AI-based robotics in the "IPAI Spaces" in Heilbronn. The institute has been represented since the beginning of the year through the Fraunhofer Heilbronn Research and Innovation Centers HNFIZ within the local ecosystem for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and now benefits from the new premises and the network of the large innovation platform.

At the end of September, the contract was signed for the membership of the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology and Automation IPA in the innovation platform IPAI. This is an important milestone for the institute's location in Heilbronn. "Our goal is to develop highly flexible automation solutions for material handling and transport and bring them into industry," explains Simon Schmidt, Business Unit Manager at Fraunhofer IPA. "The IPAI membership and the even deeper integration of Fraunhofer IPA into the Heilbronn ecosystem strengthen our strategy to develop AI-based automation solutions together with and for industry."

AI-based Robotics for Production, Assembly, and Logistics

Since January 2025, several teams from the "Automation and Robotics" research area have been integrated into the Heilbronn location of Fraunhofer HNFIZ and are building the research and innovation center (FIZ) for AI-based robotics there. With the move into the IPAI Spaces and the development of several demonstrators, companies and interested parties can now experience the developments firsthand.

For research area director Werner Kraus, the new location is a crucial expansion: "Heilbronn is currently developing into the place to be for AI development in Europe. It is therefore all the more important to be present here in person from the start. With our focus on AI-based robotics, we give AI a body and develop innovative solutions based on humanoid robots and robotic arms for production, assembly, and logistics."

Solutions for Easier Commissioning and Reconfiguration

The overarching goal of the work in Heilbronn is to make robots flexibly deployable even for complex and changing tasks. An important lever for this is programming. The involved research teams are therefore focusing on two main areas:

– Robotic arms: The human hand remains unmatched in its versatility, but new software from the FIZ aims to make available robotic arms more flexible for production and logistics processes.
– Intelligent Mobile Manipulation: Combining grasping functions with mobile or humanoid robots expands their range of action and focuses on technologies with minimal programming effort, such as learning by demonstration or teleoperation as a basis for autonomous task execution.

Moritz Gräter, CEO of IPAI: "We are very pleased to welcome Fraunhofer IPA as a lighthouse of applied research as the newest member of IPAI and in our IPAI Spaces. It is a great joy, an important milestone, and a real gain for the entire community. Fraunhofer IPA provides the direct bridge from excellent research to industry. Together, we can now better and more practically demonstrate what responsible, European AI in production or logistics looks like."

About IPAI

IPAI enables organizations in their AI transformation — collaboratively, hands-on, and holistic. The vision is to build an application-oriented AI innovation and collaboration platform based on European values.

Together with its now over 80 members and partners from business, politics, and society, IPAI from Heilbronn is creating the "Global Home of Human AI," the central future hub for European AI.

As a central contact point, IPAI bridges the gap between excellent research and practical application by creating an open ecosystem with diverse, continuously tailored offerings for the joint development of innovative and responsible AI solutions.

The heart of the vision is the IPAI Campus. On a 30-hectare site in northern Heilbronn, IPAI is creating the necessary infrastructure for a European path of AI. Construction of the campus, which will eventually accommodate 5,000 people working around AI, will begin at the end of this year; the first buildings are expected to be completed by the end of 2027.

Among the initiators of the IPAI platform are the state of Baden-Württemberg, the Dieter Schwarz Foundation, the companies of the Schwarz Group, and the city of Heilbronn.