The Chair
The Chair of Machine Tools Development and Adaptive Controls is held by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Steffen Ihlenfeldt since 2015 and currently employs 31 research associates and 4 technical staff members.
The Chair offers a wide variety of lectures, seminars and laboratories regarding design, development and analysis of machine tools and their components, and design of machine control systems. Furthermore, students are offered the possibility to prepare minor and diploma theses or work as undergraduate assistants at one of the research-related projects.
Research topics are divided into the departments of Machine Technology, Control and Regulation Technology as well as Process Informatics and Machine Data Analytics. There is a close collaboration with the Science Area Production Systems and Factory Automation at the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU.
Projects of the chair include mostly basic research projects of the DFG among research projects of AiF, BMBF and BMWI. The chair is in a close cooperation with industrial partners, e. g. Volkswagen AG, Rolls-Royce and Bosch Rexroth AG. The external funding acquired by research projects adds up to about 2M Euro annually.