Hands-On Robotics Inspires

About 150 interested attendees learned what it takes to make an automation project a success at the wvib Robotics Day held at the WLRI.

30.09.2026 · WLRI · Editorial Office: jd

A large number of people are standing around tables and robots in a factory and chatting

A large crowd gathered on Tuesday afternoon at the Work Life Robotics Institute (WLRI) at Hochschule Offenburg. Around 150 company representatives attended the Robotics Day hosted by the Baden Association of Industrial Enterprises (wvib Schwarzwald AG) to once again visit the robotics center on Campus West to learn about the simplest and most straightforward ways to get started with automation and the latest technologies in this field.

At a total of 14 booths, researchers from the WLRI and their technology partners presented a wide variety of solutions. The offerings ranged from embedded AI vision systems and embedded voice assistant systems (Aitad) to the modular Paco robot cell (DIEP Technology), machine automation with robots for small batch sizes (EGS Automation), a dual-skid system for autonomous horizontal pallet transport (Filics), Physical AI in Action (fruitcore robotics), the HSL-Duo linear axis system (HIWIN), and a bin-picking cell (Optonic), to the development of grippers into robotic hands (Schunk), a vision sensor for robotics applications (SensoPart) and sensor technology for detecting various factors (Sick), all the way to automated grinding and polishing in Medizintechnik (Supfina) and mobile robot process automation (Zimmer Group). The humanoid robots presented by Müller & Partner Sachverständige/Terra Robotics and Maximilian Gießler—Head of Research in Humanoid Robotics and Embodied AI at Hochschule Offenburg and founder of the foundation of the same name—were also a real eye-catcher. In addition, WLRI Director Prof. Dr. Thomas Wendt and his team were on hand to answer visiting guests’ questions.

This allowed participants to experience some of what they had heard in the technical presentations at J. Schneider Elektrotechnik that morning—in some cases, right there on the spot. The WLRI was also well represented during this part of the Robotics Day: Among other things, staff member Lukas Stiglmeier presented the workshop and later its results, and WLRI Vice Director Dr. Alexander Gehringer stepped in at short notice for a speaker who had fallen ill and captivated the audience with his presentation.

At the end, there was still plenty of time for a general discussion, and everyone was enthusiastic about the successful event.