Armin Wallnöfer is Digital Leader Motion Germany at ABB Automation Products.

What new fields of application do you see in drive technology against the backdrop of digitalization?

Armin Wallnöfer: New fields of application are currently being opened up primarily through the possibilities of digital twins. The digital twins of drive components provide automation technology with a powerful concept. They can serve as the basis for in-depth analyses and artificial intelligence. Furthermore, artificial intelligence applications can also be part of a digital twin. They also facilitate comprehensive engineering in all phases of the life cycle of devices and systems. Last but not least, digital twins can solve operating or maintenance problems that would otherwise lead to expensive downtimes and they can prevent production errors caused by incorrect or outdated information.

Do you already have intelligent drive solutions for networked production with regard to Industry 4.0 in your product range or in development?

Wallnöfer: We already offer a number of such solutions, including for predictive maintenance. One example is ABB Ability Condition Monitoring for the drivetrain. This is a suite of digital, cloud-based services for holistic condition monitoring that provides the user with full transparency for all powertrain parameters. One element of this is the ABB Ability Smart Sensor: it transforms electric motors, centrifugal pumps, pedestal bearings and gearboxes into intelligent devices, which in turn can then benefit from intelligent services. ABB Ability Condition Monitoring for frequency converters, another digital service, provides information on events in the connected drive train converters. Possible problems can thus be detected at an early stage and necessary maintenance measures can be initiated. These are just a few examples of the many solutions that ABB now offers for networked production.

In your opinion, what challenges does drive technology still have to face in the near future?

Wallnöfer: One major challenge is certainly cloud concepts and services, which will play an important role for intelligent drive technology in the future and are already a key component of Industry 4.0 today. Everyone is currently talking about cloud solutions when it comes to increasing the availability and safety of drives. However, the components must have cloud connectivity and cybersecurity must be ensured from the individual device to the network edge and the cloud.

Another challenge is the issue of standardization versus proprietary solutions. This question currently arises in connection with the digital twin. Users can benefit from its advantages without being tied to proprietary solutions if it is based on standardized solutions. To do this, the digital twin must provide its data in a format standardized and defined by the Industry 4.0 platform. This openness makes it possible to combine products and solutions from different manufacturers, provided that uniform standards apply to all of them, which ultimately merge the data.