The core process is the transport and handling of solar wafers by pneumatic gripping using an Adept Quattro s650 Delta robot. On a conveyor belt, unoriented wafers are detected by an optical system, picked up by the Delta robot using suction pads and placed in a workpiece carrier. Three linear axes, a rotary axis and another suction pad transport the wafers back to the beginning of the conveyor belt and place them again randomly on the conveyor belt before they are picked up again by the robot. This combination allows the system to operate continuously. As a typical brownfield facility, there are numerous opportunities to demonstrate the possibilities of low-cost retrofitting, integration into the IoT, condition monitoring and even predictive maintenance.

Furthermore, the demonstrator shows possibilities for increasing the acceptance of Industry 4.0 solutions through intuitive operability and transparent presentation of data flows and prognosis models. The technology demonstrator shows an approach to give new users easy access to machine learning with the help of an IoT reference architecture and standardised data mining modules in a graphical programming interface.