Start of the project "Blockchain Reallabor im Rheinischen Revier" at RWTH Aachen University
WZL, ACS and TIME of RWTH Aachen University explore the potential of block chain technology in a new research environment
Yesterday the green light was given for the twelve-month project "Block chain Laboratory in the Rhineland Territory". On September 2, 2019, Prof. Wolfgang Prinz, Deputy Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT in Sankt Augustin and Professor of the Cooperation Systems Teaching and Research Field at RWTH Aachen University, received the grant notification from the Minister of Economics and Digital Affairs, Prof. Dr. Andreas Pinkwart, at the Ministry for Economics, Innovation, Digitalization and Energy of the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia in Düsseldorf.
The project is part of the real laboratory strategy of the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy. The aim is to promote and further develop digital innovations and the associated regulations in virtual and real test rooms in order to gain experience with innovative technologies under practical and real conditions. New technologies and business models that are only conditionally compatible with the existing legal and regulatory framework are to be tested in experiment rooms limited in time and space.
Against this background, the "Block chain Laboratory in the Rhineland Territory" was developed together with the Project Management Jülich and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Technology (BMWi). Functioning and practice-relevant application examples are to be determined in the project as proof of the potential of a block chain technology for North Rhine-Westphalia. To this end, the sectors strongly represented in the Rhine region and the associated business models will be considered, initially with a focus on the areas of energy, public services, logistics, industry 4.0 and finance. Participating research partners are therefore the three Fraunhofer Institutes FIT, INT and IML, the Institute for Internet Security - if(is), the Ruhr University Bochum and the three RWTH Institutes ACS, TIME and WZL.
The focus of WZL is the realization of a demonstrator to illustrate the potentials of a machine or production economy. The production economy should also clarify how the value of production data can be quantified and how these data between machines and production plants can be traded fairly, safely and efficiently.
This turns data into economic goods and they are no longer just information.
Dr.-Ing. Daniel Trauth, Head of the Digital Transformation of Manufacturing Processes at WZL
Production economics seamlessly follow the preliminary work of the "Internet of Production" Cluster of Excellence, which has focused on data acquisition, data modelling and data exploitation. The interim status of the planned demonstrator will be presented at the 30th Aachen Machine Tool Colloquium AWK on 14 and 15 May 2020.