At this week’s Hannover Messe exhibition, Siemens unveiled a digital model of its next-generation FREYR battery factory powered by NVIDIA.Siemens and Norwegian battery maker FREYR announced a strategic partnership on Monday, highlighted by two presentations. Siemens became FREYR’s preferred supplier for automation technology, which enabled FREYR to expand production and maximize plant efficiency. These demonstrations are based on the Siemens Launchpad and built using the NVIDIA Omniverse simulation collaboration platform, extending the shared vision for the development of the industrial universe announced by Siemens and NVIDIA last year.
These demonstrations were presented at the Siemens booth at the world‘s largest industrial technology fair, Hannover Messe. These displays include operational data from FREYR’s factories in Norway, and present infrastructure, plants, machinery, ergonomics, safety information, robots, unmanned guided vehicles, and detailed product and production simulations with 3D models.
The virtual factory is demonstrated through Siemens’ Launchpad, a preview application developed by Siemens on the Omniverse platform. The app highlights the integration of Siemens’ Xcelerator and NVIDIA’s Omniverse platforms, enabling FREYR to meet the growing demand for high-density, cost-effective batteries in stationary energy storage, e-mobility and marine applications.
The battery industry is expected to grow to $400 billion by 2030 as global sustainability initiatives continue to increase and transportation is rapidly electrified. Battery manufacturing is key in the battery value chain, and manufacturers are investing billions of dollars in new battery factories to meet this new demand. Together, Siemens and FREYR are demonstrating how new battery manufacturing plants can be efficiently designed, built and operated on a large scale.
In the first demonstration, Siemens continued to showcase the company’s vision and technological capabilities through industrial metaverse models of existing and future factories. In just a few seconds, FREYR can set up a meeting with a potential investor or customer using the Siemens Launchpad based on the Omniverse platform. Then, they can quickly navigate through the digital model of FREYR’s Norwegian factory, view the external environment of the factory, and inspect the current production process inside the factory.
A quick tour of the stunning factory interior immediately reveals the size and scale of the factory. Real-time and physically accurate simulations show how machines and robots move inside factories, even simulating complex processes. Sensors that gather information about machinery and equipment can display performance and ergonomic assessments in real time.
In the second demonstration, the factory manager can use the Siemens Launchpad application to view the overall operation status of the factory and quickly evaluate the factory’s performance. Next, the manager initiates a Microsoft Teams meeting with colleagues in a manufacturing “cell” (a strategic location containing key people, machines, and items) within the virtual factory. Teams can then inspect robot arms that are having low cycle time issues, obtain machine performance data, identify specific cycle time issues, and view live-streamed videos with sensor data related to machine performance.
The team quickly found an empty parts bin, checked the inventory and noticed 15 minutes of downtime due to replacement parts, but also detected machine stuttering due to overuse during a particular part of its cycle, requiring repairs to resolve question. They can then efficiently log issues and raise emergency service requests.
