BOSCH rexROTH
Hybrid Shopfloor

Since fall 2021, Bosch Rexroth’s Customer and Innovation Center CU.BE has been home to the award-winning “Hybrid Shopfloor”, an innovative media presentation environment that allows visitors to experience the complex production and automation processes of the ‘Factory of the Future’ in all their facets.

Goals

The goal was to create an appropriate interactive augmented presentation space for the high-tech company Bosch Rexroth. Also to be used as a sales tool with variable and constantly growing content, the Hybrid Shopfloor now visualizes and explains real processes in a comprehensible way with XR media content. Simulations for future systems can be virtually played through. It also makes possible spatial extensions of the real factory medially tangible.

On behalf of the creative agency MCI and raumHOCH, EVOKE Studios was responsible for the system integration of the modular system, including the orchestration of the real showroom space with the digital twin on the media wall, the programming and control of various applications and robots, or graphics rendered in real time to represent the real perspective of the viewer.

This is an Award-winning project: red dot design award, BrandEx Award Gold, Annual Multimedia Award Silver and German Design Award Special Mention

Challenges

The project posed several challenges. One of the main requirements was to develop one show control device for the Bosch Rexroth team to easily manage the full system from start to shutdown. This demanded a highly complex programming mechanism. For building an easy-to-use interface and integrating all technical demands, we used Stage Precision as a software basis. The program system is now responsible for powering up and down the complete presentation, monitoring the servers and translating all communications between different parts of the systems. It also receives the tracking data of the robots and transmits these to adapt the live renderings being shown on the oversized LED wall.

The latter also presented a challenge, because the rendered graphics that are being sent to the LED wall had to be shown in real time and in high resolution – which demands a superior technical performance of the systems.

And besides creating the technical brain of the whole system, the rack with all the technical components had to be invisible and imperceptible at the same time. Thus, to create a pleasantly quiet conversational backdrop for the Bosch Rexroth team, we built a special cabinet for the rack to limit the noise of the running system hidden behind the LED wall.

Compared to temporary event installations, the requirements of fixed long-term installs differ in terms of durability, usability and sustainability. The component operability of the systems plays a special role in long-term installs. By building an easy-to-use interface for a highly complex system, that can be managed with just one power button and be accessed remotely as well, EVOKE has proven its expertise in developing fixed installs to last.