Kamaro wins the Field Robot Event 2017
At the Field Robot Event (FRE), the unofficial world championship for field robots, student teams from universities all over Europe and beyond meet every year to pit their constructions against each other in a competition in the field.
The FRE is held by a different university each year, always on arable land and always with real plants. On the competition field, usually planted with young maize plants, the robots have to navigate flawlessly and recognize weeds and obstacles. All this without GPS, because the field is all about millimeters, whatever the weather.
The students are building several robotic vehicles on their own, with all the mechanics, electronics and data processing coming from mechanical engineers, electrical engineers and computer scientists at KIT.
After many years of development, during which many a corn plant and electronics had to lose their lives, we achieved our greatest success at the FRE 2017, hosted by Harper Adams University in England.
The overall victory across all disciplines, and the successful defense of the title in the freestyle presentation. Kamaro was able to achieve a partial victory (1st place), especially in Field Mapping (Task 3) with a convincing map of the field, which mapped areas with simulated weeds with centimeter accuracy. In addition, the robot's consistent driving performance across all tasks was one of the main reasons for its excellent ranking.
6th symposium "Hybrid and energy-efficient drives for mobile machinery"
On 14/15 February 2017, the 6th "Hybrid and energy-efficient drives for mobile machinery" symposium took place, which has established itself as a recognized forum in the field of mobile machinery. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Marcus Geimer welcomed almost 200 experts from industry and science. The event on the eve of the conference was already used for a lively cross-company meeting with professional exchange in a convivial atmosphere. The conference was organized by the Mobile Machinery Division of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the German Engineering Federation (VDMA) in cooperation with the Scientific Association for Mobile Machinery.
While the first symposia - the event took place in 2007 - focused on ideas, concepts and initial solution implementations, the 6th symposium in 2017 addressed topics relating to the testing and successful integration of electric and hybrid drives in mobile machinery.
Three introductory keynote speeches from industry and science gave participants the opportunity to think outside the box. Starting with a presentation on a battery electric wheel loader by Mr. Franz-Josef Paus from Paus Hermann Maschinenfabrik GmbH, the development trends in rail vehicles were presented by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Peter Gratzfeld, KIT Subinstitute Railway Systems Technology, and the development perspectives of electrical energy storage by Dr. Margret Wohlfahrt-Mehrens from the Helmholtz Institute Ulm.
In the following session, the companies Daimler AG and Weiss Mobiltechnik GmbH as well as the research institutions TU Braunschweig and KIT presented concepts as well as energy-efficient and hybrid drive topologies that have been put into series production and assessed their potential. After the lunch break, contributions on simulation and modelling by KIT and Liebherr Werk Bischofshofen GmbH showed the current status of simulation and calculation tools in various domains relating to optimization and energy efficiency. At the same time, HYDAC International GmbH, HAMM AG, TU Dresden and the Fraunhofer Institute presented a wide variety of hybrid drive systems. Finally, KIT, John Deere GmbH & Co. KG and Linde Material Handling GmbH reported on the use of electric and alternative drives in mobile machinery before Prof. Geimer closed the 6th symposium with his closing remarks.
Overall, the contributions presented showed the importance of the topic of hybrid drives for mobile machinery in industry and science. This is expected to provide new impetus for development, with benefits for the environment in the form of reduced CO2 emissions, as well as added value for industry in the form of increased productivity, improved cost-effectiveness and increased energy efficiency.
In addition to the presentations, participants had the opportunity to exchange ideas with component, system and control manufacturers at the accompanying trade exhibition during the breaks. Eight manufacturers took the opportunity to present their products and ideas.
The accompanying conference proceedings 
can be obtained from KIT Scientific Publishing (ISBN 978-3-7315-0601-0). The presentation documents are available for download on the homepage(Mobima) of the Mobile Machinery Institute, KIT.
Program committee:
Prof. Dr. M. Geimer, Dipl.-Ing. I. Ays, Dipl.-Ing. P.-M. Synek, Prof. L. Frerichs, Dr. F. Bauer,
Dr. B. Pichlmaier, Dr. B. Volpert