EPSILON IN PARTNERSHIP WITH EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

Knowing that pupils receive excellent educations and training, with teaching content taught not only through theoretical tuition but also through practical project work, PALFINGER EPSILON approached three higher education establishments for help with the development of a mobile telemetry box for crane prototypes. HTL Saalfelden (a higher technical school in Saalfelden, Austria) won the tender, having impressed the company with its work. The aim and task of the high school pupils was to develop a design for a telemetry box that could be used to read and send measurements and to issue signals for switching relays. The telemetry box does this by collecting measurements and saving them afterwards.

If there is a GSM or Wi-Fi connection available, the data are stored in a cloud so that they can be accessed remotely. The telemetry box can also be used to switch digital outputs and send CAN messages. The measurement settings are defined in the development office and stored in the cloud in file format. The telemetry box regularly downloads the file from the cloud and performs the measurements according to the defined settings.

The only requirement that PALFINGER EPSILON had of the pupils was to work independently and responsibly. 'Challenge accepted', thought Simon Feichter and Philipp Hager, soon-to-be HTL graduates specialising in mechatronics. The high school pupils spent six months in total working hard to develop a design for the mobile telemetry box for crane prototypes. They suffered failures and encountered some setbacks. Nonetheless, throughout the entire project, they showed incredible perseverance, strong wills and ambition to create a working design for PALFINGER EPSILON.

Simon Feichter and Philipp Hager gave a final presentation to showcase their work, impressing Martin Galler (head of product management and documentation) and Stefan Neureiter (head of the mechatronics team) with their design.
'It's amazing how much knowledge and potential these young people have. The fact, in particular, that they approached the task with an open mind, looked for creative solutions and weren't afraid of the challenges shows us just how important it is to give young people the chance and the responsibility to work on projects independently', said Martin Galler.

Although the mobile telemetry box for crane prototypes is not yet operational, it will not be long before the first analogue and digital data can be compiled and synchronised with data from the development department.