Nanyang Technological University Singapore (NTU Singapore) and Delta Electronics are expanding their innovative manufacturing research efforts.

The partners of the Delta-NTU Corporate Laboratory for Cyber-Physical Systems, including the National Research Foundation (NRF), are opening a second laboratory space to accommodate this expansion. The joint lab has developed innovative solutions such as a universal smart navigation system where logistics robots autonomously move goods around factory floors.

The expanded lab already has 15 projects, which aim to improve and streamline industry processes and enhance learning technologies by integrating computation, networking, and physical processes. Apart from the smart navigation kit, the researchers have also developed a reconfigurable testbed that will allow factories to digitize and change their production line processes quickly.

The Delta-NTU Corporate Lab is one of 12 facilities supported by the NRF, which facilitates the setup of corporate labs via public-private partnerships. Since 2016, the Delta-NTU Corporate Lab has filed five patent submissions, secured two licenses, and published approximately 50 papers. It also supports more than 60 NTU research staff and graduate students, as well as scientists and engineers from the Delta Research Center in Singapore.

The innovations developed by the Delta-NTU Corporate Lab are commonly referred to as cyber-physical systems, which combine physical objects and virtual systems to create a networked world of intelligent cyber-physical elements interacting through the internet. The research projects focus on four broad research areas: smart manufacturing, smart learning, smart living, and smart commercialization.