The inauguration began with presentations from representatives of industry and researchers at FOKUS that illustrated that the Internet of Things (IoT) is more than mere connecting of objects: new business models need to be thought of, as well as new products and applications are created. Moreover, quality assurance is posed with new challenges and last but not least security and in some cases failsafe performance must be ensured.

Concrete technologies, testing tools and application examples were presented by FOKUS researchers in an extensive IoT lab tour following the inauguration. The demonstrators consisted of a robot that can be controlled away from direct sight via VR-Googles and a controller, a tele medical assisted training environment for the rehabilitation at home and while on the move, an indoor navigation and an Open Data platform with IoT functionalities like an intelligent street light that warns passing cars of icing conditions on the road or pedestrians.

The transfer center “IoT Lab” covers three areas:

• The IoT-Demo center invites manufacturers, users and interested parties, to experience IoT- Systems and IoT-Applications.
• The IoT-Test Center conducts interoperability tests, conformity tests, load and security tests and offers services for quality assurance and precertification.
• The IoT-Development Lab creates, develops and integrates tailor made solutions for customer specific requests.  

The range of services is aligned to start-ups as well as SME's and large organizations in the fields of Industrial IoT and Consumer IoT. Fraunhofer FOKUS accompanies the entire life-cycle of a product right from maturity assessment, the requirements analysis and strategy development to the quality assurance, the interoperability tests, load and security test right up to the piloting. The aims are a seamless and rapid market introduction and a high customer satisfaction. 

The transfer center “Internet of Things Lab” is one of four transfer centers of the Berlin Center for Digital Transformation of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.