The new chairman of the independent jury is Prof. Dr-Ing. Holger Hanselka, President of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. Under his chairmanship, the jury members will nominate three products each for the Hermes Award and the HermesStartup Award and select the winner from this group. The criteria of technological innovation, benefits for industry, the environment and society, economic viability and readiness for implementation will play a key role in the assessment of prize worthiness.

High degree of innovation

Every year, Deutsche Messe AG presents the Hermes Award to a company whose product or solution demonstrates a particularly high degree of technological innovation. Only technology solutions that have already been tried and tested in industry are considered. Companies can apply under this link.

The Hermes Award 2023 went to Bosch Rexroth. The company was recognized for the Smart Flex Effector project. This is a sensor-supported compensation module (end effector) for robots with independent, precise kinematics in six degrees of freedom. It can be used for handling or joining processes with tight tolerances in automation technology or robotics with loads of up to 6 kg. The position of workpieces or handling objects can be sensed by robots with Smart Flex Effector. It can be used for a wide range of applications, as it is also suitable for human-robot collaboration as an add-on device for various robots.

The Dutch start-up MantiSpectra was honored with the Hermes Startup Award. The award-winning product is a fully integrated near-infrared sensor which, with a footprint of 1 square millimeter, is the smallest of its kind on the market. The sensor enables rapid analysis with high accuracy and is used directly on the production line, from where it provides real-time data. This enables defects to be detected immediately and savings to be made through quality control directly on the production line. The product is already in use in industry, agriculture and food processing.