Rudolfovo Receives Two National Bronze Innovation Awards from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia
Updated: 3 days ago
Photo source: GZS Media
At Innovation Day 2026, held on 15 September at Brdo pri Kranju, Rudolfovo – Science and Technology Centre Novo Mesto and its partners received two national bronze awards from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia (GZS). The awards confirmed the excellence of Rudolfovo’s research and the success of cooperation between science and industry.
Artificial intelligence and robotics for quality control
The first bronze award was presented for the innovation “AI- and Robotics-Assisted Product Inspection in Small-Batch Manufacturing”, developed jointly by Rudolfovo, CNC Borštnar d.o.o. and 3D-ING d.o.o.
The solution combines artificial intelligence, robotics and 3D scanning to enable automated product quality inspection in technologically demanding small-batch manufacturing. Using a photograph, the system creates a basic 3D model of the product, recognises its shape and automatically determines the optimal scanning path. This reduces defects and customer complaints, improves production reliability and supports the transition towards more autonomous manufacturing processes.
Rudolfovo contributed research and development expertise in artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D technologies and the digitalisation of manufacturing. Rudolfovo’s innovation team consisted of Assoc. Prof. Dr Vesna Pungerčar, Jakob Fabjan, Dr Slavko Arh, Karel Cerovšek and Kusai Almahamid.
Intelligent energy management in buildings
The second bronze award was presented for the innovation “xEMS – Intelligent System for Optimising Energy Management in Buildings”, developed through cooperation between Rudolfovo and Robotina d.o.o.
Using artificial intelligence, the xEMS system forecasts energy consumption and solar power generation while taking into account weather data, electricity prices, building loads and battery storage levels. These forecasts enable more efficient energy management, lower costs and better use of renewable energy sources. During the project, the forecasting error was reduced from 47.88% to 10.49%, while high-performance computing shortened the training time for complex models from approximately one week to just a few hours.
Rudolfovo contributed to data preparation and processing, the development of forecasting models and the validation of their applicability in real-world environments.
Successful cooperation between science and industry
This year, 49 of the best regional gold-award-winning innovations qualified for the GZS national competition. Eight gold, 27 silver and 13 bronze awards were presented, together with a special award for the innovation challenge.
The two national bronze awards represent an important achievement for Rudolfovo and its partners. They demonstrate that combining research expertise and advanced technologies with the practical needs of industry can lead to solutions with measurable impact, development potential and broad applicability.
We sincerely congratulate all the researchers, innovators and partner organisations involved!
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