IABG (Industrieanlagen-Betriebsgesellschaft mbH) is a German analysis and test engineering company based in Taufkirchen near

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

History

The company was founded in 1961 on the initiative of the federal government as a central analysis and testing facility for the Federal Ministry of Defence and the aeronautical industry. In 1993, the company was privatized and is now run by its owners. Up to January 1 of 2010, SCHWARZ Holding GmbH (87.4% of the share capital) together with IABG Mitarbeiterbeteiligungs AG (MBAG, 12.6% of the share capital) form the IABG shareholder group. In 2019 IABG employed around 1,000 employees at 12 German and international locations. ;Projects In 1993, IABG started the first large-scale project with the total-cycle fatigue test on the first

Airbus Airbus SE ( ; ; ; ) is a Pan-European aerospace corporation. The company's primary business is the design and manufacturing of commercial aircraft but it also has separate Airbus Defence and Space, defence and space and Airbus Helicopters, he ...

model, the

Airbus A300 The Airbus A300 is Airbus' first production aircraft and the world's first Twinjet, twin-engine, double-aisle Wide-body aircraft, (wide-body) airliner. It was developed by ''Airbus Industrie GIE'', now merged into Airbus SE, and manufactured f ...

. In 1992 major tests began on the European rocket

Ariane 5 Ariane 5 is a retired European heavy-lift space launch vehicle operated by Arianespace for the European Space Agency (ESA). It was launched from the Guiana Space Centre (CSG) in French Guiana. It was used to deliver payloads into geostationar ...

. One of the best-known projects is the total fatigue test on the

Airbus A380 The Airbus A380 is a very large wide-body airliner, developed and produced by Airbus until 2021. It is the world's largest passenger airliner and the only full-length double-deck jet airliner. Airbus studies started in 1988, and the pr ...

, which was carried out by the IABG from 2004 to 2012 at

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

. At the beginning of 2014 IABG started the continuous test operation at its location in

Erding Erding () is a Town#Germany, town in Bavaria, Germany, and capital of the Erding (district), rural district of the same name. It had a population of 36,469 in 2019. The original Erdinger Weissbier is a well-known Bavarian specialty. Erding is ...

on the

Airbus A350 XWB The Airbus A350 is a flight length, long-range, wide-body twin-engine airliner developed and produced by Airbus. The initial A350 design proposed in 2004, in response to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, would have been a development of the Airbu ...

EW (EW = Extra Wing).

Business areas

Aeronautics

The company tests aircraft and individual assemblies for their

strength Strength may refer to: Personal trait *Physical strength, as in people or animals *Character strengths like those listed in the Values in Action Inventory *The exercise of willpower Physics * Mechanical strength, the ability to withstand ...

and

durability Durability is the ability of a physical product to remain functional, without requiring excessive maintenance or repair, when faced with the challenges of normal operation over its design lifetime. There are several measures of durability in us ...

. This includes life and safety analyses, test concepts and programs, test simulation, static load tests, operational strength tests on entire skin and substructures, material testing and

nondestructive testing Nondestructive testing (NDT) is any of a wide group of analysis techniques used in science and technology industry to evaluate the properties of a material, component or system without causing damage. The terms nondestructive examination (NDE), n ...

. Important projects are the structural fatigue test on the

(finished 2012), the fatigue test on the overall structure of the

Airbus A400M The Airbus A400M AtlasNamed after the Atlas (mythology), Greek mythological figure. is a European four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft. It was designed by Airbus Military, now Airbus Defence and Space, as a tactical airlifter with ...

military transport, the life extension tests on the

Airbus A320 The Airbus A320 family is a series of narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus. The A320 was launched in March 1984, Maiden flight, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air France. The first membe ...

as well as the structural fatigue tests on the

Automotive

In the

Automotive industry The automotive industry comprises a wide range of company, companies and organizations involved in the design, Business development, development, manufacturing, marketing, selling, Maintenance, repairing, and Custom car, modification of motor ve ...

, the company offers test and development services for automotive manufacturers and suppliers. For this purpose, IABG operates an accredited test center according to current standards. The portfolio also includes the development and construction of

test bench A test bench or testing workbench is an environment used to verify the correctness or soundness of a design or model. The term has its roots in the testing of electronic devices, where an engineer would sit at a lab bench with tools for measurem ...

es.

Defense & Security

In Defense & Security, the company supports the armed forces and their acquisition projects. These include solutions for protection and security issues, prevention and response to threats such as cyber-terrorism and

critical infrastructure Critical infrastructure, or critical national infrastructure (CNI) in the UK, describes infrastructure considered essential by governments for the functioning of a society and economy and deserving of special protection for national security. ...

attacks.

Infocom

The Infocom business unit was created in 1989. IABG plans, integrates and operates complex

information technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

and communication systems up to the introduction and maintenance during their life cycle. The service portfolio includes safety concepts and cost models for optimizing the security and cost-effectiveness of IT systems. Prior to its privatization, the company was involved in the development of three former German standard

Information security Information security is the practice of protecting information by mitigating information risks. It is part of information risk management. It typically involves preventing or reducing the probability of unauthorized or inappropriate access to data ...

projects. These include the IT Security Criteria (ITSK), the IT Evaluation Guide (ITEHB), and the IT Security Guide (ITSHB). The works appeared in 1989, 1990 and 1992. Among the successors of these works are the Common Criteria (published in 1996) and the IT basic protection manual published in 1994.

Mobility, energy & environment

In the Mobility business segment, the company carries out vehicle and traffic engineering, driving dynamics, driving comfort among others. The portfolio includes calculations on strength, dynamics and acoustics as well as structural tests on overall structures and components. Furthermore, the IABG examines the possibilities of transferring the

magnetic levitation Magnetic levitation (maglev) or magnetic suspension is a method by which an object is levitation (physics), suspended with no support other than magnetic fields. Lorentz force, Magnetic force is used to counteract the effects of the gravitation ...

for individual traffic. In the energy business segment, solutions for electromobility and energy supplies are offered. The focus here is on the dismantling of nuclear power plants and the retrofitting of nuclear facilities as well as the qualification and engineering of wind power plants. In the environmental business area, the company focuses on geodata and environmental engineering. In its geodata factory in Dresden, IABG calculates and interprets spatial data, e.g. for surveying flooding areas, mobile radio planning or for municipal cadastres.

Space travel

The company carries out qualification tests on

carrier rocket A launch vehicle is typically a rocket-powered vehicle designed to carry a payload (a crewed spacecraft or satellites) from Earth's surface or lower atmosphere to outer space. The most common form is the ballistic missile-shaped multistag ...

s, such as the

upper stage and

Vega Vega is the brightest star in the northern constellation of Lyra. It has the Bayer designation α Lyrae, which is Latinised to Alpha Lyrae and abbreviated Alpha Lyr or α Lyr. This star is relatively close at only from the Sun, and ...

, on satellites such as Swarm, LISA Pathfinder and

Sentinel-2A Sentinel-2A is a European optical imaging satellite launched in 2015. It is the first Sentinel-2 satellite launched as part of the European Space Agency's Copernicus Programme. The satellite carries a wide swath high-resolution multispectral imag ...

, as well as other space structures in its space center coordinated by the ESA. These include mechanical, thermal and acoustic tests, the determination of mass properties as well as support services in engineering and

quality management Total quality management, Total Quality management (TQM), ensures that an organization, product, or service consistently performs as intended, as opposed to Quality Management, which focuses on work process and procedure standards. It has four mai ...

Subsidiaries

Acentiss

Acentiss is subsidiary of IABG founded in 2008. They offer engineering services and develop the Elias aircraft (ELectric aircraft IABG AcentisS), a modified version of the PC-Aero Elektra One, presented in the ILA Berlin Air Show 2012 . Up to 2013, the aircraft is used in the bavarian research projects EUROPAS (2013-2016) and AURAIS (2017-2019). In Elias aircraft was designed a new structure of the wings and the landing gear, and it was developed the full electric reconnaissance system, datalinks, and ground control station. Acentiss collaborated in the construction of the rope-free elevator MULTI of

ThyssenKrupp ThyssenKrupp AG (, ; stylized as thyssenkrupp) is a German industrial engineering and steel production multinational conglomerate. It resulted from the 1999 merger of Thyssen AG and Krupp and has its operational headquarters in Duisburg and E ...

, winner of the German Design Award in 2018. Acentiss with the company HTM/Intercopter created a joint venture in 2018 called Advanced Aerospace Developments, which holds the

EASA The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is an agency of the European Commission with responsibility for civil aviation safety in the European Union. It carries out certification, regulation and standardisation and also performs inve ...

Part21J certification. One project is an external mirror system for the helicopter AS350 in external load operation.

BIGS

Aerial view of ESA s technical centre ESTEC

The Brandenburg Institute for Society and Security -in German Brandenburgische Institut für Gesellschaft und Sicherheit (BIGS)- is a cooperative venture founded in 2010 between IABG, the

University of Potsdam The University of Potsdam is a public university in Potsdam, capital of the state of Brandenburg, northeastern Germany. The university is mainly situated across three campuses in the city. Some faculty buildings are part of the New Palace o ...

Airbus Defence and Space Airbus Defence and Space is a division of Airbus SE. Formed in 2014 in the restructuring of European Aeronautic Defence and Space (EADS), Airbus SE comprises the former Airbus Military, Astrium, and divisions. Contributing 21% of Airbus reven ...

(old EADS), and

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

. It is part with IABG, Fraunhofer FOKUS in Berlin and Bundeswehr University Munich of the fit4sec, a center for security and technology which is supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research

European Test Services

European Test Services (ETS) is a subsidiary of IABG founded in 2000, which operates the Test Centre of at the

European Space Research and Technology Centre The European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) is the European Space Agency's main technology development and test centre for spacecraft and space technology. It is situated in Noordwijk, South Holland, in the western Netherlands, alth ...

of the

European Space Agency The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...

. It is located in

Noordwijk Noordwijk () is a town and municipality in the west of the Netherlands, in the provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland. The municipality covers an area of of which is water and had a population of in . On 1 January 2019, the f ...

The Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

Vites

Vites was founded by IABG in 2014. They work in the area of

Radio technology Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connected to ...

applied to emergency operations, providing a mobile ad hoc network HiMoNN (Highly Mobile Network Node) for emergency services in areas without a functioning communication infrastructure. One of the HiMoNN users are the firefighters of the German federal state of

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (, ), is the capital of the States of Germany, German state of the Bremen (state), Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (), a two-city-state consisting of the c ...

In the same sector they provide a trailer vehicle called Vikomobil for supplying communications in crisis or massive events. They collaborated with the Swiss automobile manufacturer Rinspeed in the concept cars Ʃtos and Oasis, developing a Satcom On The Move solution integrated in the roof of the car, using flat antenna panels with KARsys technology that doesn't need rotary mechanisms.

References

External links

Official Website
{{Authority control Companies based in Upper Bavaria Munich (district) Product-testing organizations Technology companies established in 1961 1961 establishments in West Germany Engineering companies of Germany