MonoCab at InnoTrans 2026

The Event
From 22–25 September 2026, the MonoCab system was presented at InnoTrans in Berlin (Hall 2.2, Stand 155). From TH OWL’s and its partners’ perspective, the trade fair was an outstanding success, offering rich opportunities to engage with international industry visitors, potential partners, and investors.

Partners
The project is carried by Technische Hochschule OWL, Hochschule Bielefeld (HSBI), and Fraunhofer IOSB-INA as the main contributors. The project is furthermore suppoorted by many industry and research partners. The project is funded by NRW and the EU.

The MonoCab Prototype
Centerpiece of the booth was the first prototype from the MonoCab Ready project: a fully integrated fusion of technology and design. After this “marriage” of design and engineering, the team is now eagerly awaiting the vehicle’s first practical tests — it will undergo comprehensive functional testing on the project’s own test track no later than next year.

The design team — Prof. Ulrich Nether, Prof. Hans Sachs, Alexander Fillies, and Tobias Henschen — is especially proud of the result, seeing their work now fully merged with the vehicle’s technical systems for the first time.

Passenger “Concierge”: CoSiMo
A particular highlight was the passenger interface, developed as a prototype by the CoSiMo project on the basis of an AI-powered, locally hosted virtual assistant. This allowed trade fair visitors to communicate directly with the MonoCab: querying hypothetical journeys and vehicle data, learning basic facts about the project and its technology, and personalizing details such as the cabin lighting. In addition, dedicated persona chips were developed, enabling visitors to log into the system via NFC. The project CoSiMo is an EFRE NEXT.IT.NRW Innovation project in cooperation with HSRW and XignSys GmbH

Takeaway
The presentation of the first fully integrated MonoCab Ready prototype, combined with a live demonstration of AI-assisted, personalized passenger interaction via CoSiMo, marked a strong milestone at InnoTrans 2026 — with the vehicle’s real-world test phase now on the horizon.