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H-BRS founds Institute for Artificial Intelligence

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Thursday 23 March 2023

Bonn-Rhine-Sieg University of Applied Sciences (H-BRS) has founded a new institute dedicated to the future topic of artificial intelligence. The A2S Institute is located in the Department of Computer Science and will bring together the university's expertise in the fields of artificial intelligence and autonomous systems. The new institute deals with different application areas such as logistics, healthcare and agile manufacturing. A key question here is what capabilities robots need to be equipped with in order to be trustworthy.

With the new institute, the Department of Computer Science intends to expand research and development in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous systems. The scientific institution is located on the Sankt Augustin campus. The department and the university are pursuing several goals with the new foundation. The university is pooling the expertise it has built up over two decades. The university also expects this to lead to more intensive cooperation with other research institutions and industry. For example, the existing cooperation with partners in the region such as Fraunhofer IAIS and the German Aerospace Centre is to be expanded. In this way, the institute wants to establish a nationally and internationally networked competence platform in the fields of AI and autonomous systems.

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Artificial intelligence and autonomous systems are a research focus at the H-BRS. Photo: Eric Lichtenscheidt

The institute is headed by Professor Nico Hochgeschwender. The AI expert joined the university in 2019 and has taken over the professorship for Robotics, Autonomous Systems and their Safety. In his research, he deals with the question of how the safety of autonomous systems can be guaranteed. He also gets robots to provide answers to relevant questions on their own.

The team includes other lecturers from the H-BRS, each with a different focus, including Professor Sebastian Houben and the recently appointed Professor Teena Hassan. Houben conducts research in the field of machine learning, particularly in the area of machine vision and environmental perception in autonomous robotics, especially with applications in the field of automated driving. Hassan is an expert in the field of social interaction between humans and robots. Among other things, she works on assistance systems to improve people's quality of life. Also part of the team are professors Jörn Hees, Erwin Prassler and Paul Plöger. They are supported by a staff of scientific assistants.

"Research in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems must not only consider questions of social responsibility and ethical action, but place them at the centre," explains Professor Remi Maier-Rigaud, Vice President Research and Young Academics at the H-BRS. "I am pleased that the new institute sets standards here and thus contributes to the value-based European approach."

"With the institute, we are now bundling our competences in the field of AI and autonomous systems," says Institute Director Professor Nico Hochgeschwender. "We want to be a reliable and excellent partner for research and transfer in the field of AI and Autonomous Systems in the long term."

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The declared goal of the new institute is also to train specialists. Photo: Eric Lichtenscheidt

The declared goals of the new institute are also the transfer of know-how and the training of specialists. In the longer term, start-ups are also to emerge from the institute that bring novel products and services to the market that make use of artificial intelligence. Existing research projects will be integrated into the new institute and continued. These include, for example, the EU-funded project SESAME, which deals with interconnected robot teams. The MigrAVE project will also now be continued under the umbrella of the A2S Institute. It aims to develop a robotic learning assistant for children with autism spectrum disorder.

Artificial intelligence and autonomous systems have been a research focus at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences for more than 20 years. The Autonomous Systems Master's programme was the first of its kind in Germany. The focus is on components and systems that can manage themselves and make decisions. A unique selling point of the study programme is the consideration of the complete life cycle of autonomous systems. A student robotics team has emerged from the study programme that regularly participates in international competitions with great success. The team constructs household robots and industrial robots and travels with them to the renowned "RoboCup" competition, for example. Numerous prizes document that the robotics teams of the H-BRS belong to the world class.