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The Fraunhofer Institutes for Experimental Software Engineering IESE and for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU and the Faculty of Applied Science (APSC) at the University of British Columbia, Canada (UBC), signed a framework agreement for research collaboration in the field of industrial digital transformation in April 2022. The focus of the collaboration is to be on the digitalization of machines, processes, the required infrastructure, and ultimately the digital transformation of companies in the manufacturing industry.

Large-scale construction projects usually involve extensive coordination. In practice, however, the way in which information is exchanged between construction stakeholders often ends up being an inconsistent multi-step process. Now, a consortium project under the technical and scientific leadership of the Fraunhofer-Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE is working on a digital solution in the form of the Infra-Bau 4.0 platform, which establishes a network that takes in every stakeholder in an infrastructure project. It provides a means of mapping out resources and processes digitally, making it easier to plan and reschedule activities during the construction process.

Public buses are and will remain the central component of a strong public transport system. However, buses only realize their full potential when they are linked to many other services. These include, for example, on-demand shuttles that run according to passengers’ needs. This is the result of the study “Mobility Turnaround 2030” carried out by DB Regio Bus and the Fraunhofer Institutes IESE (Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE) and IML (Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML).

Hannover is taking the next step toward becoming a Smart City: The state capital has now joined forces with Deutsche Messe AG and other partners from industry and research to launch the project “5GAPS”. It is supported by extensive federal funding. The plan is to use the new mobile communications standard, which allows transmitting large amounts of data, to manage and develop public spaces in a digitally flexible way. The test site is the Hannover trade fair grounds with its 5G campus network.

The participation project “Digital Villages Lower Saxony”, which was launched in April 2021, has a new option for digital participation: Today, Thursday (20 January), another component of the project, the Lower Saxony LandNews, went online. Via the website www.niedersachsen.digitale-doerfer.de, professional and volunteer stakeholders at the municipal or county level can publish information and announcements starting immediately. The articles can be accessed online or via the DorfFunk app of the Digital Villages.

The BayernFunk app is a data-secure social media platform exclusively for Bavarian municipalities and counties. It enables citizens, municipalities, associations, fire departments, and other volunteers to exchange information. They can communicate and coordinate bundled information on neighborhood assistance, association activities, and events in one central platform. This promotes togetherness and strengthens the local community.

In the new ICON research project “LOPAAS” (Layers of Protection Architecture for Autonomous Systems), Fraunhofer IESE is collaborating with Fraunhofer IKS and the University of York in England in the Assuring Autonomy International Programme (AAIP) to develop an approach to assuring the safety of autonomous systems and, in particular, autonomous vehicles. The internal Fraunhofer funding program “ICON – International Cooperation and Networking” supports bilateral cooperation projects with internationally renowned universities and non-university research institutions. Over the next three years, 3 million euros will be available for the collaboration to bring about the necessary paradigm shift in safety engineering of autonomous systems.

In June 2021, the research project “SPELL” was launched. Funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy, it will run for three years.

Vienna/Austria, June 24, 2021 – Major tech and automotive industry players officially partner to develop state-of-the-art technology for autonomous vehicles. The partners and leaders in their domain include Arm, Audi together with CARIAD – the automotive software company of VW group, BASELABS, CoreAVI, DENSO, Five, the German Fraunhofer IESE, NXP, the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology and TTTech Auto. Under the umbrella of “The Autonomous”, the members of this first Working Group are committed to working towards a safe system architecture for self-driving vehicles. The goal of this collaboration is to lay the basis for safety standardization and pave the way for mass autonomous vehicle production.

Dr. Jörg Dörr became Professor of Digital Farming at Technische Universität Kaiserslautern (TUK) at the beginning of April. Among other things, Dörr will focus on the digital transformation in agriculture, research new technologies, and develop these in an application-oriented manner. The main objective will be to build digital agricultural ecosystems, with the focus on software and systems engineering: managing and administering data and supporting agricultural processes with automation technologies. In addition to holding the new Chair, which is part of the Department of Computer Science, Professor Dörr’s responsibilities as a member of the extended institute management of Fraunhofer IESE include the research program Smart Farming. The association Friends of Digital Farming made it possible to establish this Chair at TUK, which will be supported in the long term by the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.