Founded in 1988, DFKI today is one of the largest non-profit contract research institutes in the field the complete cycle of innovation – from world-class basic research and technology development through leading-edge demonstrators and prototypes to product functions and commercialization. With sites in Kaiserslautern, Saarbrücken, and Bremen, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence ranks among the most important "Centers of Excellence" worldwide. An important element of DFKI's mission is to move innovations as quickly as possible from the lab into the marketplace. Only by maintaining research projects at the forefront of science, DFKI has the strength to meet its technology transfer goals. The research and technology development is carried out in nine different research departments. Among these are the departments Innovative Factory Systems and Augmented Vision.

DFKI - Innovative Factory Systems

The research department Innovative Factory Systems (IFS) has been active since 1998 in the field of ambient intelligence systems and user interface design for technical systems. It investigates technologies and standards in automation engineering and human-machine-interaction. A significant amount of experience in the design of user oriented systems has been attained during this time from many national and international joint projects with industry. Moreover, it sets focus on semantic knowledge representation for various industrial applications.

DFKI - Augmented Vision

The research department „Augmented Vision“ develops innovative solutions in the fields of:
Computer Vision, mainly 3D scene reconstruction (structure and motion estimation), real-time camera pose/motion estimation, object recognition and tracking in videos. Sensor Fusion, including theory and design of Kalman and particle filters, visual-inertial sensors, and on-body sensor networks.Visualization, Virtual and Augmented Reality. This area includes large data-set visualization, geometry and appearance modeling/rendering, and user interaction.

Contributions

DFKI-IFS is the Project Coordinator of the VISTRA project and leads the work packages WP1 and WP9. DFKI-IFS will develop the semantic reference model for the VISTRA Knowledge Platform. In WP9, DFKI-IFS will be in charge of exploitation and dissemination strategies, which include setting up an IMS initiative. DFKI-AV will develop an advanced user interaction device thus ensuring the user centred interaction with the VISTRA technology.

Contact person

Mr. Dominic Gorecky (DFKI-IFS)
Dr. Frank Michel (DFKI-AV)