Articles – Magazine of the Fraunhofer Institute for Cognitive Systems IKS

Bavarian high-tech agenda
Fraunhofer IKS expands its fields of research

The Fraunhofer Institute for Cognitive Systems IKS is now over a year old. To ensure its second year gets off to a good start, it has received further funding from the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs to the tune of 20 million euros, which will be used to speed up the process of expanding into new research areas.

Institute buildup/expansion

February 18, 2021

Portrait Tom Haider
“AI allows us to detect wildfires at an early stage”

Tom Haider has been on an expedition to find his research focus which took him halfway around the world. He arrived at the question of how to implement AI research in practice. Part 5 of our employee portraits series.

Employee portraits

February 4, 2021

ResilientSOA
Towards resilient architectures for cognitive systems

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) integrate software algorithms and physical structures. To exceed the simple embedded systems of today, advances in CPS require several properties, particularly adaptability, resilience, and safety. Lean management of CPS with resilient architectures satisfies these requirements by combining data distribution with service-oriented structures. A practical use case: a moving robot in a warehouse.

Industry 4.0

Institute buildup/expansion

January 28, 2021

Portrait Poulami Sinhamahapatra
“It´s fun when ideas work out”

Poulami Sinhamahapatra doesn’t just work on new developments at Fraunhofer IKS – in her free time she also writes poetry and blog posts in English and Hindi. She was inspired to enter the worlds of art and research by reading science fiction books. Part 4 of our employee portraits series.

Employee portraits

January 21, 2021

Kleinste Wassertropfen auf einem Blatt in schwarzweiß

Munich Quantum Valley
A quantum leap for machine learning

Fraunhofer IKS is carrying out research into safe software applications for quantum computers. The work is part of the new Bavarian initiative Munich Quantum Valley.

Safety engineering

January 14, 2021

Portrait: Ania Kosmalska
"I have a box full of cables and a whole bunch of ideas, but no time."

There’s nothing Ania Kosmalska likes more than taking a computer program and a few electronic gadgets and experimenting in her daily life. But these days, she devotes a large part of her free time to her young daughter. Part two of our employee profile series.

Cognitive systems

Employee portraits

December 16, 2020

Interview with Simon Burton
“I’ve always had a great affinity for research.”

Science needs to prove that systems based on artificial intelligence (AI) are safe enough. That is what Prof. Simon Burton, who recently became Division Director for Safety at Fraunhofer IKS, is calling for. In this interview he explains the institute’s approaches to ensuring safety.

Artificial intelligence

Interviews

December 8, 2020

Fighting climate change with artificial intelligence

When it comes to environmental protection and climate action, most people think of renewable energies, electric cars and sustainable consumer goods. Very few would associate it with artificial intelligence (AI), but in fact AI has a crucial part to play in the fight against pollution and climate change.

Artificial intelligence

November 13, 2020

Flexilience: balancing key requirements in autonomous systems

Reconciling safety, performance and reliability in cloud-based cognitive systems is no easy task. Especially in safety-critical autonomous systems such as driverless cars, expectations rightly assume that all three requirements are implemented at the highest level. However, this comes up against limited resources. The Fraunhofer IKS has developed an approach for optimising safety, performance and reliability depending on the current situation and concrete applications: flexilience.

Cognitive systems

Institute buildup/expansion

October 16, 2020

Uncertainty Estimation in Object Detection – a mission-critical task

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have proven their potential. This applies above all to their use in the laboratory. Their performance in real-world applications leaves a lot to be desired. One major problem is the estimation of uncertainty. A closer look at methods that meet this challenge.

Artificial intelligence

Institute buildup/expansion

October 8, 2020

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