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Welcome to the Institute for Artificial Intelligence!
The Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IAI) directed by Prof. Michael Beetz is part of the Faculty of Computer Science and member of the Center for Computing and Communication Technologies (TZI) at the University of Bremen.
A recap of the AI Innovation Made in Bremen event
On April 9th, we had the opportunity to host the “TZI Roadshow: KI Innovation made in Bremen” event in our facilities. The event kicked off with inspiring welcome speeches from the University of Bremen’s Chancellor, Frauke Meyer, and Bremen’s Senator for Environment, Climate, and Science, Kathrin Moosdorf. Both highlighted the transformative impact of AI, especially its potential to revolutionize the Bremen region.
In the keynote speech by Prof. Beetz from our institute, he envisioned Bremen as a future global hub for AI-based robotics research. This bold idea resonated throughout the following panel discussion, where experts like Georg Bartels (Co-Founder & CEO at UBICA Robotics GmbH), Prof. Rainer Malaka (Managing Director of TZI Center for Computing Technologies), Dr. Nina Wenig (Founder of IDA GmbH), and Andreas Wulfes (CEO at Neusta Data Intelligence GmbH) explored AI’s expansive possibilities for regional business development in northwest Germany.
Afterwards, the more than 220 attendees engaged with groundbreaking research projects of the TZI and explored the innovative start-up exhibits. The atmosphere of the evening buzzed with a vibrant exchange of ideas among all participants.
We thank all guests and participants for their positive feedback on the evening and extend our thanks to our partners and colleagues at the TZI Center for Computing Technologies and idea2business (i2b) for the excellent teamwork in organizing this successful event.
Also visit the Digital Media Lab: Digital Media Lab - Universität Bremen
Images 1-5, 8 ,10-12 copyright by „Kontrast Medien und Marketing“
Robotics Start-Up Ubica Wins Award for Innovative Strategies in Retail
We are celebrating an important award with the robotics start-up Ubica Robotics, which was spun out from the IAI: The ZukunftHandel Award, an initiative of the German Retail Association, honours outstanding examples of forward-thinking strategies in retail. The jury was convinced by Ubica’s digital twins as an innovative and practice-oriented solution that saves time and money in retail.
About the startup
The start-up Ubica Robotics was founded in 2020 by Ferenc Bálint-Benczédi, Georg Bartels, Alexis Maldonado and Jonas Reiling as a spin-out from the University of Bremen. The start-up is based on the research work of its founders within the framework of the H2020 research project “Robotics Enabling Fully-Integrated Logistics Lines for Supermarkets” (REFILLS) funded by the EU Commission. On this basis, the start-up develops robots that improve internal processes in retail stores.
What makes Ubica’s retail robots innovative?
The ZukunftHandel award is well-deserved: There is no doubt that Ubica's robots are outstanding in the German stationary retail sector. With their wide range of applications, they occupy a unique position. What also sets UBICA's robots apart is that they are backed up by detailed digital models and linked to background knowledge, enabling them to do their best work on the basis of so-called digital twins.
Every night after store closing time, Ubica's UB5 scanning robots autonomously roam the retail stores to capture, recognise and identify store inventory, and create and update store digital twins on a daily basis.
Based on these digital twins, which represent an accurate 3D digital image of the store, inventory management can be optimized in several ways: Customers and staff can find products more quickly, shelf gaps can be identified and closed early, and stocktaking can be simplified. This gives employees more time during the day to advise their customers. Overall, the use of Ubica robots promises stores to save time and money.
For more information about Ubica, visit their website.
Enabling everyone to explore real robotics – online
Save the date to get to know the IAI's interactive learning environment for everyday robotics in an online workshop as part of this year's European Robotics Week hosted by the European Robotics Forum.
The IAI's workshop at the 2023 European Robotics Forum
In the upcoming workshop we will present our interactive learning platform IntEL4CoRo, which is designed to enable students and researchers to work with our frameworks.
The workshop will consist of two tutorials:
- how to acquire web knowledge for robot action execution
- how to perform everyday manipulation tasks in the interactive learning environment.
Mark your calendar: November 23rd, 10:00 - 13:00 CET
For more information, visit the IntEL4CoRo project website.
For access to the online event, visit https://events.eu-robotics.net/event/everyday-activitity-knowledge-acquisition-and-execution-in-an-interactive-learning-environment/
A recap of the EASE Fall School 2023
In the week from September 11 to 15, it was time for the EASE Fall School again: Experienced researchers and industry partners provided insights into cognition-enabled robotics for everyday activities at the EASE Fall School, organized by the Collaborative Research Center EASE.
The EASE Fall School is an annual intensive one-week programme aimed specifically at young researchers interested in the field of cognition-enabled robotics.
Lectures and interactive workshops provide knowledge and skills in AI and robot manipulation relevant to cognition-enabled everyday activity robotics. In addition, social and cultural activities around the academic program provide variety and offer the opportunity to get to know the city of Bremen a bit – this year, for example, on a tour of the Becks brewery and a visit to the IAI spin-off UBICA.
A programme that brings together theory and practice
The aim of each Fall School is to combine theory and practice in a fruitful way, so that participants can put their newly gained knowledge directly into practice.
To this end, this year's EASE Fall School once again offered its visitors a full and, above all, varied schedule:
The mornings were filled with exciting presentations by invited international guests from research and industry.
In the afternoons, participants were able to gain active insights into EASE research: In hands-on sessions prepared by early career researchers of the institute, they had the opportunity to get to know different frameworks and to test methods of simulation, modelling and robot control.
At the end of each day, there was the opportunity to exchange ideas in an informal setting and to see a little of the city of Bremen during social activities.
Synergies with the Artificial Intelligence and Cognition Workshop
This year, the Fall School was held in parallel with the 9th International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Cognition (AIC), which took place on September 14 and 15.
By bringing together research in artificial intelligence, robotics and cognition, the Collaborative Research Centre aims to deepen the dialogue between the various disciplines beyond the boundaries of the respective events, not only in terms of subject matter, but also in terms of shared learning and networking.
Participants of both events had the opportunity to exchange ideas across events and participants of the Fall School were invited to present their research at the workshop. The conjunction of the two events, which ended in a joint farewell session on Friday, provided a lively exchange across disciplines.
All in all, there was a lot of positive feedback from the participants and the faculty, who once again found this Fall School to be very insightful and broadening.
All lectures were recorded and are openly available on the EASE Learning Hub.
New CoAI Joint Research Center explores co-constructive artificial intelligence
We are pleased to be able to further strengthen our research collaborations with our partner universities Bielefeld and Paderborn in the “Joint Research Center on Cooperative and Cognition-enabled AI” (CoAI).
The Center will investigate how artificial intelligence systems that perceive and act can learn to understand and reflect on their own behavior and the behavior of other agents to enable co-construction. Together with our research partners at the universities of Bielefeld and Paderborn, we aim to generate new potential for human-machine interaction and learning and are striving for an AI paradigm that informs and is informed by our understanding of human intelligence.
Open Science in the CoAI Virtual Research and Training Building
The heart of the research at the CoAI JRC will be a joint Virtual Research and Training Building, the CoAI ViB - a shared, digital laboratory that, in adherence to the open science spirit, will be accessible beyond the CoAI Center: The virtual building will allow visitors to take a tour through different virtual laboratories, with each floor of the building being dedicated to one of the central themes of the Joint Research Centre, so that everyone can learn about the results of the Center’s research.
Empowering a new generation of AI navigators
The center's commitment will not only be to advance current research by pooling expertise in integrated intelligence, but also to empower a new generation of thinkers and doers in this field: Through a shared curriculum and citizen science projects, we want to deepen the critical technological thinking of young audiences. In this way, we aim to empower the next generation to navigate AI-related issues that will affect our societies in the coming decades.
As a whole, the Center reflects the importance of our shared mission, which aligns our research at all three sites: Creating AI-based agents that understand what they and we are doing, that can support us flexibly and safely, and that we can trust. We look forward to contributing our perspective of cognition-enabled robotics as part of the joint research. Through synergies with our partner universities, we hope to enable new breakthroughs in AI research.
To learn more about the CoAI Joint Research Center, visit the CoAI JRC Website
Prof. Dr. hc. Michael Beetz PhD
Head of Institute
Contact via
Andrea Cowley
assistant to Prof. Beetz
ai-office@cs.uni-bremen.de
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