DFKI research areas

Founded in 2019, the DFKI Laboratory Lower Saxony with its two branches in Osnabrück and Oldenburg has been the fourth location of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence since July 1, 2022.

The DFKI provides us with strong support for cutting-edge university research in the field of artificial intelligence. It also plays a key role in the exchange with companies in the region and is of great importance beyond the Osnabrück science region. We draw ideas for new innovations together from this collegial collaboration."

University President Prof. Dr. Susanne Menzel-Riedl

A few students are sitting or standing at computers. One student is holding a VR headset.

A student is wearing a VR headset and the corresponding controllers in her hands, she is trying to reach something high up. A few students are standing and sitting around her.

Four students ride past a building with a glass and steel façade on bicycles.

A few students kneel in front of a box with wheels. Many cables are sticking out of the box and there are many buttons and switches on one side. One of the students presses one of the switches.

The DFKI research departments in Osnabrück

Plan-based Robot Control (Head: Prof. Dr. Joachim Hertzberg)

The Osnabrück DFKI research department Plan-Based Robot Control develops algorithms for the plan-based control of autonomous mobile robotic systems. Areas of application include the use of autonomous agricultural machinery and driverless transportation systems.

The field of research includes the three-dimensional sensory perception of the machine's environment and the automatic interpretation of the data collected. Artificial intelligence methods allow the machine to determine the semantic context of the environment in which it is located. Based on the knowledge obtained in this way, the machine creates action plans that enable it to achieve predefined action goals independently. All these steps must be robust against uncertainty and incompleteness of knowledge and perception of the robot's environment.

The fields of research and development are

3D mapping and modeling
Semantic sensor data processing
Generation and execution monitoring of action plans

The Plan-based Robot Control research area uses the basic research of the Knowledge-based Systems working group headed by Prof. Dr. Joachim Hertzberg at Osnabrück University. As part of the Lower Saxony Center for Digital Innovation (ZDIN), it is involved in the Future Laboratory for Agriculture, of which Prof. Hertzberg is the spokesperson.

Smart Enterprise Engineering (Head: Prof. Dr. Oliver Thomas)

The DFKI research department Smart Enterprise Engineering, headed by Prof. Dr. Oliver Thomas, researches digital business models for the company of the future. All research projects are application-oriented and are developed in close cooperation with large international corporations as well as with "hidden champions" and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). New and innovative methods and tools for the design and use of smart products, smart services and smart systems are developed and applied in various federal, state and industry-funded projects.

Prof. Thomas' DFKI team emphasizes the comprehensive digital collection, processing and use of data and drives the development of value creation mechanisms based on this data. To this end, humans and AI are interpreted as part of a joint value creation system and their cooperative service provision is placed at the center.

Fields of application that have already been researched and technically implemented include recommender agents for corporate organization, middleware platforms for the design of process structures, mobile and portable assistance systems for the proactive provision of information in technical service areas, logistics and healthcare, as well as the prediction of system states in mechanical and plant engineering and retail. These topics position autonomous systems and services as an important tool for operational information management.

The Smart Enterprise Engineering research area has the vision of combining the perspectives of Information Systems and Artificial Intelligence to leverage the potential of comprehensive information provision and exploit competitive advantages, especially for SMEs, by supporting and (partially) automating complex activities. Prof. Thomas pays particular attention to the interdisciplinary orientation, which consistently expands his business management focus to include the necessary technological perspectives.

The research area headed by Prof. Thomas works closely with the Department of Information Management and Information Systems (IMWI) at Osnabrück University and is involved in the Lower Saxony innovation network SmartHybrid.