Germany’s Hub for Robotics and AI Excellence

The Robotics Institute Germany brings together the most important research sites in Germany in a collaborative research concept. Through its research clusters, the RIG addresses the world’s most critical key topics in robotics and artificial intelligence.

By bringing together the brightest minds in robotics and AI, promoting cooperation, and defining joint research activities, the RIG creates a new type of ecosystem for research and innovation in robotics and AI. In this ecosystem, the leading national locations for robotics and AI work together, and synergies are identified and utilized.

The research objectives in Germany are outlined in a national research roadmap and made visible to politicians and decision-makers. The effectiveness and sustainability of all research activities are regularly reviewed.

The RIG focuses on research clusters that cover all central areas of development and innovation in AI-powered robotics, enabling the translation of innovations into practice through close dialogue with industry. Distributed national RIG centers serve as hubs for attracting top researchers in their respective fields of innovation. Teams and locations will work more closely together in the future.

This will create an ecosystem where internationally visible collaborative projects can be pursued, and joint publications will be produced.

Research-oriented teaching and future-focused training in robotics and AI are at the heart of the RIG Talent Programme. The core objective is to attract and develop talent.

The programme operates at various levels, aiming to identify individuals interested in robotics and AI at an early stage and to support those who have decided to pursue a career in these fields.

Talent development: This includes research-oriented, AI-based robotics in teaching, as well as introductory robotics courses at the university level leading to a bachelor’s degree, English-language master’s programmes in robotics, doctoral qualification programmes, internships in industry, and specific further training.

Talent recruitment: Engaging with schools to spark an interest in robotics and AI at a young age through courses and events is one approach to attracting young talent. However, stimulating interest is also crucial during university studies. After all, not everyone studying physics, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, or bioengineering immediately considers pursuing a career in robotics and AI. Therefore, for example, the aim is to enable bachelor’s students to train as robotics researchers, provide a fast track to a doctorate, and attract students to master’s programmes in robotics.

The RIG Talent Programme serves as the foundation for making Germany one of the leading nations in robotics and AI.

Sharing software, research data, and physical and virtual laboratories: The RIG is pooling existing technical resources to achieve this goal, creating a collaborative research and innovation community.

In this open ecosystem, all partners will have access to shared software and data. Research results will be transferable, and duplication or unnecessary work will be avoided. Since outstanding infrastructures and research platforms already exist in Germany, the RIG ensures that these are made available to its partners.

Examples of infrastructures include the ‘KI.FABRIK’ or “AI.FACTORY” of the future at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), underwater robotics laboratories at the German Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), and the PACE Lab at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics (IML). Examples of research platforms include the ARMAR robots at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the humanoid robots Justin and Toro from the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), and the RBO Hand 3 from the Technical University of Berlin, an artificial hand.

The RIG uses several factors to assess the sustainability of this concept. These include evaluating the quality of the open research data, how much data is actually made available, whether it can be automatically processed semantically, how many RIG labs are shared, how much they are used, and how much shared software is utilized. Ultimately, the aim is to better tackle large-scale research projects based on this shared infrastructure.

Evaluating robot systems is complex, and comparing their performance is often not possible. This is why the RIG is developing a RIG benchmark and focusing on robotics competitions.

In order to make research results comparable and comprehensible, and thus create transparency, the RIG is developing benchmarks that are available to everyone. These will be accessible to researchers in RIG laboratories, where capabilities such as object manipulation, navigation in difficult terrain, and human-robot interaction of robotic systems are tested and evaluated according to standardized criteria. This is particularly relevant for robot systems in areas such as personal assistance, flexible production, and logistics.

The RIG is also promoting participation in comparative competitions, including its own ‘Challenge’. Robots compete against each other in various categories, including RoboCup@home for household robots, RoboCupRescue for search and rescue robots, and the RoboCup Humanoid Soccer competition. The RIG will send teams to participate in these competitions and will also organize a competition of its own. The aim is to raise the national and international profile of robotics developed in Germany.

Collaboration between research and industry is essential for the development of innovative products. This is why the RIG has adopted a new approach that accelerates the cycle from research to commercialization.

Bringing research into application is the second step, not the first. Yet, it is important to recognize when a development has the potential to establish itself as a product in the market. To raise researchers’ awareness of the needs of industry or even to encourage them to start their own companies, the RIG is focusing on fostering stronger dialogue between research and industry.

In concrete terms, this means:

• Researchers becoming familiar with industry innovation pipelines and the technical requirements of these developments so they can propose solutions and approaches themselves.
• Researchers bringing their prototypes to such an advanced stage of development that they can be validated in realistic environments.
• Promoting start-up culture by offering training and counseling for researchers.

To assess the impact of dialogue with industry on technology transfer, the RIG monitors developments such as how many new start-ups have emerged, how they are progressing, how many new patents have been filed, and the extent to which industry is financially involved in robotics developments. Ultimately, the RIG aims to establish joint laboratories with industrial partners to fund the transfer of research into concrete applications.