Press

Drones equipped with microphone arrays will help rescue workers in disaster areas to find and rescue survivors more quickly. They will detect cries for help and signals from buried victims from the air and simultaneously pinpoint their location. Macarena Varela, a scientist at the Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics FKIE, is developing this technology to help victims in situations where every second counts.

The second phase of the Modifiable Underwater Mothership (MUM) project has now been initiated following the handing down of a funding decision by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. In the presence of all six partner organizations, Norbert Brackmann, the German government's coordinator for the maritime industry, presented the funding notification at the thyssenkrupp Marine Systems shipyard in Kiel. Alexander Nies of the Fraunhofer FKIE Cyber Analysis & Defense department attended the ceremony on behalf of the institute.

He is the first Fraunhofer researcher and the second German ever to receive the prestigious IEEE Fred Nathanson Memorial Radar Award. Dr. Alexander Charlish, a scientist and team leader at Fraunhofer FKIE, received the international award for his outstanding work in the field of radar resource management and cognitive radar.

The world is having to feed an increasing number of mouths. Studies indicate that global population will rise to over nine billion by the year 2050. In response, Bayer AG is researching resistant cereal varieties and enhanced crop protection. A new 24-hour monitoring system from the Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics FKIE will help protect the fields where these test crops are grown and thereby safeguard this timeconsuming and cost-intensive research.

Artificial intelligence and journalistic expertise are the basis of a disinformation detection system developed and implemented in a collaboration between pressrelations, NewsGuard and the Fraunhofer FKIE. First use case: A qualitative analysis of media coverage of the 2020 US election. The analysis reveals that Donald Trump’s media dominance over his challenger Joe Biden was due primarily to the spread of fake news and disinformation, particularly with the support of untrustworthy media. One issue that stands out in particular was the accusation of election fraud, which was instrumental in paving the way for the storming of the Capitol on January 6.

The Bundeswehr plans to equip its infantry with unmanned ground vehicles for the transport of material and weapons. It has tested various off-the-shelf systems in a variety of operational scenarios as part of two troop exercises. The Fraunhofer FKIE provided technical and scientific support for the tests. The results demonstrate the high potential of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) and the level of maturity they have already attained. The conclusion among soldiers and experts was unanimous: the systems are ready for procurement.

Alarming findings are published in the »Home Router Security Report 2020« by the Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics FKIE. Of the 127 home routers tested from seven major manufacturers, nearly all were found to have security flaws, some of them very severe. The problems range from missing security updates to easily decrypted, hard-coded passwords and known vulnerabilities that should have been patched long ago.

Purchasing, production, logistics, distribution and markets form a network spread over continents and nations, the details of which are difficult for companies to keep track of. However, such an overview with the focus on one's own company contributes to the company's success in many ways. The project "Fraud Information-Fusion Intelligence" by Fraunhofer FKIE adapts proven approaches, procedures and tools used by security authorities to the requirements of companies, develops them further and thus makes them usable for the detection of irregularities.

In the frame of the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), Airbus and Fraunhofer FKIE have created an independent panel of experts on the responsible use of new technologies to define and propose ethical as well as international legal »guard rails« for Europe’s largest defence project.

Fire on board! This is a grave danger for any ship, but especially so when a ship is ostensibly safely docked in harbor – where “normal” firefighters are on duty and have to cope with the special challenges on board a ship. Since 2005, 44 potentially disastrous incidents have occurred in German ports alone, including 15 fires and 13 spills of hazardous materials. EFAS, a joint project coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics FKIE, is aimed at significantly improving firefighters’ safety and effectiveness through optimum equipment and technological innovations.