Press

The list of awardees is short, and yet a short time ago his name was on the list: Dr. Marc Adrat, the longstanding head of the Software Defined Radio research group at the Fraunhofer FKIE in Wachtberg has been recognized with the Wireless Innovation Forum’s (WInnF) 2021 President’s Award. With its award, the US-based forum honors Adrat’s activities on various committees and working groups within the WInnF.

How can autonomous ships be integrated into conventional maritime traffic? And which support can science offer traffic control centers in their efforts to monitor mixed shipping traffic in the future? These are the questions the LEAS project, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), is investigating.

The Centre of Excellence for Operations in Confined and Shallow Waters COE CSW in Kiel and the Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics FKIE in Wachtberg have signed a memorandum of understanding to expand their collaboration on marine issues.

Airbus Defence and Space, the German prime for the tri-national Future Combat Air System Program (FCAS), has contracted Fraunhofer FKIE and DMI Solutions to develop an Explainable AI (XAI) demonstrator. The project is realized jointly with the FCAS Expert Commission on the responsible use of new technologies.

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.