Fraunhofer IGD x HRI-EU
15.01.2021Authors: Mariusz Bujny1, Tim Grasser2, Daniel Weber2, Markus Olhofer1, Stefan Menzel1
1Honda Research Institute Europe GmbH; 2Fraunhofer-Institut für Graphische Datenverarbeitung IGD
Technology exists to serve people! As this is Honda’s R&D philosophy, we are pleased to see the AI voice recognition system, developed by Honda Research Institute Japan, is used in the new Honda Communication Assistance System for a smooth inclusion of hearing impaired associates at the worksite.
Communication and fruitful discussions are essential for efficient research. But what happens if your colleague is hearing impaired and the exchange of ideas is difficult?

Vacancy is filled, thank you for taking interest in the posting.
Happy and healthy New Year to all of you! We are starting 2021 not only with ambitious goals, but by opening a great 2-year job opportunity as patent engineer for our research institute. 
Looking back, 2020 was challenging and eventful. A big THANK YOU to our HRI-EU team for staying together and rising beyond. Special thanks to our hard working IT team, giving amazing support. To our partners and the science community a thank you for fruitful collaborations, discussions and inspirations.
IEEE-CIS technical challenge winner board announced! Congrats to our colleagues Steffen Limmer for 2nd place, Nils Einecke and Sven Rebhan for 5th place.

The digitization of society increased pace in times of Corona. But it is not just changing our daily work life – school environments are presented with it as well.
For HRI, the term “Human Centered” is not just a focus of our research on Cooperative Intelligence: it is our DNA and means a responsibility for society. 
Congratulations to Anna Belardinelli and Stefan Fuchs for their Best Paper Award on “Gaze-based intention recognition for pick-and-place tasks in shared autonomy” at the AVHRC 2020 (Active Vision and perception in Human (-Robot) Collaboration, workshop at RO-MAN 2020)! 
During the WCCI on the 23rd of July 2020 Bernhard Sendhoff, Head of Global Operations Honda Research Institutes, gave an IEEE-CEC keynote speech. With the title “Cooperation – Experience – Creativity: Towards a new role of Optimization and AI in Engineering”, he shared his vision and our research efforts towards it. 
Do you remember the ESA Collision Avoidance Challenge last year? HRI-EU made 1st place by applying a variety of machine learning methods and data engineering for predicting the collision risk between satellites and space debris in low earth orbit.

The optimal software engineering, consisting of methods, tools, and processes, from research to development, is still an open topic. Agile processes and principles dominate current development projects. Research requires fast prototype iterations as proof of concept, and safety standards mostly require following the V-Model. How does all this fit together?