RWTH Aachen Joins New Robotics Institute Germany
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research is funding a central contact point for robotics in Germany, the Robotics Institute Germany (RIG). The participating Aachen researchers will focus on learning, biomedical and cognitive robotics, as well as innovative robot platforms.
Intelligent robotics solutions will not only transform the economy, but also reshape everyday life, impacting healthcare, education, mobility solutions, and the environmental sector alike. The newly established Robotics Institute Germany (RIG) is an association between RWTH and other German universities and research institutions. It is coordinated by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).
The RIG aims to use robotics to build on innovations in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and automotive industries, which have established Germany as an industrial nation and ensured prosperity and growth for decades. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research is providing initial funding of 20 million euros to the RIG for a period of four years. The new robotics center will be launched on July 1.
In addition to RWTH and the two coordinating institutions, other partners include the University of Bonn, TU Berlin, TU Darmstadt, the University of Bremen, the University of Stuttgart, TU Dresden, and the University of Technology Nuremberg. The participating research institutions are the German Aerospace Center (DLR); the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems; the Fraunhofer Institutes IPA, OSB, and IML; and the German Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). Collaboration with other national and international partners, for example from industry, is planned.
“Germany has the potential to play a pioneering role in embodied AI,” explains RIG coordinator Professor Angela Schoellig from the Technical University of Munich. “Intelligent robots could become the next big export hit ‘Made in Germany’. The RIG is a historic initiative that has come at exactly the right time. We are responding to current trends in the USA, for example, where many well-known companies are investing heavily in AI-based robotics. Our new venture is geared towards cutting-edge research and talent.”
Favorable Conditions for AI-Based Robotics in Germany
The initial conditions for the endeavor are favorable: Roboticists in Germany are among the international leaders in AI-based robotics and have made significant contributions to the global robotics landscape. “However, Germany lacks a strategic approach that combines the existing potential in order to secure Germany’s long-term competitiveness and promote academic excellence and economic growth. We will establish the RIG as a nationally recognized and internationally unique institute that shapes cutting-edge research, education, and innovation in AI-based robotics and aligns it with Germany’s needs,” explains RIG spokesperson Professor Tamim Asfour from KIT.
RWTH is involved in the RIG with cutting-edge research in the fields of learning-based control, biomedical robotics, cognitive robotics, and computer vision for robotics. The Internet of Production (IoP) Cluster of Excellence is also uniquely positioned to combine basic research in AI and robotics with real-world production. RWTH is also in charge of coordinating the robotic platforms within the consortium. The RIG develops innovative robot platforms and makes them available for research within the consortium. In particular, reproducibility through open source code and descriptions is being promoted.
“The platforms will support ongoing research at the RIG and contribute to further expanding Germany’s international impact and visibility in the field of integrated, AI-based robotics research,” explains Professor Sebastian Trimpe, Head of the Institute for Data Science in Mechanical Engineering and Co-Executive Director of RWTH’s AI Center. At RWTH, the researchers will further develop innovative robot platforms such as the Mini-Wheelbot, the seven-time world champion robots of the Robocup Logistics League, a haptic bicycle simulator, and an intelligent robot ball. The bicycle simulator and the robot ball are being developed at RWTH’s Institute for Automatic Control headed by Professor Heike Vallery, who conducts research on minimalist robotics. As far as possible, the plan is to make the design and code available to the scientific community as open source.
The University’s AI Center coordinates the Aachen researchers’ participation in the RIG. AI-based robotics is an essential part of the Center’s “AI in Action” strategy, which aims to promote the positive use and benefits of AI in the real world. “AI-based robotics plays a key role in implementing AI methods in the engineering sciences, say Professor Gerhard Lakemeyer, from RWTH’S Knowledge-Based Systems Group and Professor Bastian Leibe from RWTH’s Computer Vision Group.
The RWTH Center for Artificial Intelligence brings together around 100 researchers (including four Alexander von Humboldt Professors and six ERC grants in the area of artificial intelligence), building a bridge between basic research in AI methods, domain-specific research, and applications. Robotics is one of the key research areas of the AI Center.