Human-centered Technologies and Machine Intelligence Lab
Funding type: European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) — Investment for Growth and Jobs 2014-2020
Duration: 24/09/2020 – 31/12/2022
Abstract:
South Tyrol is characterised by a strongly developed service sector and a large number of small businesses (production area and agriculture). The ageing of the population, the opening of markets and climate change bring new challenges for both. In order to be able to remain competitive, existing processes must be further optimized and automated. Embodied Artificial Intelligence plays a special role in this context, along with digitization and networking in the sense of Industry 4.0. It not only enables to take intelligent decisions based on sensory information and context, but to translate them also into actions by means of a physical body, also in interaction and collaboration with humans. In South Tyrol, especially the areas of agriculture, care and assisted living, medicine, production and construction can benefit significantly from embodied artificial intelligence. Performing research on the next generation of embodied artificial intelligence with and without humans in the loop, supposed to be not only intelligent, but also trustworthy and ethical, is the mission of the “Human-centered Technologies and Machine Intelligence Lab”, bridging between the fields of artificial intelligence, robotics, automation, and human-system interaction.
Goals:
The final goal of this project is to establish and equip a laboratory for human-centered technologies and machine intelligence, which will enable internationally leading research in the field of embodied artificial intelligence and thus attract highly qualified personnel as well as acquire national and international research funds in this field and enter into targeted collaborations with industry.
Achieved results:
The main result of the project is the laboratory itself. In addition, a number of other related results have been obtained, such as i) the demonstrators, which allow to better illustrate and convey the capabilities of the equipment as well as the know-how of the research group, ii) a final opening ceremony with scientific workshop and international guest speakers, iii) training workshops for interested scientists with instruction in the use of the respective devices, iv) seminars explicitly aimed at industry, v) a full-day workshop for school students in which they could familiarize themselves with a very special topic, first theoretically, but also practically in the laboratory.
