The RIG is coordinated by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). In addition to TUM and KIT, eight other universities from all over Germany are involved: the University of Bonn, the Technical University of Berlin, the Technical University of Darmstadt, the University of Bremen, the University of Stuttgart, RWTH Aachen University, the Technical University of Dresden and the Technical University of Nuremberg. Also participating are the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, three Fraunhofer Institutes and the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) as well as 19 associated partners. Collaboration is planned with other German and international partners, for example from industry.
The five strategic goals of the RIG include:
- Making research globally competitive: The RIG aims to promote cooperation between robotics locations and establish research clusters for key technologies in Germany. It will generate world-class research for AI-based robotics in Germany with a clear focus on innovation. To this end, the RIG is tasked with addressing the specific challenges in Germany and driving progress with goal-oriented research.
- Sharing infrastructure and resources: The RIG partners will utilize their infrastructure and resources for joint research. This includes physical and virtual laboratories as well as software and research data. Data and software will be shared in a dynamic, open ecosystem.
- Promoting talent and offering training and education: The focus of the RIG talent program is to find and develop talent. This will include the development of an RIG curriculum for research-oriented teaching of AI-based robotics, a standardized introductory bachelor's course and new English-language master's programs as well as a RIG doctoral program for robotics. Efforts to attract talent will begin in schools, where RIG plans to create robotics and AI courses for upper secondary schools and support talented pupils.
- Making robotics research comparable through benchmarking and competitions: RIG robotics benchmarks will be created to allow standardized testing of such skills as object manipulation, navigation in difficult terrain or human-robot interactions. With these benchmarks, the RIG will set new standards for the evaluation of robotic systems in areas such as personal assistance, flexible production and logistics. In addition, competitions such as the Autonomous Racing Challenge, RoboCupHumanoid Soccer or RoboCupRescue for search and rescue robots will play an even greater role in the future and a special RIG challenge will be developed.
- Simplifying the transfer of research outcomes for industry: The RIG innovation program aims to identify the technical needs of industry and increase the technology readiness level. The RIG wants to promote the start-up culture and motivate researchers in particular to develop new application fields for robotics. The decisive criteria: the number and size of new start-ups, the number of patents and the amount of direct funding from industry will be reviewed every year.
Further Reading
- Federal Ministry of Education and Research (18.06.2024): Stärkung der KI-basierten Robotik (German)
