https://www.dfki.de
The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) was founded in 1988 as a non-profit public-private partnership. It has research facilities in Kaiserslautern, Saarbrücken and Bremen, a project office in Berlin, a Laboratory in Niedersachsen and branch offices in Lübeck, St. Wendel and Trier. In the field of innovative commercial software technology using Artificial Intelligence, DFKI is the leading research center in Germany.
The form of the DIH Bremen and the team
The DIH in Bremen is currently cantered around the DFKI Robotics Innovation Lab, which is one of the leading RTOs for inspection & maintenance robotics in the region and in Germany. DFKI RIC comprises close to 100 full time researchers, most of them with extensive experience in robotics R&D for and with customers from industry and SMEs. Most technical experts at DFKI do have experience with teaching and academic education. DFKI RIC also maintains a team dedicated to project development and project management, and has access to administrative and legal experts in other DFKI institutes throughout Germany.
DFKI is embedded in a local innovation ecosystem that is currently evolving quickly, building up services for innovation management, start-up support, vocational training and application-oriented education etc. In addition, DFKI is developing capabilities for the commercial exploitation of research results and the commercial offering of training courses. Both these internal capabilities and the offerings through the innovation ecosystem will be leveraged by the Bremen DIH in the future.
Services
Bremen DIH for robotics and inspection and maintenance proposes a set of services to favour digitizing of industry and develop innovation in different sectors of Inspection and Maintenance of Infrastructures. DFKI holds a set of technologies and expertise in robotics and related technologies and infrastructure that are not available on the market. The services offered by the DIH are mostly technology services, but also ecosystem and business services are provided.
Funding opportunities investigation
Category: Incubator/accelerator support
Description of activity, value proposition (what?): Investigation of funding opportunities and advice of customers on opportunities, based on customer needs
Format (how?): Meetings
Profile of DIH contact (who?): Business developers
Involvement, effort from DIH: Participation of DIH business developers in information events, research on the web, evaluation of newsletters etc.; meetings and bi-lateral calls with clients,
Financial charge for customer: Free
Funding, business plan: Subsidised by DIH
Hands-on training
Category: Skills and education
Description of activity, value proposition (what?): Training of operators (e.g. in underwater robots), practical courses in robotics
Format (how?): Courses and hands on training using equipment and facilities of DIH. On demand
Profile of DIH contact (who?): Technical expert, researchers
Involvement, effort from DIH: Provision of equipment and facilities, technical experts and researchers for training.
Financial charge for customer: free or paying, depending on client status
Funding, business plan: Rates according to course content and scope
Research, development and innovation opportunities
Category: Project development
Description of activity, value proposition (what?): Dedicated to organization interested in promoting CEA technologies or willing to do collaborative research with CEA.
Advising on technological research, development and innovation activity. Elaboration of an action plan for R&D&I with milestones, deliverables, agreement on the respective role of stakeholders and on the final delivery.
Format (how?): Meetings, conference calls
Profile of DIH contact (who?): Business developer, technical expert
Involvement, effort from DIH: Meetings with experts in research, development and innovation in robotics
Funding, business plan: Subsidised by the DIH
Hosting to Spin off and Start up
Category: Offering housing
Description of activity, value proposition (what?): Office space and lab access to start-ups in their initial phase.
Format (how?): On demand
Profile of DIH contact (who?): Administration
Involvement, effort from DIH: Making office space and lab-space in DFKI building temporarily available
Financial charge for customer: Paying, with reasonable fees
Funding, business plan: Funding by customer
Awareness creation
Category: Ecosystem service, Community building
Description of activity, value proposition (what?): Introduction in robotics and AI for industrial decision-makers
Format (how?): Seminars and workshops with hands-on approach, both physical and online (webinar)
Profile of DIH contact (who?): Technical experts, business developers
Involvement, effort from DIH: short (one half day) to long (3 days) events involving senior and junior experts from DFKI
Financial charge for customer: Paid, based on content and duration of course
Funding, business plan: Paid by customer or through relevant projects
Dissemination
Description of activity, value proposition (what?): Communication about the offer of services of the DIH. Dissemination of results and key facts in German and in English
Format (how?): Information distributed through e.g. web sites, social media, newsletters, mailing
Profile of DIH contact (who?): Experts in communication
Involvement, effort from DIH: Involvement of the DFKI communications team
Funding, business plan: Part of operational costs of DIH
Technical advising
Category: Ecosystem service, Strategy development
Description of activity, value proposition (what?): Advising on possible usage of robotics, automation and artificial intelligence
Format (how?): Bilateral meetings and calls
Profile of DIH contact (who?): technical and application experts
Involvement, effort from DIH: short meetings with clients
Funding, business plan: Subsidised by the DIH as part of business development
DIH network promotion, Promotion of the offer
Category: Ecosystem service, Ecosystem learning
Description of activity, value proposition (what?): Promote both the DIH and its services
Format (how?): Presentations on dissemination events, online media, social media
Profile of DIH contact (who?): Experts in the communications department, business developers
Involvement, effort from DIH: Participation in events, content maintenance of online media and social media
Research and development collaboration
Category: Strategic RDI
Description of activity, value proposition (what?): Research aiming at reaching TRL 5, removal of doubts, specifications, research and development, validation in laboratory
Format (how?): Collaborative research with partners from industry and SMEs, in Germany and in the EU, usually 3 years, sometimes less
Profile of DIH contact (who?): Project manager, technical experts
Involvement, effort from DIH: Support from experts in the writing and submission of European or national proposals. Long term participation (usually 3 years) of several experts from the DIH for technical research and development in robotics
Funding, business plan: Funded by European or national research programmes
Innovation projects: technology demonstrators, proof of concepts
Category: Contract research
Description of activity, value proposition (what?): Research and development aiming at reaching TRL 6, application of existing technologies, validation in laboratory
Format (how?): Bilateral or multi-partner projects with shorter terms (from a few months to a few years)
Profile of DIH contact (who?): Technical experts
Involvement, effort from DIH: Support from experts to develop concepts and technical solutions for customer-defined problems.
Financial charge for customer: Paid
Funding, business plan: Funded through customer based on bilateral contracts, private investors, national and EU innovation programmes
Proof of concept, prototyping, commercialisation/industrialisation, small series production
Category: Technical support on scale-up
Description of activity, value proposition (what?): Demonstration in real environment or in realistic conditions. Adaptation of existing technologies to specific use case
Format (how?): Bilateral projects from one to several months
Profile of DIH contact (who?): Technical experts through DFKI commercial arm, legal experts
Involvement, effort from DIH: Participation of experts development and testing; support from legal dept. for IP issues
Financial charge for customer: Paying
Funding, business plan: Funded by bilateral contracts, European or national innovation programmes, investors
Lab facilities, equipment for lease/use (sensors, robots, robot tooling, etc.), rapid prototyping
Category: Provision of technology infrastructure
Description of activity, value proposition (what?): Testing of customer equipment in DFKI lab and testing facilities
Format (how?): Conducting experiments with the assistance of DFKI personnel
Profile of DIH contact (who?): Lab technicians, technical experts
Involvement, effort from DIH: preparation and maintenance of lab-facilities, supervision and support of client activities through DFKI technicians and experts
Financial charge for customer: Paying, flat-fee based on cost-table and complexity of experiment
Funding, business plan: Client-funded based on facility leasing contract, sometimes covered by European or national innovation programmes
Certification, product demonstration & testing, comparison of products
Category: Testing and validation
Description of activity, value proposition (what?): Evaluation of pressure compliance of technical components in pressure lab
Format (how?): Experiments by DFKI experts following standard evaluation protocols.
Profile of DIH contact (who?): Technical experts.
Involvement, effort from DIH: Preparation, maintenance and provision of pressure lab; support of experiments by DIH experts