Fraunhofer is a German application-oriented research organization. Fraunhofer is active in many different kinds of sectors like health, security, energy and the environment. The company’s research is focused on the needs of the people, which is why its new technologies and products are meant to have an impact on people’s lives. With over 22,000 personnel and an annual research budget of 1.9 billion Euros, this company is Europe’s largest organization for applied research.
Fraunhofer acknowledges the importance of international research due to the fact that many European/German companies are focused on the international markets. For this reason, Fraunhofer is involved in multiple projects related to robotics, including NIFTi and the BRICS project. The two projects were initiated to take the next step in the development of robotics. BRICS was started to install industry standards, a structured and well-defined process in the development of robot related products and technologies.
Project NIFTi is a partnership where explorations are made to see how to improve the cooperation between humans and the robots. The main hypothesis is that the combination of humans and robots in a search and rescue operation will provide the most beneficial and optimized workflow.
