AI Initiative Rhineland-Palatinate: AI Pilot for Mobility

Are you thinking about how you can use AI to benefit your company or your research? What exactly is Artificial Intelligence? In which processes can AI be helpful? – To help answer these questions, the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of Science and Health relies on AI pilots. Our Institute Director Prof. Dr. Anita Schöbel was already appointed AI pilot for mobility in 2020. Prof. Dr. Stefan Kramer from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz has been an AI pilot for life sciences since mid-2024. The state government is now also supporting the project financially.

What Is an AI Pilot?

One component of the AI agenda is the appointment of contact persons who support the application of AI technologies in science and industry. These AI pilots are links that bring science and business together in order to leverage the potential for companies. The first in Rhineland-Palatinate is Anita Schöbel. She is an internationally recognized expert in the field of »artificial intelligence and mobility« and, together with our institute, the Fraunhofer ITWM, is responsible for a large number of innovative AI projects.

Activities of the AI Pilot

»As an AI pilot, I am primarily active in an advisory capacity; above all, I am available to the public as a contact person for experts and users. Together with my colleague Dr. Henrike Stephani, we work on presenting projects and methods that use AI successfully in the field of mobility. We want to bring Artificial Intelligence and mobility together to enable the use of AI where added value can be expected,« says Prof. Dr. Anita Schöbel at the beginning of her term of office.

Interview

»Mobility is important for living and working in Rhineland-Palatinate«

We asked the two researchers to sum up the past five years and wanted to know whether the focus will shift in the next phase.

Prof. Schöbel, Dr. Stephani, can you briefly explain to us why Rhineland-Palatinate is particularly well suited for researching and applying AI in mobility?

Schöbel: Mobility is highly relevant for living and working in Rhineland-Palatinate. There has always been local automobile production, which is now changing, also in the direction of electromobility. As we have many rural regions, public transport is also very important. In some cities, there are also great smart city model projects and initiatives that are driving forward digitalization and thus also urban mobility.

Stephani: In the »AI Pilot for Mobility« project, our task is to demonstrate the potential for the practical use of AI in mobility. Thanks to the Fraunhofer ITWM and links to the various departments of the Rhineland-Palatinate University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern-Landau RPTU, a broad scientific and applied expertise is available here.

What was your work like in the first phase as an AI pilot?

Schöbel: In principle, we are always available with our expertise for inquiries. We provided information about this via local media, especially at the beginning of the term. There is a website and a consultation hour. At the same time, we have organized workshops on the topic of »AI in mobility« together with experts from various specialist areas and presented them to local businesses.

Stephani: We have given presentations at various events to highlight the relevance of AI in mobility. We are also active in various specific networks in Rhineland-Palatinate. And we have summarized our thoughts on this in writing, namely in the book »Arbeitswelt und KI 2030«.

Our Services

If you are interested or have any questions, please contact us directly by mail.

KI-Lotsin@itwm.fraunhofer.de

or by phone at 0631-31600-4365 (office hours Tuesday 11-12 and as needed)

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Is there a mobility event you'd like to see AI contribute to? Feel free to get in touch.
Are you wondering if AI can help you in your field? Feel free to contact us!
Future planned events can also be found here.

Press Release

›Frau N. Hofer‹ – 42 Female Scientists in Book Portrait

The book »Forscherinnen im Fokus – Wir schaffen Veränderung« (Female Researchers in Focus – We Are Creating Change) showcases extraordinary female scientists and their personal success stories, with a focus on artificial intelligence. ›Frau N. Hofer‹, as it is abbreviated, inspires women to discover the possibilities in STEM research and to get excited about applied research.

A central aspect is the networking of science and business. What specific collaborations are you planning and which companies in Rhineland-Palatinate will benefit from them?

Schöbel: We already have a wide range of collaborations with universities in Rhineland-Palatinate, which will be further expanded in the future. Furthermore, we are focusing on existing, well-functioning networks such as the Science and Innovation Alliance Kaiserslautern SIAK, the Rhineland-Palatinate Future Initiative ZIRP or the Rhineland-Palatinate Development Agency and will be involved in these. We do not want to create parallel structures. In the current phase, we also want to focus more on international relations. In Rhineland-Palatinate, we have a lot to contribute scientifically and economically to the topic of »mobility« and want to increase our visibility in science and business on the international stage.

Stephani: We would also like to support small and medium-sized companies in particular in the area of mobility, as well as offering services for local and regional mobility providers. In contrast to large companies, it is sometimes more difficult to drive innovation from within the company. We also see a link here to the new state project »KI4KMU«, which encourages SMEs to integrate AI methods into their day-to-day work.

What long-term effects do you hope the project will have on the mobility sector in Rhineland-Palatinate?

Schöbel: We hope that the potential of AI for mobility will be leveraged and that this will improve mobility in Rhineland-Palatinate on the one hand, and that the mobility-oriented economy and production will be future-proofed with expertise and jobs on the other.

The state of Rhineland-Palatinate supports the KI Pilots with 80,000 euros per year. What specific measures are financed with this money?

Schöbel: In the first phase, we worked largely on a voluntary basis. It is important to us to continue to promote mobility in Rhineland-Palatinate. We are pleased that the state appreciates our work. We use the funds provided primarily for further networking with other stakeholders and to present innovations to the target groups. Various workshops and a larger event on the topic of AI are already planned.

What Added Value Does Artificial Intelligence Create?

Which project examples and fields have been the subject of discussion so far?

Efficiency

Inspection of aircraft turbine production is typically a manual-visual inspection process. In the EU project Ami4Blisk it is complemented by image processing systems that use Machine Learning (ML) to detect potential defect candidates. The human inspection experts are supported by the precise display of the results of the automation. This expert system preserves the flexibility of human inspection while combining it with the traceability and reliability of automation, and thus has high efficiency.

Sustainability

To combine Machine Learning (ML) with geo-referenced environmental data and model-based simulation can help to use vehicle components more efficiently. Innovative drive solutions minimize tire wear, for example, and thus increase sustainability in the commercial vehicle industry. The EU project LORRY and our software VMC address this topic, among others. can help

Quality of Life

In the Bauhaus Mobility Lab [only available in German] (BMWi project BMLEcosys), data on mobility, energy and logistics are linked together with the help of a service platform. Artificial intelligence processes can combine these data types in such a way that they form the basis for innovative service and infrastructure projects. In the Erfurter Brühl real lab, these innovations can be experienced directly.

What Is Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial intelligence (AI) can mean different things. We want to concentrate on the AI that is currently the focus of research: so-called »weak« AI.

The aim is not to replace human intelligence, but to complement it with the special capabilities of computers and learning algorithms. Computing power and storage options mean that computers can learn from a large number of examples. Solutions become particularly powerful when so-called »data-driven« approaches are combined with human expertise and modeling.

Data Protection and Ethics

Rhineland-Palatinate also stands for ethically responsible artificial intelligence. Expertise and data of companies as well as personal data must be protected. The procedures and scope of data use must also be critically scrutinized:

In which areas do we want to use AI at all?
Are there areas that we do not want to automate?
The fact that a computer does not forget distinguishes it from humans. Can this lead to problems, is there a right to »forget«? Should data be deleted on a regular basis?
Data is knowledge. Are there areas that should not be linked by AI?

These are questions that are relevant in the area of data protection and ethics. The fact that Rhineland-Palatinate is facing up to this responsibility can be seen, for example, in events such as the Europe-wide digital congress »Trust in AI. Responsible AI for Science and Society«, which took place in Kaiserslautern on 26.11.2020 in the context of the German EU Council Presidency. Fraunhofer ITWM contributed to the discussion and organized one of the workshops.

Kaiserslautern as an Outstanding AI Location

With the competence gathered in Kaiserslautern, Rhineland-Palatinate has an outstanding AI location. Together with the two Fraunhofer institutes and the Technical University Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern has been a driving force for AI with international appeal for more than 30 years, including the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI).

The application aspect is important to Anita Schöbel: »Fraunhofer ITWM places special emphasis on the mathematical foundations of artificial intelligence and provides the appropriate methods for users. Currently, we are focusing on the mobility sector, but we also use AI to solve tasks in the fields of health and production.«