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MASTER 2nd Open Call

The first Open Call in the MASTER project from the beginning of 2024 is now followed by the second one, published on 7 April.

The MASTER project partners are seeking educational institutions and SMEs interested in creating XR-based educational content and testing the MASTER platform and technologies with real learners. Selected participants will be awarded up to €100,000 in funding (from a total budget of €4.8 million), gain access to a network of XR and robotics experts, and receive 9 months of technical and educational mentorship.

Organizations from Germany and the EU and associated countries can access all relevant information and submit their applications here until the deadline on June 12, 2025. Following the submission period, proposals will be evaluated and selected by the end of July. Contract preparation will be completed by the end of August, and the implementation phase will run from September 2025 to May 2026.

The educational challenges that can be addressed include “industrial applications”, “get to know the robots”, and “innovative applications on training of industrial robotics”.

Stay also updated via the MASTER project’s website and its LinkedIn channel.

About the MASTER Project

The MASTER project (“Manufacturing Education and Training through XR”) is a Horizon Europe-funded initiative dedicated to advancing robotics training in manufacturing through the use of Extended Reality technologies. By developing an open XR platform, MASTER aims to provide safe, adaptable robotic environments featuring advanced interaction mechanisms. Ultimately, the project seeks to empower non-expert programmers to create and manage XR educational content, contributing to a more skilled and technologically adept workforce.

MASTER project partners at DFKI Saarbrücken

IML at the Hannover Messe 2025

The Hannover Messe (HM; “Hanover Fair”) is one of the world’s largest trade fairs, dedicated to the topic of industry development. It usually attracts 100,000-200,000 visitors every year.

At the exhibition stand of DFKI Lower Saxony, Professor Sonntag demonstrated the role of applied AI in enhancing the regional innovative strength. He exchanged ideas with Sascha Rose from Niedersachsen.next Digitalagentur regarding the potential of joint initiatives.

Hannes Kath presented the XPRIZE Rainforest project in which IML members helped develop drone and sensor technologies to collect biodiversity data from tropical forests and obtained an outstanding third place in an international competition.

László Kopácsi informed visitors about the MASTER project, which has the aim to improve the XR ecosystem for teaching and training robotics in manufacturing by providing an open XR platform that integrates key functionalities like creating safe robotic environments, programming flexible robotic applications, and integrating advanced interaction mechanisms.

At the well-attended fair, our researchers were able to present their work and establish important industry contacts.

Professor Daniel Sonntag and László Kopácsi at the MASTER project demonstration (©Jeremy Gob, DFKI)

Sascha Rose and Professor Daniel Sonntag at the Hannover Messe (©Jeremy Gob, DFKI)

Hannes Kath at the Hannover Messe (©László Kopácsi, DFKI)

Second IML and AAI industry symposium in Oldenburg

On 21 February 2025, the second industry symposium of the Department of Applied Artificial Intelligence (AAI) at the University of Oldenburg and of the DFKI research department Interactive Machine Learning (IML) took place at EWE Forum / Alte Fleiwa. More than thirty-five industry leaders and representatives from the regional economy followed the invitation of Wirtschaftliche Vereinigung Oldenburg – DER KLEINE KREIS e.V., including many sponsors of the endowed professorship AAI.

The endowed professorship is sponsored by CEWE, EWE AG, BÜFA, the OLB foundation, Dr. Caroline Neumüller, Alexander Neumüller, the economic association DER KLEINE KREIS e.V. and the Foundation of the Metal Industry in the North West.

Prof. Dr. Daniel Sonntag and Dirk Heitkötter, managing director of Wirtschaftliche Vereinigung Oldenburg – DER KLEINE KREIS e.V.

The event was opened with a welcoming address by Dirk Heitkötter, managing director of Wirtschaftliche Vereinigung Oldenburg – DER KLEINE KREIS e.V. and Dr. Christian Friege, member of the management board of EWE AG, emphasising the importance of the endowed professorship and its benefits for the regional economy.   

In his keynote, Professor Sonntag emphasised that an important goal of AAI/IML research is to develop application solutions for SMEs. He presented the highlights of the professorship and the work of PhD students who are currently being supervised by him. He spoke about the potential of IML’s and AAI’s research abilities and the state-of-the-art machine learning infrastructure of the IML laboratory (iml.dfki.de)

After that Aliki Anagnostopoulou spoke about „Interactive Image Captioning“, Sara-Jane Bittner gave insights into the photobook creation tool FaceGym, and the eye tracking functionality with Pupil Labs Neon; László Kopácsi presented his doctoral studies in the field of „Multimodal Interaction“ and the „MASTER“ project.

In his presentation about „Biodiversity conservation with AI“ Thiago Gouvêa informed about the project „Coral growth assessment“ and looked back on the successful participation in the XPRIZE Rainforest competition. Based on this, Hannes Kath explained how vocalisation in the acoustic wildlife monitoring application can be identified; and Rida Saghir concluded by explaining how ecological data can be used for biodiversity assessment. Siting Liang gave insights into the topic „Multimodal fact-checking to detect misinformation on the Internet“ and Tuan Tran introduced his project „Advancing 3D Vision for Medical AI“ in which he closely works with Evangelisches Krankenhaus Oldenburg.

Aliki Anagnostopoulou, Sara-Jane Bittner, and Thiago Gouvêa

Professor Sonntag closed the event with an example of DFKI transfer labs and the opportunities for cooperation between companies and the endowed professorship as well as DFKI.

Prof. Dr. Daniel Sonntag presenting DFKI transfer labs

MASTER 1st Open Call: Execution Period Kick-Off

In the beginning of 2024, the MASTER project launched its 1st Open Call, inviting extended reality (XR) technology developers, research institutes specialising in XR, and educational institutions from EU Member States, associated overseas countries and territories, and third countries linked to Horizon Europe.

Applicants were tasked with addressing specific challenges and submitting their proposals for evaluation. Following a rigorous assessment process involving both internal and external reviewers, 17 projects were selected, having met all required criteria.

The execution period for these projects commenced in December 2024 and will continue until August 2025. During this time, the 17 selected projects will:

  • Receive financial support of up to €150,000 to develop their XR solutions.
  • Integrate their technologies into the MASTER platform, ensuring seamless compatibility with its ecosystem.
  • Benefit from technical and business support provided by the MASTER consortium to enhance their solutions and prepare them for practical use.
  • Utilise MASTER platform tools, supported by VIRTUALWARE licenses and technical assistance.
  • Explore potential commercialisation opportunities with VIRTUALWARE following the project’s conclusion.

During the execution period, the projects will develop the technologies and functionalities that will be integrated in the platform and tested with a wide range of end users.

Advancing Industry Training Needs

This Open Call forms part of the MASTER project’s broader mission to create a comprehensive library of XR solutions tailored to the challenges of robotics and manufacturing training. These solutions will be incorporated into the MASTER XR platform, making it an indispensable tool for industry-focused education and training.

Stay Updated

Progress updates on the selected projects will be shared regularly via the MASTER project’s website and its LinkedIn channel.

About the MASTER Project

The MASTER project (“Manufacturing Education and Training through XR”) is a Horizon Europe-funded initiative dedicated to advancing robotics training in manufacturing through the use of Extended Reality technologies. By developing an open XR platform, MASTER aims to provide safe, adaptable robotic environments featuring advanced interaction mechanisms. Ultimately, the project seeks to empower non-expert programmers to create and manage XR educational content, contributing to a more skilled and technologically adept workforce.

See this press release also on the MASTER webpage.

MASTER project partners at DFKI Saarbrücken

IML at Wirtschafts- und Innovationskongress (congress of economics and innovation) in Hanover

On June 16, the research department IML attended the congress of economics and innovation (Wirtschafts- und Innovationskongress) with its focus area future and innovation (Zukunfts- und Innovationsmeile) in Hanover as an exhibitor. In the Convention Center, Omair Bhatti presented the demo “Visual Attention Detection” as an approach to eyetracking for industrial AI. In this demo, mobile eyetrackers and modern deep learning models are used to identify objects that are fixated by the user. Real-time signals are processed with a multisensor pipeline, i.e., a flexible framework for the development of multimodal multisensor interfaces. The video signal of the front camera, the gaze signal and the attention events are visualized with a real-time monitoring tool.

At the congress, various topic areas addressed the latest developments in information technology, energy, nutrition, mobility, etc. Among the guests were Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil and numerous others.

Demo “Visual Attention Detection”

Talk at Innosys dialog event

As part of the Innosys dialog event “Künstliche Intelligenz im Mittelstand” (AI in small and medium-sized enterprises) on May 23, Dr. Marc Herrlich of the research department IML gave a talk with the title “Human-centered Interactive Machine Learning”. Therein, he addressed the special approach of Interactive Machine Learning (IML) and the connection to Explainable AI (XAI). Particular attention was paid to interface design and the consideration of “Human Factors” to actually realize the potential of Active Learning and IML. The rather traditional approach (longer iteration cycles) was compared to the IML approach, and present and future example topics from the IML Oldenburg location were presented. Subsequently, a vivid and productive discussion with the audience emerged. More than 100 representatives of the local science and economic sector attended the well-frequented event. Two live VR demos that were supervised by Bengt Lüers and Dr. Marc Herrlich were enthusiastically received as well.

Talk by Dr. Marc Herrlich
Live-VR-Demo

First industrial AI demonstrator of AAI and IML shown in a workshop with CEWE

Oldenburger Press reports about our Applied Artificial Intelligene (AAI) Endowed Chair and the first DFKI IML demonstrator in the context of image processing, deep learning, automatic captioning, and the connection to the market potential of semantic image processing. See the article here or here.

(left: Prof. Daniel Sonntag, right: Dr. Christian Friege, CEWE Chairman, image Source: Markus Minten)

CEWE Chairman Dr. Christian Friege, stresses: “We have to sustain the ability in Europe to create innovation in the area of Artificial Intelligence ourselves – also, in order to ensure a handling of it that corresponds with our values. As the regional economy, we want to contribute to the further establishing of this research cluster.”

The endowed professorship AAI is sponsored by CEWE, EWE AG, BÜFA, the OLB foundation, Dr. Caroline Neumüller, Alexander Neumüller, the economic association DER KLEINE KREIS e.V. and the Foundation of the Metal Industry in the North West for five years.

Successful Presentation of our SciBot Demo at DATEV

We successfully presented our demonstrator at DATEV Software Campus meeting. Visitors could see a real-time mobile eye tracking demo that highlighted the currently read text. This demo will be used to conduct our user studies in the SciBot Project.

Screenshot of our real-time demonstrator

ANNOUNCING The Handbook of Multimodal-Multisensor Interfaces

handbook cover

ANNOUNCING The Handbook of Multimodal-Multisensor Interfaces: Foundations, User Modeling, and Common Modality Combinations. Volume 1

EDITORS: Oviatt, Sharon; Schuller, Bjorn; Cohen, Philip R; Sonntag, Daniel; Potamianos, Gerasimos; Krueger, Antonio

PUBLISHER: Morgan and Claypool/ACM Press.

This is a THREE volume series that presents the definitive state of the art and future directions of the field of Multimodal and Multi-Sensor interfaces.

CPS4SF EyeBots at DFKI

Mehdi Moniri presents DFKI’s smart factories Baxter demonstrator Eyebots to Joachim Gauck, the President of the Federal Republic of Germany. See the future scenario of this human-robot interaction demo here.


Mehdi Moniri presents DFKI's smart factories Baxter demonstrator Eyebots to Joachim Gauck, the President of the Federal Republic of Germany

Power4Production

New Carrier programme: DFKI and ZeMA signed a cooperation agreement for “Power4Production” (P4P); smart production technologies in the automobile sector are in the focus.

EIT cPAS Integration

CPS for Smart Factories integrates the EIT cPAS activity and focuses on combined use cases in the steel and robot domain. We welcome our new
Industry 4.0 partners from Fraunhofer (transfer of DFKI’s digital product memory technology).