R&D

Germany Funds 6G Research with €700 Million

Germany’s Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is making a massive investment to help 6G communications technology replace the current standard 5G. The ministry is allocating EUR 700 million from the government’s “Future Fund” and elsewhere to underwrite 6G research in the coming four years.

“We have to think now about the day after tomorrow and help shape key new communications technologies and standards right from the start,” said Research Minister Anja Karliczek in a statement. “With 6G, data will be transferred 100 times as quickly as with 5G, bringing great advantages for both individual mobile communication as well as industry and agriculture. If you want to fully develop your potential, there’s no way around 6G.”

6G will allow for better integrations of real and virtual worlds using artificial intelligence and could enable applications such as the streaming high-resolution, real-time holograms, Karliczek added. 

Germany Launches €100 Million Program for University Hospital Physicians

The idea is to better connect medical research with medical treatment. The German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has announced it will invest EUR 100 Million over the ten years to give specialist doctors, who are normally involved in daily practice, more opportunities to carry out research.

“Considering how dynamic this area is, it has to be a matter of course for knowledge to be transferred quickly ‘from the hospital bed to the lab and back again,’” said Education and Research Minister Anja Karliczek in a statement. “This is where our initiative, which supports a transformation in the culture of university medicine, comes in. We want to transform things wherever hierarchies and inflexible structures impede research potential.”

Eight university hospitals around the country have been selected for the program in the cities of Dresden, Frankfurt, Freiburg, Essen, Erlangen-Nuremberg, Hamburg, Bonn and Würzburg.

Germany Invests €11 million in Drone Research

The German Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure is launching a new EUR 11 million assistance program for “innovative aerial mobility.” The program offers support ranging from EUR 100,000 to EUR 3 million for solutions in fields including new urban mobility, connection and supply of rural areas, airspace integration and social dialogue. Applications for support can be filed from now until April 30, 2021.

“We’re giving drone innovation a big push forwards,” said Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer. “Local governments, start-ups and researchers have the ideas, and we’ll help them make those ideas a reality. The potential is gigantic. Drones can transport medical equipment and laboratory samples simply quickly and efficiently. They can assist rescue services, logistics, traffic control, the energy economy and many other areas.

The German UAV market is the world’s fourth largest and is projected to rise from its current EUR 574 million to nearly EUR three billion by 2030. That represents an annual growth rate of 14 percent. Some 4,000 companies and 10,000 employees already work in the sector.

German Scientists Invent Robot Lifesaver

A research team from the Fraunhofer Institute for Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation IOSB in Ilmenau – together with the water rescue services of the city of Halle – have developed an autonomous underwater vehicle that can save people from drowning. The aquatic robot is the first of its kind in the world.

“There are typical postures that you can use to recognize when someone is in danger,” said Fraunhofer IOSB computer scientist and project leader Helge Renkewitz on the institute’s website.

The robot was tested out at a local lake, where it was able to pick up an 80-kilo dummy, secure it and bring it back to “safety” on shore.

“The full rescue operation lasted just over two minutes,” said Renkewitz. “Casualties must be resuscitated within five minutes to avoid long-term brain damage. We were able to stay within this critical time frame without any problems.”

Developers say they are working on modifications, based on the streamlined body shape of manta rays to make the robot smaller and later. They hope it will eventually be used for a wide variety of applications including underwater inspecting, monitoring and searching.