Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD

How can we make our mobility more sustainable? Policy measures to date have focused on promoting technological innovation and providing incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles. Citizens’ preferences were often not heard. Though their behavior, however, citizens can make a significant contribution to ensuring that the transition to sustainable transportation is successful. This was the impetus for a research project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, entitled Participative Energy Transformation: Innovative Digital Tools for the Social Dimension of Energy Transition (PaEGIE). As part of a consortium led by the Technical University of Darmstadt and in close cooperation with the city of Darmstadt, researchers at Fraunhofer IGD developed a visualization tool that involves citizens in the early stages of the planning process and encourages them to participate in sustainable mobility solutions. This helps to ensure that the measures taken are better accepted by the population.

The healthcare sector is facing major challenges: overworked staff, rising costs and an aging society. Fraunhofer IGD is developing digital assistance systems to reduce the workload of caregivers and improve the quality of care. The aim is to recreate a patient-centric culture through digital transformation in healthcare.

The cultural sector is facing a variety of challenges: financial bottlenecks, declining visitor numbers and the costly preservation of valuable cultural assets.

Systems based on artificial intelligence (AI) require training data – this is an essential prerequisite for their success. But users in the manufacturing industry face challenges for quickly obtaining sufficient quantities of it. Fraunhofer IGD is therefore working with synthetically generated training data. This approach is letting its researchers meet the prerequisites for machine learning and automated inspection of components faster, more simply, and more cost-effectively.