The research cooperation of the University of Trier and the University of Applied Sciences Trier, funded by the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, will investigate the complex ecosystem of artificial intelligence in the interaction of humans and machines over the next three years and jointly promote the qualification of young scientists.

The guiding question of the research college "AI-based Self-Adaptive Cyber-Physical Process Systems (AI-CPPS)" is: How can AI ecosystems be systematically realized in such a way that they enable sustainable and adaptive processes involving humans and machines in complex application scenarios? Data obtained from people, machines and the environment as well as from their interaction come, for example, from mobile devices, digital products, production or environmental sensors or from sensors of wearables. Application scenarios for such AI systems can be found in knowledge- and planning-intensive work processes in areas such as robotics, supply chains, production, services, intelligent mobility or agriculture.

With initially nine jointly supervised doctoral students, the interdisciplinary research cooperation aims to achieve internationally competitive progress in this subject area. In addition to Prof. Dr. Ralph Bergmann, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ingo J. Timm and Prof. Dr. Axel Kalenborn from the University of Trier, Jun.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Benjamin Weyers is also involved in the research college. The role of the Human-Computer Interaction Group will primarily be to accompany the planned doctoral projects with regard to human-machine interaction and, in particular, to actively conduct research together with the University of Applied Sciences within the framework of human-robot interaction.

Contact: Benjamin Weyers

With the beginning of the new year, a new project starts: BugWright2. Together with the Chair of Business Psychology, headed by Prof. Dr. Thomas Ellwart, and the Virtual Reality and Immersive Visualization group at RWTH Aachen University, led by Prof. Dr. Torsten W. Kuhlen, the Human-Computer Interaction Group develops and investigates VR systems for the monitoring and control of autonomous robot systems for the inspection and cleaning of hulls.

Press release of University of Trier

Contact: Benjamin Weyers

The Human-Computer Interaction Group at the University of Trier is involved in the EU project BugWright2, together with the professorship on Business Psychology under the direction of Prof. Dr. Thomas Ellwart. The aim of the project is to implement a system for the autonomous and roboter-based cleaning and maintenance of ship hulls and large tanks. The University of Trier will develop a VR-based monitoring control center in cooperation with the RWTH Aachen University. In this context, the University of Trier will support this work by developing requirements in the context of a work analysis as well as by analyzing the resulting VR application for monitoring and analyzing the maintenance results in terms of usability and user experience. Furthermore, Trier focusses on deriving design guidelines in order to make the project's results usable for comparable analysis scenarios in VR.

The professorship for Human-Computer Interaction offers a full position for three years for this project. More information can be found here. 

Contact: Benjamin Weyers

From 09.07.2019 to 11.07.2019, the HPC for Neuroscience Workshop took place at the Jülich Supercomputing Center. This workshop was organized as part of the Human Brain Project (HBP), in which the HCI Group is involved. The event was organized by the HBP Education Team, together with the support of the participating scientists as well as the project coordinators of the subproject 7, which focusses on the use and provision of HPC software and hardware for neuroscientific research. As part of the HCI group at University of Trier, Benjamin Weyers held a one-hour lecture on the topic of neuroscientific data visualization.

The workshop was part of a series of workshops (3rd HBP Curriculum Workshop Series - ICT for non-specialists) and addressed not only experienced neuroscientists but also students who want to use HPC resources to simulate and analyze biological neural networks.

More information about the event can be found here, about the Human Brain Project here.

Contact: Benjamin Weyers - Twitter

On July 1 and 2, 2019, Judy Bowen, Senior Lecturer at the University of Waikato, will visit the Human-Computer Interaction Group at the University of Trier. In her talk on July 1, 2019 at 16:00, she will present results from her research on the formal modelling of safety-critical interactive systems.

More information about the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand can be found here.

Contact: Benjamin Weyers

Benjamin Weyers presented the work of the HCI Group on invitation of the University Tsukuba by Prof. Tomoo Inoue, INTERACTIONLab, and the University of Kyoto by Prof. Hiroaki Ogata, Learning and Education Technologies Research Unit (LET). During various workshops, potential future cooperation was discussed and the possibility of hosting a future edition of the CollabTech conference in Trier was evaluated. 

You can find more information here: INTERACTIONLab @ University of Tsukuba, LET @ University of Kyoto

About CollabTech Conference, please find more information here.  

Contact: Benjamin Weyers

The Human-Computer Interaction Group welcomes Briam Mora and Stiven Rojas! As part of their 4-month internship, the two undergraduate students will develop a prototypic visualization system that will enable interactive analysis of georeferenced data using classic graphical user interfaces as well as immersive systems. This visit marks the starting point of a cooperation between the Human-Computer Interaction Group at University of Trier and TEC Costa Rica. Overarching topics of this collaboration will be the simulation of geothermal processes and their visual analysis. Not only experts but also the general public should get access to these processes by the resulting analysis tools and increase the perception of the possible influence on the environment.

More information about TEC Costa Rica can be found here. 

Contact: Yuen C. Law and Benjamin Weyers

The results of this year's 3DUI Contest are now online. The 3DUI Contest is part of the IEEE VR conference to be held in Osaka and aims at the development of innovative solutions to current topics in 3D interaction research. Interested scientists and practitioners are invited to work on specific topics presented in a video and a short paper. Successful entries are invited for presentation as demo during the conference. This year, nine submissions made it to the event. The winner will be selected during the conference by an expert commission as well as by an audience vote.

More information about the 3DUI Contest can be found here, about the IEEE VR 2019 here. 

All successful submissions are presented on the 3DUI contest's YouTube Channel. 

Contact: Benjamin Weyers

In course of the establishment of the Human-Computer Interaction Group, the University of Trier becomes a partner in the Human Brain Project (HBP), one of the two flagship projects partially funded by the European Union. The goal of the project is to create a European neuroscientific research infrastructure, which will help neuroscience to understand the human brain. The work of the Human-Computer Interaction Group within the HBP focuses on supporting neuroscientific research through visual analysis tools and software. Furthermore, the group is involved in the development of the user interfaces of the so-called Joint Platform, a web-based interface which provides the scientists access to the infrastructure.

More information about the project can be found here.

Contact: Benjamin Weyers

With the appointment of Dr. Benjamin Weyers as assistant professor for practical computer science, the Human-Computer Interaction Group was founded and started to work in research and teaching. As a first lecture, the group offers a Master course on Virtual Reality and 3D Interaction for the winter term 2018/2019. Simultaneous, the group begins its research on VR / AR and user interface design in the context of everyday work environments and scenarios.

Contact: Benjamin Weyers