Current Projcets

Direct links: VORAN - UNVEIL - PUT ME THERE - SITUATED IDEs - AIMS - DATIPILOT - ERBAINS 2.0

 

VORAN – Decisions and Behavior: Strengthening sustainability orientation in Business and Society

[Translate to Englisch:] Ministerium
UM

The sustainable transformation of the economy and society is one of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century. In addition to significant investments in sustainable technologies and infrastructure, profound changes in decision-making processes and behavioral patterns in economic and society are required. A successful transformation requires the systematic integration of ecological and economic objectives; interdisciplinary approaches to analyzing and promoting sustainable decision-making and action play a central role. The VORAN project addresses various perspectives of sustainability transformation – from the financing of sustainability projects and the promotion of sustainable behavior in organizations to the design of procurement processes and the use of immersive technologies for transformation processes. The subprojects provide complementary insights into how environmental and social conditions and decision-making processes can be designed to promote sustainable decision-making and action at the individual, organizational, and societal levels.

Link: TBD

Contact: Benjamin Weyers

 

Participating Project Partners: University of Mainz of Applied Sciences and Business:

University of Trier, Department IV - Business Administration, Economics, Computer Science, Mathematics, Sociology:

Funding:

  • Ministry of Science and Health (MWG) of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate, Funding Line "Research Colleges Rhineland-Palatinate"

Funding Period: since 2025

UNVEIL- Unified NondestructiVe Evaluation of hIstoricaL artifacts

[Translate to Englisch:] UNVEIL
[Translate to Englisch:] FL

Europe’s Cultural Heritage represents an invaluable repository of history, identity, knowledge and creativity, serving as a strategic resource for the EU economy, well-being, cultural diversity, sustainable development, and social cohesion, as highlighted in the EU Work Plan for Culture 2023-2026. To enhance the study, protection, sharing, and use of this invaluable resource, the European Commission aims to leverage digital transition to increase public accessibility, enrich Cultural Heritage experiences, and create a collaborative framework tailored to Cultural Heritage professionals and researchers. To address this EU goal, the UNVEIL project aims to enhance the diagnostics and understanding of both surface and subsurface conditions of CH artworks, such as paintings and sculptures, by combining Non-Destructive Evaluation methods with advanced digital data processing and visualisation tools. UNVEIL aims to train a new generation of researchers proficient in Cultural Heritage Science, equipping them to contribute to more informed and effective diagnostic and conservation efforts, thus helping to preserve Cultural Heritage and making it more accessible to the public.

Link: TBD

Contact: Benjamin Weyers

 

Beneficiaries:

  • Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
  • Università della Calabria (IT)
  • The University of Warwick (UK)
  • Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. (DE)
  • Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (BE)
  • Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NO)
  • Profilocolore Srl (IT)
  • University of Newcastle upon Tyne (UK)
  • Trier University (DE)
  • RWTH Aachen University (DE)

Funding:

  • EU, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, Doctoral Networks, Call: HORIZON-MSCA-2024-DN-01-01

Funding Period: 2026

Put me There: Image and Language Processing, Computer Graphics and Visualisation, Human Computer Interaction, Ubiquitous and Wearable Computing

[Translate to Englisch:] DFG

Teleportation has emerged as one of the most widely adopted forms of travel through immersive virtual environments as it minimizes the occurrence of sickness symptoms for many users. Despite its significance, however, several major research questions on the foundational building blocks that make up these techniques remain unanswered, with many people resorting to ground-restricted teleportation with default parameters as offered by their development platform. In this joint research effort between Dr. Weissker (RWTH Aachen University) and Dr. Zielasko (University of Trier), we aim to deepen our understanding of teleportation interfaces by investigating different target specification metaphors and pre-travel information and their effects on travel precision, efficiency, usability, and predictability. Our research is divided into four phases, starting with an analysis of different parametrizations of ground-based teleportation and the resulting tradeoff between selection distance and precision. These insights then serve as a basis for further research on the successful instantiation of more advanced teleportation interfaces, which allow the user to travel to targets beyond the ground plane (Dr. Weissker) as well as to incorporate virtual rotations into the movement when their physical space is confined (Dr. Zielasko). By seamlessly extending and opening up conventional teleportation techniques, these additions will enable users to gain novel perspectives on the scene, travel to targets more expeditiously, and maneuver around objects of interest more efficiently. The project concludes with a final consolidation phase, in which we formulate an overarching summary of our insights as well as derive design guidelines to develop expressive teleportation interfaces in immersive virtual reality. Based on the already widespread use of basic teleportation in head-mounted displays, these foundational research insights will have a profound impact on a large variety of academic and industrial virtual reality applications.

Link:  DFG - GEPRIS

Contact:

  • Matthias Wölwer
  • Bryson Lawton
  • Dr. Daniel Zielasko

 

Participating Project Partners:

  • Dr. Tim Weißker

Funding:

  • Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)

Funding Period: Since 2023

Situated IDEs: Added Value of situated Interactive Visualization in Software Development

[Translate to Englisch:] DFG

In this project we want to deal with the question how the software development process can be improved using AR and VR technologies. We focus on the debugging task, which plays a crucial role in both the implementation and the maintenance phase of software. Taking the desktop workspace of software developers as a starting point, we want to investigate what added values can be created by extending the workspace, virtualizing physical objects and spaces, and in particular by using situated visualization of information and tools both in the real and virtual space.

Link:   DFG - GEPRIS

Contact:

  • Benjamin Weyers
  • Nico Feld

 

Participating Project Partners

  • Prof. Dr. Stephan Diehl

Funding:

  • Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)

Funding Period: since 2022

Research College AIMS

HST
MWG

How can an AI-driven metaverse support sustainable and resource-efficient production processes through digital twins and embodied agents?

The research college aims to develop an AI-driven Meta Verse of Sustainable Production (AIMS). At its core is the AIMS reference model, providing a research framework for resource-neutral, cyber-physical production systems. The project combines AI, extended reality (XR), and embodied agents to capture expert knowledge and mirror real-world processes through cognitive digital twins. A key application is battery remanufacturing—a top-tier method in the circular economy. Additional use cases include logistics, trade, and skilled crafts.

Link: AIMS

Contact:

  • Tana Glemser
  • Hilal Khalife
  • Benjamin Weyers

 

Participating Project Partners:

  • Prof. Dr. Guido Dartmann - Trier University

Funding:

  • Ministry of Science and Health (MWG) of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate

Funding Period: since 2024

BMBF DATIpilot

BMfFTuR
nest
xxNorse

How can an integrated development environment using SNNs, Norse, and neuromorphic hardware effectively support applied machine learning?

The "DATIpilot" project develops an advanced development environment for machine learning using spiking neural networks (SNNs). A prototype based on NEST Desktop integrates the bio-inspired simulator Norse, neuromorphic hardware, and EBRAINS APIs. The goal is a powerful tool for learning and development, evaluated through a qualitative assessment.

Link: DATIpilot

Contact:

  • Hilal Khalife
  • Sebastian Spreizer
  • Benjamin Weyers

 

Participating Project Partners:

  • University of Trier

Funding:

  • Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space

Funding Period: Until 26. February 2026

EBRAINS 2.0

EB2
EU

How can digital brain atlases and digital twin technologies contribute to a better understanding and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders?

The overarching goal of EBRAINS 2.0 is to foster a deeper understanding of brain structure and function with dedicated and mature software tools, to facilitate the development of more effective treatments, new drugs, diagnostics and preventive measures for neuro-psychiatric disorders. The project will further the development and provision of the infrastructure’s research technologies to the scientific community. It aims to establish a new standard for brain atlases, gather and connect multimodal neuroscientific and clinical data, and push forward the development of digital twin approaches.

Link: EBRAINS 2.0

Contact:

  • Sebastian Spreizer
  • Benjamin Weyers

 

Participating Project Partners:

Funding:

  • Co-founded by the European Union

Funding Period: January 1, 2024 - December 31, 2026

COMPLETED PROJECTS

XR-Path - Immersive Extended Reality for Physical ActiviTy and Health

[Translate to Englisch:] MWG
[Translate to Englisch:] HST

In its 2021 report, the German Advisory Council on the Assessment of Developments in the Health Care System identified an urgent need for research and development in the field of "Digitalization for Health." "Germany lags far behind other countries in the digitalization of the healthcare system" (Advisory Council, 2021). This means, among other aspects, that preventive and therapeutic measures could be enabled or supported by digital solutions have not yet been sufficiently researched and subsequently translated into healthcare practice. The funded XR-PATH research group aims to develop scientifically valid immersive Extended Reality (XR)-based solutions for the healthcare system in a total of six cooperative doctoral projects jointly supported by Trier University of Applied Sciences and Trier University. The Chair of Human-Computer Interaction at Trier University is conducting subproject 1, which involves research into social interaction in therapeutic applications using augmented and virtual reality. The aim of the project is to develop social interaction, physical aspects as well as the presentation and distribution of therapy-relevant information in and with the help of extended reality technologies using suitable design concepts.

Link:https://www.hochschule-trier.de/informatik/forschung/projekte/forschungskolleg-xr-path

Subproject:https://www.hochschule-trier.de/informatik/forschung/projekte/forschungskolleg-xr-path/teilprojekt-tp-1

Contact:

  • Pauline Bimberg
  • Benjamin Weyers

 

Participating Project Partners Hochschule Trier:

Participating Project Partners University of Trier:

Funding:

  • Ministry of Science and Health (MWG) of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate, funding line “Research Colleges Rhineland-Palatinate”

Funding Period: 2021 - 2025

BugWright2

The aim of the project is the development and scientific investigation of a system for the maintenance of ship hulls and tanks. Autonomous robot systems are used, especially drones in the air and on water, as well as so-called crawlers. The latter walk the hull of a ship and scan its surface. The damaged areas identified in this way are automatically documented and processed in three dimensions. The results should then flow into corresponding products. Together with the Chair of Business Psychology at the University of Trier (Prof. Dr. Thomas Ellwart) and the RWTH Aachen (Prof. Dr. Torsten W. Kuhlen, Virtual Reality & Immersive Visualization), we are developing suitable user interfaces and visualizations for monitoring the robot systems and for analysis of the recorded data. On the basis of work, task and user-centered requirement analyses, corresponding interactive VR and AR systems are designed, analyzed and tested in the field.

Link: Project homepage; Cordis @ EU; Project homepage of Business Psychology @ Uni Trier

Contact:

  • Jan Gründling
  • Benjamin Weyers

 

Participating Project Partners:

Funding: Horizon 2020 Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), Robotics in Application Areas (ICT-09-2019-2020)

The Human Brain Project [EU - H2020]

The Human Brain Project (HBP) began in 2013 to build a research infrastructure with the aim of advancing neuroscience, medicine and computer technology. It is one of the two largest scientific projects ever funded by the European Union. More than 500 scientists at more than 100 universities, teaching hospitals and research centers across Europe are directly involved in this ten-year project. The Human-Computer Interaction Group contributes to the HBP by creating a software catalog of interactive and visual data analysis tools that assist neuroscientists in their daily scientific data analysis.

  • Contact Person: Sebastian Spreizer, Jens Bruchertseifer, Jan Gründling, Benjamin Weyers
  • Materials: Software Metadaten Curation: Template Excel - CSV

 

Porta XR

Porta XR is an interdisciplinary research project in cooperation with the classical archeology department of the University of Trier and the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier. The aim is to create a digital platform for both archaeological research and public relations based on a virtual reconstruction of the historic city of Trier. At the same time, the reconstruction offers an ongoing scenario for comprehensive research in the context of virtual and augmented reality, with a specific focus on interaction and collaboration research. Last but not least, the topic of virtual museums will play a central role as part of the Porta XR project.

  • Contact Person: Jun.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Benjamin Weyers, Dr. Daniel Zielasko, Dr. Yuen C. Law, Thomas Schweiß, M.Sc., Nico Feld, M.Sc.

 

AKuT (Ancient cultural heritage of Trier)

The AKuT project is developing a demonstrator that is to be tested at a specialist conference of the Association for Research into the Ancient Imperial Residence in Trier (VaKT). This forms the basis for the needs analysis and identification of a more comprehensive tool. This is intended to make research data from collaborative research accessible to other researchers, enable analyses, make results available to the public and thus be an example of research data management in the field of cultural heritage. The demonstrator is intended to show how different data qualities and types are handled, such as small-scale excavation documentation and large-scale data from a geographic information system (GIS) with surrounding data, fuzzy and incomplete data. The main task of the demonstrator is to show connections, conflicts or gaps between archaeological, historical and literary/epigraphic data and thus to serve as an analysis tool. For this purpose, cartographic, network-analytical, chronological and open access to data and contexts should be made possible. An automatic generation of results is shown using the example of a virtual city model of Trier, which at the same time serves to inform the public and, depending on the target group, also uses virtual reality (VR) in the form of an immersive virtual museum.

  • Contact Person: Jun.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Benjamin Weyers, Dr. Daniel Zielasko, Nico Feld, M.Sc.

 

Research College AI-based Self-Adaptive Cyber-Physical Process Systems (AI-CPPS)

The question of how AI ecosystems can be realized in such a way that they enable sustainable and adaptive processes involving humans and machines will be investigated. Application scenarios of such overall 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. Data obtained from people, machines and the environment as well as from their interaction comes, for example, from mobile devices, digital products, production or environmental sensors or sensors from wearables.

  • Contact Person: Jun.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Benjamin Weyers

 

FORKA – Research for the dismantling of nuclear facilities

The aim of this BMBF-funded change project in the sense of the human-technology-organization approach (M-T-O approach, Strohm & Ulich 1999) is to support employees and managers in dealing with this constantly changing work environment, the inclusion of new, different To support tasks and exercise of powers and (project) roles in a targeted manner. The aim of the project is to develop and support the roles that have changed as a result of the dismantling phases through training measures based on the scientific approach to training development (Goldstein & Ford, 2002; IAEA, 1998) in a target group-oriented manner.

  • Contact Person: Jun.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Benjamin Weyers

 

The effect of ambient awareness on the temporal coordination of geographically distributed teams

Timing is an important aspect of teamwork. Coordination refers, for example, to observing one's own teamwork progress, to the right timing, e.g. by observing the states of a technical system, the chronological order of subtasks, and adapting to dynamic changes in the context. The so-called Task State Awareness (TSA) is the basis for optimal time coordination. Without TSA, errors occur, for example, in timing and in the synchronization of activities. In the project applied for, we focus on the temporal coordination of team members working in separate locations in production. To support timing coordination and TSA, teams in a shared (non-distributed) context use various techniques such as working side-by-side and scripted coordination (through procedures). However, remote team members cannot take advantage of side-by-side work and the shared visual context it brings to establish a TSA. The central question of our project is: To what extent can augmented reality (AR) help to support the temporal coordination of a scripted team task by setting up a TSA, which is carried out by team members working in separate locations? In an experimental 2 x 2 design (factor 1: 2D/3D overlay and factor 2 static/dynamic system state representation) with a total of 110 two-person teams (Σ220 subjects), each performing an individual task and a common team task, we take a main effect the AR overlay on the timing of the team task (H1). In addition, we examine the benefits for TSA and temporal coordination of 2D versus 3D, and static versus dynamic rendering. We hypothesize that 3D overlay promotes TSA more than 2D overlay (H2). In addition, we assume that the dynamic representation better supports the TSA of the individual task than the static one. This is because the ambient awareness of the distance until the correct timing of the next intervention in the team task requires fewer attentional resources than the static one, and thus more attentional resources can remain with the individual task. The long-term goal of the research is to develop coordination artifacts such as AR, which have been empirically studied, and which support temporal coordination of remote team members through increased TSA. The results can help to better understand team coordination requirements and to develop guidelines based on work psychological and human-computer interaction principles for use in digitized production and in Industry 4.0.

  • Contact Person: Jun.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Benjamin Weyers

 

Intentional forgetting of work behavior in everyday life - recording, formalization and integration into interactive systems

This project is dedicated to forgetting unwanted, habitual behavior in the work context. We will investigate under which conditions people actually no longer show habitual behaviors that they regard as dysfunctional and therefore want to give up, and to what extent adaptable interactive information systems can support this process. We focus on individual behaviors and consider breaking these behaviors as a proactive process that can also have consequences for the social work environment. In the first phase of the project, we will use the modeling language Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) and Thinking-Aloud Protocols (TAP) to record and contrast work processes. We will examine the feasibility of a programmatic implementation of an adaptable interactive system that embeds the previously modeled work processes and controls the real work process. Finally, in a field study, the individual and situational factors that promote or make it difficult to forget unwanted, habitual behavior are to be examined. For the second project phase, the implementation and evaluation of an adaptable information system is planned, which should support the abandonment of unwanted habitual behavior.

  • Contact Person: Nico Feld, Benjamin Weyers