Prof. Riener (IP6 MIRASOFT) co-organizes prestigious Dagstuhl Seminar 22222 (29.05 – 03.06.2022): Radical Innovation and Design for Connected and Automated Vehicles

More than 20 researchers – global top experts from academia and industry – met for one week in Dagstuhl to discuss radical innovation approaches to change future transport, to identify problems, and to develop solutions. The aspects and dimensions brought in were diverse and the discussions from different perspectives very fruitful.  Amongst the methods discussed in this week was also the mixed-reality test environment MIRE, developed in SAFIR IP6 MIRASOFT in the research group of Prof. Riener. International researchers, for example from Queensland University, Australia, Stanford University, US or the University of Leeds, UK are pursuing similar approaches, but were excited about the functionality developed within SAFIR and available in CARISSMA at THI. Further cooperation is already planned.

During the week, the group also realized how difficult it is to break out of the "normal" iterative development process and think "radically" or "innovative"; the basic idea of the seminar was to push this way - to identify new, innovative concepts and also to work out test and evaluation methods in order to be able to realistically test future concepts. After numerous presentations, discussion rounds, panels, and prototyping workshops, great ideas were born that will revolutionise (individual) transport in the future. But at the same time, the participants recognised that there are a number of obstacles to be cleared out on the way to more sustainable mobility. On the one hand, car manufacturers and the automotive lobby are strong advocates of individual cars and it will be difficult to initiate the rethinking process there. On the other hand, political decision-makers also need to be convinced to launch new forms of mobility.

Coming back from the seminar and the inspiring week, Prof. Riener is nevertheless confident that future decisions can be influenced and some of the ideas developed in the seminar can be implemented at the THI within the framework of SAFIR. Also, more on the short-term, some ideas for bilateral/multilateral collaborations, research exchanges (invitations of experts to THI for short- to long-term stays) and last but not least conference papers and grant proposal have emerged.