For three days, researchers presented their findings in lectures and poster sessions. Together with the scientific program advisory board, they developed further ideas on the topic of digital resilience.
From May 26 to 28, more than 70 emergenCITY researchers and staff, as well as five renowned scientists from the emergenCITY program advisory board, gathered at emergenCITY Week at the Technical University of Darmstadt as well as online. They discussed topics such as resilient wireless communication, the resilience of cyber-physical systems, resilient software, data analysis and human-computer interaction, crisis prevention and preparedness in lectures and subsequent Q&A sessions as well as in poster sessions. The event provides an opportunity for internal exchange among the disciplines gathered in emergenCITY, from architecture to computer science and electrical engineering to law.
The interdisciplinary research missions, including eHUB, digital Heinerblock, and Knowledge Base, presented their current status and provided an outlook on future projects. The three emergenCITY PIs, Vahid Jamali, Marco Zimmerling, and Roderich Groß, also presented their results.
“We achieved a number of successes on various levels,” said Matthias Hollick, scientific coordinator of the LOEWE Center emergenCITY.
In the long term, the researchers will work with politicians to establish a national center for digital resilience in disasters in Darmstadt (Zedir), and in the short term, the Digital Resilience Xchange (DiReX) application and transfer center, which will translate the research results into practical applications.
Valuable input was provided by five professors: Klara Nahrstedt from the University of Illinois, Hans Heinimann from ETH Zurich, Utz Roedig from University College Cork, Tadokoro Satoshi from Tohoku University, and Armin Dekorsy from the University of Bremen. They are members of emergenCITY’s Scientific Program Advisory Board.
“How can industry be integrated into your perspectives?” asked Armin Dekorsy, for example.
On Tuesday, Matthias Hollick presented the emergenCITY Collaboration Award for outstanding publications and interdisciplinary collaboration. Christian A. Schroth, Christian Eckrick, and Stefan Fabian received first place for their paper “Emergency Response Person Localization and Vital Sign Estimation Using a Semi-Autonomous Robot Mounted SFCW Radar.” Florentin Putz and Steffen Haesler took second place with “Sounds Good? Fast and Secure Contact Exchange in Groups.” Tobias Gebhard received third place for his paper “Automated Generation of Urban Medium-voltage Grids using OpenStreetMap Data.”
Two events for external guests also concluded emergenCITY Week on Wednesday. Dirk Ringe from the award-winning development studio Envision Entertainment opened the barcamp, “From Idea to Market-Ready (Serious) Game,” with a keynote speech on “Startups in the Gaming Industry.” Following this, Jakob Huth, student assistant, and Johannes Mattmann, Managing Director of Andarion Games, presented the emergenCITY serious games Krisopolis and eHUB cities. Both are currently being developed at the LOEWE Center. In the second part of the event, participants developed strategies for the marketability of these games.
In the Ruzena Bajcsy Lecture, Katja Mombaur, Professor of Optimization and Biomechanics for Human-Centered Robotics (HCR) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, spoke on “Embodied Intelligence for Humanoid Robots and Exoskeletons.” Afterwards, the Female Student Travel Award was presented (a further news article will follow).
