Robots set to learn how to provide better assistance during surgery

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Minimally invasive surgery has many advantages for patients and surgical teams, such as shorter recovery times, lower post-operative complication rates, higher patient acceptance rates and increased cost efficiency. One key area here is interventional radiology, where external imaging equipment is used to guide the surgical instruments through the body. Robots can support in this task. However, those who believe that robots “operate” independently are (as yet) mistaken: The robot systems available today are pure tele-operators or mere assistants for holding and targeting tools; that’s all they can do. Now, a research project led by the University of Klagenfurt wants to explore additional advantages of “operating robots” and increase their autonomy when it comes to supporting surgeons. Read more →

Autonomous robots to inspect and maintain ship hulls and storage tanks

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Some 56,000 ships weighing in excess of 500 tons are currently sailing the world’s oceans. For now, their maintenance is carried out by a high number of personnel: The cleaning of a ship’s hull currently takes about eight days and costs between 100,000 and 200,000 euros. The project “BugWright2 Autonomous Robotic Inspection and Maintenance on Ship Hulls and Storage Tanks” financed by EU-HORIZON2020 aims at developing autonomous technical solutions.

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Navigating with the eyes of a camera: How can helicopters navigate on Mars?

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Machines usually use navigation systems such as GPS to locate themselves in outdoor areas. However, other planets do not have such a system yet. Thus, different methods need to be found to use helicopters for the exploration of another planet. In Austria, a team at the University of Klagenfurt is researching the question, “How can a robot navigate and localize itself without GPS”. The project AMAZE aims to answer this question. Read more →

Helicopter flies to Mars: Researcher based in Klagenfurt provided the navigation technology

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According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, on 30 July the new Mars Rover “Perseverance” will take off from Cape Canaveral, bound for Mars. Also on board is the first ever “Mars helicopter”, which will undertake exploratory flights. The helicopter is navigated using a technology that Stephan Weiss, Professor at the Department of Smart Systems Technologies, was instrumental in developing.  

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Successful testing of UWB sensor network in industrial setting

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Wireless communication is becoming increasingly important in industrial companies, as production processes frequently have to be adapted and optimized. Laying new cables each time would reduce flexibility. Together with the companies Messfeld and Dewesoft and the research institutes JOANNEUM RESEARCH DIGITAL and FH Campus 02, the University of Klagenfurt and Lakeside Labs GmbH have now tested a UWB network in an industrial setting.

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Drone flight using 5G: Initial experiments

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Drones are used in an ever-increasing number of applications, including the autonomous delivery of medication and the inspection of industrial plants. To fulfil these tasks safely and reliably as they move through our airspace, drones need to be linked to high-performance cellular networks. The new mobile telecommunication generation 5G promises new possibilities with high data rates and low latency. Working with a 5G base station operated by Magenta in the Austrian community of Feichtendorf, a team of researchers from the University of Klagenfurt, Lakeside Labs GmbH, Magenta Telekom GmbH and Deutsche Telekom AG has recently conducted drone tests in a commercial 5G network. The scientific results were presented at the ACM MobiSys conference in mid-June.

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Rapid increase in the volume of video transmissions: Work is in progress on a new intelligent video platform

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By the year 2022, video content will account for almost 79 percent of mobile data traffic. This means that the level is expected to increase nine-fold in just five years from 2017 to 2022. These ever-growing magnitudes pose new challenges for modern technologies. In a research alliance between the Department of Information Technology, bitmovin GmbH and the joint CD laboratory ATHENA, researchers are now working on a new cloud-based video platform that can keep pace with current demands. Read more →

Of fog and clouds: How are we capable of conducting the computations for near real-time applications?

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Narges Mehran, who came to Klagenfurt from Iran in order to pursue her doctoral studies, has specialized in cloud and fog computing as part of her doctoral thesis. These decentralized processing systems make it possible to reduce latency and processing times.

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Remarkable success for Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Klagenfurt: funding for 14 new PhD students in the field of optimization in FWF doc.funds project

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The approval of this project represents a milestone in the success story of the Departments of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Klagenfurt. It’s also a great achievement on the part of the participating professors and particularly for the 32-year-old coordinator, Michaela Szölgyenyi. Starting in autumn 2020, the project will employ around one dozen international young scientists in Klagenfurt.

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New tools for swarms of machines

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Moving intelligently, robots deployed in a warehouse shift crates from A to B – without getting in each other’s way. What sounds like a very simple example has only recently been made possible thanks to new tools developed in the EU Horizon 2020 project CPSwarm. The project is now in its final phase and the “toolkit” is freely available online for all developers.   

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