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Defence AI – AI for Security and Defence

The Competence Center Defence AI brings together DFKI's expertise in research, development and testing of trustworthy, integrative and sovereign AI systems for security and defence, in particular with respect to dual-use technologies with clear civil transferability.

Its objective is to make a substantial contribution to the technological sovereignty, resilience and operational capacity with respect to Germany and Europe, in particular in relation to security-critical, highly dynamic and crisis scenarios. The work of the Competence Center Defence AI is in line with democratic values, legal frameworks, as well as ethical and humanitarian principles, and also addresses civil-military cooperation.

In doing so, the DFKI advances its mission for research on "Human Centric AI", with a focus on the security of society and the state. This applies in particular to controllability, robustness, reliability and explainability through Responsible AI, as well as the integrative system design of corresponding Trusted AI systems in complex environments and system contexts. This enables intelligent decision-support systems, reconnaissance, situational awareness, and the integrative AI design of autonomous systems, which can serve to detect and prevent threats, thereby minimising risks and contributing to stabilisation in order to enhance overall security and resilience.
 

Topics

Situational Awareness, Reconnaissance, and Decision Support

AI-supported detection, analysis, fusion, and visualization of complex security situations

Autonomous, Cooperative, and Robotic Systems

Robotics, autonomy, and human-machine cooperation in demanding operational and support environments

Trusted AI, Robust AI, and Verifiable Safety-Critical Systems

Robust, comprehensible, verifiable, and secure AI systems

Digital Twins, Simulation, and Systems of Systems

Virtual models, forecasting, evaluation, and optimization of complex systems and scenarios

Protection of Critical Infrastructure, Homeland Security

KRITIS, maritime contexts, homeland security, resilience, and coordinated security situations

Integrated Information Systems

Cross-cutting area for continuous physiological sensing, monitoring, and integrated information systems

Projects

PAIRS is a research project co-funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (06/2021 - 05/2024) that investigates privacy-aware, intelligent and resilient crisis management.

Project PAIRS

In the CIAM project, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are being developed that are capable of autonomous inspection missions with a travel distance of 500km.

Project CIAM

The S&R project will design, implement and test a highly interoperable, modular open architecture platform for first responders, capitalising on expertise and technological infrastructure from both COncORDE and IMPRESS FP7 projects.

Project Search and Rescue

Im Projekt news-polygraph entwickeln wir digitale Methoden, mit deren Hilfe multimediale Inhalte auf Manipulationen, irreführende und falsche Inhalte überprüft werden können.

Projekt news-polygraph

Team

DepartmentsContact PersonKey Competencies
Cooperative and Autonomous Systems - CAS (Osnabrück)Dr. Alexander SungSensor-based reconnaissance and situational awareness; cooperative and autonomous systems with embedded AI; robust, explainable autonomy and simulation-based logistics
Cyber-Physical Systems - CPS (Bremen)Prof. Dr. Christoph LüthFunctional safety and IT security; formal modelling and verification; securing safety-critical cyber-physical systems
Robotics Innovation Center - RIC (Bremen)Dr. Daniel KühnMobile robotics for ISR and reconnaissance; autonomous perception, navigation and manipulation; robust land and water systems for challenging operational environments
Cognitive Social Simulation - CSS (Trier)Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ingo TimmModelling human decision-making and interaction behaviour; agent-based crisis and operational simulations; planning and optimization of socio-technical systems
Cognitive Assistants - COS (Saarbrücken)Dr. Anselm BlocherReal-time human-robot collaboration; digital twins; simulation-based resource planning, prediction and optimization
Embedded Intelligence - EI (Kaiserslautern)Prof. Dr. Paul LukowiczConnected sensor-actuator systems and multimodal sensing; embedded and energy-efficient AI; mobile and continuous monitoring
Experience-Based Learning Systems - EBLS (Trier)Prof. Dr. Ralph BergmannExperience-based and hybrid reasoning; knowledge graphs, process mining and generative AI; explainable decision support in dynamic situations
Agents and Simulated Reality - ASR (Saarbrücken)Dr.-Ing. Christian MüllerTrusted AI and hybrid AI; intelligent agents, synthetic data and simulation; verification, certification and IT security assessment
Smart Data & Knowledge Services - SDS (Kaiserslautern)Dr. Tobias WirthGeo and Earth observation data for situational awareness; robust and transparent AI; strategic foresight, scenario analysis and adaptive decision dashboards
Smart Service Engineering - SSE (Saarbrücken)Dr.-Ing. Sabine JanzenMultimodal crisis and anomaly detection; explainable decision support and maritime situational awareness; quantum AI and systems-of-systems simulation
Interactive Machine Learning - IML (Oldenburg / Saarbrücken)Omair BhattiRobust and secure machine learning; detection of attacks, poisoning and bias; XAI and neuro-symbolic validation