"PhD students who want to network with other researchers and industry partners are especially encouraged to attend," says Dr. Jörn Syrbe, who is organizing the fall school for the fifth time. The program includes thirteen lectures by industry partners and researchers from Germany and abroad, for example from the TU Munich, the VU Amsterdam, and Arizona State University. Additionally, the Collaborative Research Center will also present its own current projects at the fall school. "This year, these primarily include our virtual simulation environment," explains Jörn Syrbe. In order to train robots for use in everyday life, a research laboratory exists at the University of Bremen in the form of an apartment with a kitchen and furniture. The Bremen researchers have transferred this environment into digital space in a manner that is approximately true to the original. "At the fall school, we now want to offer researchers the opportunity to try out the virtual environment and find out whether they can use it for their research tasks," explains Syrbe.

EASE

The fall school is hosted by the Collaborative Research Center EASE (Everyday Activity Science and Engineering), which has existed at the University of Bremen since 2017. EASE researchers from different disciplines, including computer science, cognitive science, linguistics, and psychology, investigate how robots can handle everyday tasks such as cooking or setting the table. The goal is for robots not only to perform actions correctly, but also to understand the reasons for their behavior. The Bremen researchers are cooperating with other universities in this endeavor. Recently, for example, they founded the "Joint Research Center on Cooperative and Cognition-enabled AI" with researchers from the universities of Bielefeld and Paderborn.