TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH

PRESSRELEASE

Robotics and artificial intelligence in care of the elderly

4.7 million euros in funding and 14 positions planned for the TUM Geriatronics campus

• TUM Geriatronics campus will bring together research, education and care facilities under one roof
• Robo.Care AI mission to deliver progress with artificial intelligence applications in nursing care
• Campus to receive 4.7 million euros in funding in 2023, with 14 new positions to be created, including two professorships

Good news for the TUM Geriatronics campus in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the Robo.Care AI mission: the Bavarian cabinet’s 2023 draft budget includes 4.74 million euros in funding for research on robotics and AI applications in the care of the elderly. This was announced by Bavarian science minister Markus Blume on a visit to the campus, which he praised as a “model project for Germany and the world”. The new campus is a project under the auspices of the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI) of TUM.

In 2023 the state of Bavaria will provide funding to establish the TUM Geriatronics Campus and launch the Robo.Care AI mission. In the 2023 draft budget alone, funds are set aside for two professorships, 12 research and technology transfer positions as well as 4.74 million euros for material costs. The new campus will also offer a new masters program for geriatronics. The overall project will include a special research zone for geriatronics and healthcare robotics as well as the Robo.Care AI Mission, dedicated to advances in the use of AI in nursing care.

Big plans for collaboration encompassing care, education and research

With partners from the nursing care and healthcare fields, TUM is building a collaborative campus where care, education and research are combined to develop AI/robotics technologies and create applications ready for everyday use. It will include a 25,000 square meter care center operated by the Caritas charity that will house a social services station, assisted living facilities and a broad range of nursing care services. The adjacent educational center will utilize technical developments in robotics and AI and provide training for nursing care specialists. The TUM Geriatronics Innovation Space will incubate startups to convert technological developments into products suitable for the real world.

MIRMI on the way to global leadership in geriatronics research

Science minister Blume: „A world class university surrounded by Alpine peaks: The Geriatronics Campus is on the way and Garmisch-Partenkirchen will now be a university town! With 14 new positions and around 4.7 million euros in funding for materials and equipment in the 2023 draft budget alone, Bavaria is launching a model project for Germany and the world. High-tech solutions in the interests of better quality of life – by bringing together geriatrics and robotics. Here, high-tech research is at the service of patients – an exemplary case of technology serving people, with a unique combination of teaching, research and real-world AI applications. We want to bring elite robotics researchers to Garmisch-Partenkirchen.”

MIRMI director Prof. Sami Haddadin announced: „In Garmisch-Partenkirchen we will establish a unique experimental field for leading-edge research and development in robotics for nursing care and health care. In doing so, we aim to set new international standards. With this unique TUM campus we will strengthen and raise the international profile of research and education in the field of geriatronics and healthcare robotics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen while taking action to secure and enhance the future of the region. Only through innovative and integrated approaches like these can we develop sustainable solutions for autonomous living in old age.”

Further information:

• Link to the article on tum.de: http://go.tum.de/404506
• Video on the concept of TUM Campus Garmisch-Partenkirchen - https://www.longleif.de/meldungen/2022/aus-der-campus-vision-wird-realitaet-kurzfilm
• The Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI) is a TUM integrative research institute for science and technology with the objective of finding innovative and sustainable solutions to the central challenges of our time. The Institute has leading expertise in central areas of Robotics, Perception and Data Science. As part of the research and application focus area "Future of Health", MIRMI conducts research in the fields of machine learning in medicine, data mining and analysis, virtual and augmented reality, sensor systems in robotics and safe Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), soft robotics design and regulation. You'll find further information at www.mirmi.tum.de.

Pictures:

• Picture 1: Bavarian State Minister Markus Blume (right, front) and Prof. Sami Haddadin (front, left) together with researchers from the Geriatronics Research Centre in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. http://go.tum.de/820454
• Picture 2: Prof. Sami Haddadin (left) shows a model of the future TUM Campus Geriatronics to the first mayor of the market town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen Elisabeth Koch and the Bavarian State Minister for Science and the Arts Markus Blume. http://go.tum.de/829059
• Picture 3: The laboratory with nursing robot Garmi at the Geriatronics Research Centre in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. http://go.tum.de/579548
• Picture 4: In the research lab, researchers are testing new capabilities of the Garmi care robot (pictured right: Project Y leader Abdeldjallil Naceri). http://go.tum.de/680826

Scientific contact:

Dr. Martina Kohlhuber

Scientific Director Campus Geriatronik

Mobil 0176 45553041

E-Mail: m.kohlhuber@tum.de

Contact to the Corporate Communication Center:

Andreas Schmitz

Press Relations Robotics and maschinelle Intelligenz

Tel. +49 89 289 18198

E-Mail: andreas.schmitz@tum.de

www.tum.de

The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is one of Europe’s leading research universities, with more than 600 professors, 50,000 students, and 11,000 academic and non-academic staff. Its focus areas are the engineering sciences, natural sciences, life sciences and medicine, combined with economic and social sciences. TUM acts as an entrepreneurial university that promotes talents and creates value for society. In that it profits from having strong partners in science and industry. It is represented worldwide with the TUM Asia campus in Singapore as well as offices in Beijing, Brussels, Mumbai, San Francisco, and São Paulo. Nobel Prize winners and inventors such as Rudolf Diesel, Carl von Linde, and Rudolf Mößbauer have done research at TUM. In 2006, 2012, and 2019 it won recognition as a German "Excellence University." In international rankings, TUM regularly places among the best universities in Germany.