Pressroom

Ten years ago, at the start of the 2010 academic year, a unique collaboration was established between Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS: the International Audio Laboratories Erlangen. Since then, the research organization has become an internationally renowned institution with six professorships of its own and a team of 50 people.

Media digitalization is his business. Dr. Siegfried Foessel is Head of the Moving Picture Technology department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, and he shares his expertise with students at the University of Television and Film Munich (HFF). Now, HFF has made the motion picture expert an honorary professor. It will be his responsibility to integrate advances in technology into the curriculum.

Sound United LLC, parent company to Denon, Polk Audio, Marantz, Definitive Technology, HEOS, Classé, and Boston Acoustics, alongside Fraunhofer IIS, primary developer of the MPEG-H Audio standard, today announced the immediate availability of the MPEG-H 3D Audio format across a wide range of home theater products. The selected Denon and Marantz AV amplifiers and AV preprocessors will receive MPEG-H support via a firmware update.

Loose screws at important connection points are a considerable safety risk. The Research Center IoT-COMMs – part of the Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Internet Technologies CCIT – has developed a smart screw connection that enables wireless, self-powered monitoring. A thin-film sensor measures force effects on the screw connection as well as changes in the ambient temperature at the installation site. The screw regularly transmits load data via the standardized mioty® wireless protocol for monitoring purposes. The aim is to implement a self-powered approach to the permanent long-term monitoring of structures such as bridges, scaffolding and wind power plants. The solution will be presented for at the SPS Connect.

The new LoPAN wireless technology from the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS paves the way for numerous practical applications, such as connecting temperature sensors to an air-conditioning system to reduce energy costs and simultaneously or selectively monitoring and controlling numerous blinds, postboxes, and heating systems over a remote connection. This technology links up and networks any number of sensors via a single base station. Unlike conventional remote maintenance and control applications for smart homes and smart buildings, LoPAN brings together advantages such as high energy efficiency, broadcast communication, a long range of several kilometers, and highly robust and therefore reliable transmission of the required sensor data – even in the vicinity of coexisting wireless protocols or in challenging environmental conditions.

M³Infekt, a Fraunhofer cluster project, aims to develop a monitoring system that enables early intervention in the event that a patient’s condition suddenly starts to deteriorate. It will be a modular, multimodal and mobile system, and will also be suitable for use in the treatment of COVID-19 patients. By facilitating the required intervention at an early stage, the system helps to lessen the effects of disease, shorten the duration of therapy and make flexible use of intensive care wards.

Police, customs, fire brigades, critical infrastructure – they all increasingly depend on satellite navigation. But satnav is easy to disrupt and manipulate. A research team from the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS has found a fix for this security predicament. Robust, trustworthy and tamper-proof – with this solution the team receives one of four Joseph von Fraunho-fer Prizes 2020, each endowed with 50,000 euros.

A new webinar series featuring a distinguished panel of experts in standardization, broadcast and production workflows will talk about pioneering solutions for immersive audio and video production, efficient delivery formats and live encoders for broadcast and OTT, as well as creation of enhanced consumer experiences.

The standardized JPEG XS codec was developed to handle media workflows from acquisition to the distribution encoder by using inter-net settings and Ethernet infrastructure only. The Fraunhofer IIS expert team for video coding successfully implemented a pilot project for streaming of 8k video over IP in cooperation with the Japanese public broadcaster NHK.

As a pioneer in applied research, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft brings together the expertise of 23 separate Fraunhofer facilities to develop new development and production technologies for innovative cell and gene therapeutics, as well as vaccines, in the “Production for Intelligent Medicine” innovation cluster. As a first step of the project, a concept for a modular pilot plant for the automatic production of these therapeutics is to be developed combining both Industry 4.0 and Health 4.0.