Together with other project partners, the Institute Industrial IT (inIT) at the Technische Hochschule Ostwestfalen-Lippe (THOWL) is starting the AMICO research project with the aim of developing self-adaptive forms of interaction to support people with different disabilities in their work environment.
AMICO: Project description and aims
The project is located at inIT in the Human-Technology Interaction working group headed by Prof. Dr mult. Carsten Röcker. MICO addresses the need for self-determined participation in working life of the approximately 4 million people with disabilities of working age in Germany. The aim of the project is to make digital assistance systems more flexible and functional. ‘This is not just about mapping linear processes, as has already been implemented in many assistance systems. Rather, it's about optimising the system to suit individual skills and needs as well as semi-automated adaptation to changing circumstances,’ explains Mario Heinz-Jakobs, research associate at inIT. The project attaches great importance to human-centred and ethical system development, which is supported by machine learning processes and artificial intelligence. The system is being tested in practice together with partners from the field of inclusion.
The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the funding programme 'START-interaktiv: Interactive Technologies for Health and Quality of Life'. The following project partners from research and application have joined forces to develop innovative and practical solutions: inIT, wertkreis Gütersloh gGmbH, Botttroper Werkstätten gGmbH and Landesverband Westfalen-Lippe (LWL).
Research and practical application
Together with the application partners, exemplary use cases are currently being specified and a digital infrastructure with several research demonstrators and a local server environment is being set up. This will serve as a basis for the design, development and evaluation of flexible assistance solutions, which will then be implemented and evaluated in the production environments of the wertkreis Gütersloh and the Bottrop Workshops.
By developing adaptive, user-centred technologies that take individual abilities and needs into account, the project is making an important contribution to professional and social inclusion. ‘People are the focus and are supported by the system based on their usage behaviour. Ultimately, people retain self-determination and make conscious decisions. That is why we are calling for partial automation,'’ says Alexander Kuhn, research associate at inIT, emphasising once again the need for regulatory mechanisms.
Outlook: Major consortium meeting in January 2025
In January 2025, a major consortium meeting of all project partners will take place at the SmartFactoryOWL in Lemgo to discuss the successes achieved to date and to define further milestones and project actions.