Author: Jens Hagemeyer

On 1-5 April 2019, the M2DC project was presented at the Hannover Messe 2019 (HMI), one of the largest trade fairs around the world with 6,500 exhibitors and over 200,000 visitors. The HMI is considered an international leading industrial show, with all key technologies and core areas of industry, from research and development, industrial automation, IT, industrial supply, production technologies and services to energy and mobility technologies, can be found there. It is the home of industrial pioneers that showcase technologies for the factories and energy systems of the future.  Visitors have the opportunity to see more than 500 use cases from 75 countries, and attend more than 80 forums and conferences witnessing all key technologies and core areas of industry in one place.

Bielefeld University (UNIBI) organised the booth and presented M2DC and other advanced technologies along with the Research Institute for Cognition and Robotics (CoR Lab) and the Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) at the event in Hannover, Germany. A smart mirror using M2DC technology was one of the projects on display, attracting considerable interest from visitors at this international leading industrial show. This intelligent mirror for smart homes was developed in the context of a liaison with the EU project LEGaTO. This news is based on the already published issue at the LEGaTO website at: http://bit.ly/2vP1l2W. The latter project deals with energy-efficient data processing based on the usage of the M2DC platform. Typically, the control in the context of smart homes requires a great deal of computing power, and is mostly operated using cloud computing.

Bielefeld’s smart mirror shows how machine learning methods can be used onsite to save energy. This mirror recognizes its user, displaying personalized information such as bus schedules or current information about the home (see image above, source: CITEC). It can be operated using both gestures and speech, with privacy is ensured (because the mirror processes data locally – not on external company servers).

Jens Hagemeyer and Nils Kucza, both researchers at UNIBI, were present at Bielefeld’s booth at the Hannover fair to showcase the intelligent mirror. “We were very happy to welcome a great number of people interested in learning about our smart mirror to the booth. We offered demonstrations of the mirror to the visitors who were eager to see how it interacts with the user and to hear about its ability to work using less energy,” Jens says.

Smart home products typically use high levels of power using cloud computing. UNIBI’s smart mirror demonstrates how smart living environments can function on lower amounts of energy. The mirror recognises the user’s gestures and speech and displays personalised information that is useful for the user, such as public transport schedules and data about the current situation of the house. At the same time, privacy is protected as the data is processed locally and not in external corporate servers.

“Presenting M2DC technology at Hannover Messe has been a significant opportunity to showcase our research to a wider audience and interact with people from research, industry, and the general public”, stated Nils. The Hannover Messe is considered an international leading industrial show where all key technologies of industrial pioneers can be found. Visitors have the opportunity to see more than 500 use cases from 6,500 exhibitors from 75 countries, and attend more than 80 forums and conferences with key technologies and core areas of industry in one place.

A television transmission for WDR is showcasing the intelligent mirror for smart homes and the M2DC team here (available in German only): http://bit.ly/2POJqml