Categories

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Research outputs

As an application-oriented research organisation, Fraunhofer aims to conduct highly innovative and solution-oriented research - for the benefit of society and to strengthen the German and European economy.

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Projects

Fraunhofer is tackling the current challenges facing industry head on. By pooling their expertise and involving industrial partners at an early stage, the Fraunhofer Institutes involved in the projects aim to turn original scientific ideas into marketable products as quickly as possible.

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Researchers

Scientific achievement and practical relevance are not opposites - at Fraunhofer they are mutually dependent. Thanks to the close organisational links between Fraunhofer Institutes and universities, science at Fraunhofer is conducted at an internationally first-class level.

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Institutes

The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is the leading organisation for applied research in Europe. Institutes and research facilities work under its umbrella at various locations throughout Germany.

Recent Additions

  • Publication
    Investigating the impact of laser dazzling on shooting performance in a simulator environment: baseline scene
    ( 2024)
    Földes, Tomas
    ;
    Pereira, Helena Rico
    ;
    Stutz, Sebastian
    ;
    ;
    Ferreira, Hugo
    ;
    Vandewal, Marijke
    Our study examines how laser dazzling affects human performance, specifically accuracy and reaction times, using a laser dazzling shooting simulator at the Royal Military Academy, Belgium. The research assesses the performance degradation under laser dazzling in a simple, baseline scene, including different target contrasts and the use of laser eye protection. Utilizing a 532 nm green laser for a safe yet effective dazzle, trained shooters’ performances were measured and analyzed. The results align strongly with a live shooting trial and correlate with Adrian/CIE visibility levels. Additionally, electrical brain activity data, acquired via electroencephalography (EEG), provided insights into the shooters’ mental states. EEG-derived metrics, particularly frontal alpha asymmetry and frontal alpha power, revealed that participants experienced heightened negative and avoidance emotions, coupled with increased cognitive load prior to shooting. These responses returned to baseline levels postshooting. Moreover, distinct cognitive and emotional states were observed in relation to different types of laser eye protection goggles, potentially correlating with variations in shooting performance. These findings pave the way for future research with more advanced simulation scenes and deepen understanding of the effects of laser dazzle.
  • Publication
    Multilateral Collaborations between University and Industry
    Due to the increasing innovation pressure of industry, joint research between industry and science has become enormously important in recent years. Increasing complexity of the industry offer, the digital transformation and the upcoming of new forms of work, collaboration increasingly switches from classic bilateral collaborations between one company and one scientific partner towards multilateral research cooperation. A wide range of collaborative research formats are existing, facilitating bilateral collaboration between industry and research to aim a defined goal and facilitating mutual benefit. Accompanying research on collaboration performance exists for bilateral collaborative initiatives. However, still little research on formats for multilateral research cooperation exists. In the following study we want to identify existing forms of multilateral cooperation between industry and science and analyse them according to their collaboration performance in the age of digitalisation. Therefore, in a first step, desktop research was conducted to identify real, existing collaborations between industry and science. Within those, relevant key characteristics which affects the performance of multilateral collaboration were derived (such as "number of partners", "partnership structure", "funding model", "contractual arrangements"). In the second step, seven representatives of real multilateral collaborations were interviewed to characterise their research cooperations. The survey captures different perspectives of research collaboration management, the business partners, and the partners from academia. The third step involved an analysis of the interview results, which finally were merged with the findings from literature and formed the foundation for defining the ten relevant characteristics of successful research collaborations.
  • Publication
    Crowd Engineering - an Open Innovation Approach Adapted to Product Development
    Product development is a complex process that requires significant resources and expertise. Traditional product development methods can be slow, expensive, and may not always lead to successful outcomes. Crowd Engineering is a new approach to product development that leverages the power of crowdsourcing to accelerate innovation and reduce costs. This method involves breaking down complex tasks into smaller sub-tasks that can be completed by a large number of external innovators and developers, often through online platforms. By doing so, it allows for greater flexibility in development speed and iterations, as well as reducing the amount of work per step. The involvement of external innovators and developers in Crowd Engineering opens up new discussions that can lead to otherwise unachievable innovations. It combines methods of the stage gate model with agile development methods, making it suitable for adoption in various product development models depending on the product type and use case. However, there are potential challenges to using this approach, such as ensuring quality control and managing intellectual property rights. The following chapter will discuss the concept of Crowd Engineering and the implications of its implementation as an alternative product development process.
  • Mainwork
    European Perspectives on Innovation Management
    (Springer Nature, 2024)
    Dekkers, Rob

Most viewed

  • Publication
    Directing nitrogen-doped carbon support chemistry for improved aqueous phase hydrogenation catalysis
    ( 2020) ;
    Rustam, Lina
    ;
    Thomann, Ralf
    ;
    Melke, Julia
    ;
    Fischer, Anna
    ;
    White, Robin J.
    Selective hydrogenations in the aqueous phase are an important transformation in the context of developing biorefinery concepts. In this report the application and optimisation of nitrogen-doped carbon (NDC) supported Pd nanoparticles as hydrogenation catalysts is discussed in the context of directing support (e.g. N) chemistry for improved catalytic performance in the aqueous phase. As a demonstrative example, the aqueous phase hydrogenation of phenol to cyclohexanone (e.g. a platform for polyamide production) is utilised. Catalyst supports were prepared based on an initial hydrothermal synthesis to yield NDC xerogels (from biomass precursors), the chemistry of which (e.g. functionality) was directed using a secondary thermal carbonisation (Tc) step at different temperatures (i.e. 350, 550, 750, 900 and 1000 °C). After Pd introduction, it was found that size, dispersion and electronic structure of the formed nanoparticles is affected by the surface chemistry of the NDC. This consequently led to higher turn-over frequency (TOF) and stability of the prepared catalysts compared to a ""nitrogen-free"" carbon supported Pd and a commercial, carbon supported Pd (Pd/AC) catalyst. Pd/NDC 900 (featuring predominantly quaternary and pyridinic N) catalysed the complete conversion of phenol at 99% selectivity to cyclohexanone, with excellent stability over 11 recycles and no discernible catalyst sintering or leaching (in contrast to the commercial catalyst). High catalytic stability, activity and selectivity make the Pd/NDC 900 catalyst highly applicable for aqueous phase hydrogenation reactions, whilst the general principle opens scope for support tailoring for application (e.g. biorefinery hydrogenations) and the development of structure/activity relationships.
  • Publication
    Laser pulse energy conversion on sequence-specifically bound metal nanoparticles and its application for DNA manipulation
    ( 2005)
    Garwe, F.
    ;
    Czaki, A.
    ;
    Maubach, G.
    ;
    Steinbrück, A.
    ;
    Weise, A.
    ;
    König, K.
  • Publication
    Measurement of Local Recombination Activity in High Diffusion Length Semiconductors
    We present a conceptual approach for the localisation and characterisation of local sites of recombination in high diffusion length semiconductors under photovoltaic field conditions. While established imaging techniques operate in this very regime of uniform "1 sun" illumination, inevitable lateral diffusion of charge carriers veils the origin and severity of localised recombination sites. To reduce this limitation due to lateral diffusion the natural choice is using focussed charge carrier excitation and detection in combination with scanning the specimen. The resulting photoluminescence intensity maps are of high spatial resolution and may be composed of a superposition of a multitude of recombination active defects influencing each other due to the high bulk diffusion length. We demonstrate the feasibility of a self-consistent calibration of the setup quantum efficiency in such experimental condition which delivers a charge carrier density map in absolute units. A solution is presented to disentangle the superposition of local sites of recombination to isolate the actual recombination activity of every site. We demonstrate the feasibility of the approach experimentally on the high diffusion length semiconductor silicon.