In November 2011 Rainer Stiefelhagen assumed the professorship of 'Computer Systems for Visually Impaired Students' and with that the leadership of the Study Centre for the Visually Impaired Students (SZS)at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.
Rainer Stiefelhagen who completed his Ph.D. degree in computer science as well as his habilitation at the University of Karlsruhe has been leading the 'Computer Vision for Human-Computer Interaction'research lab at the Institute of Anthropomatics since May 2009. In addition, he has been head of the 'Perceptual User Interfaces' lab at the Fraunhofer Institute of Optronics, System Technology and Image Exploitation (IOSB) since 2007.
Rainer Stiefelhagen and his research team at the Institute for Anthropomatics set their target to teach robots and other technical systems in recognising humans and what they do in order to make these systems more interactive and human-friendly. Within the scope of his new professorship he intends to use his knowledge in the dynamic research field 'Computer Vision' in order to develop new assistive IT systems to support handicapped persons, especially the visually impaired, thus bringing together the expertise of his research group and of his team at the SZS.
Unnoticeable, light and small, integrated either in glasses or clothes or looking like accessories, that's how these assistive systems should be. They could for example help their users in finding objects and support navigation and mobility by detecting landmarks, signs and obstacles; dynamic information can be conveyed to the user in acoustic or haptic ways.
The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology offers the ideal environment for this purpose: Apart from the possibility of cooperation with disciplines like Robotics or Electrical Engineering, the expertise of the SZS and its long-term cooperation with visually impaired staff and students offers a unique user-oriented stimulus for research and research transfer.
Making mathematics and graphics accessible to visually impaired students with the help of sophisticated software tools is also a topic of interest of Stiefelhagen and his team. In addition to the research work, teaching and support of visually impaired students will thus continue to be the basis of the SZS’s work. The monthly meeting with visually impaired students, the annual orientation phase for visually impaired students from all over Germany, the International Camp on Communication & Computers which is co-organised by the SZS, the tutorial support of students, individual consulting and qualification measurements for the professional life will remain fixed parts of the SZS's offer.
KIT – University of the State of Baden-Wuerttemberg and National Research Center of the Helmholtz Association