Fraunhofer Institute for Cognitive Systems IKS
Fraunhofer Institute for Cognitive Systems IKS

Dr. Reinhard Stolle

Deputy Director at Fraunhofer IKS

Reinhard Stolle, Deputy Director and Head of Business Unit »Mobility« at Fraunhofer IKS
Reinhard Stolle, Deputy Director and Head of Business Unit »Mobility« at Fraunhofer IKS

»To me, safe intelligence means building trustworthy and reliable systems that act verifiably safely in safety-relevant environments. By understanding the properties of AI technologies theoretically and experimentally, we enable impressive safety-relevant applications from autonomous mobility to smart factories and personal assistants.«

Dr. Reinhard Stolle has been Deputy Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Cognitive Systems IKS since June 2024. He joined the Institute in December 2023 as head of the Mobility business unit.

Reinhard Stolle began his studies in computer science at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (FAU) in Erlangen, Germany, before receiving a Fulbright scholarship and studying the University of Colorado at Boulder (USA). After receiving his master's degree, he went on to complete his Ph.D. in computer science at the same university, specializing in artificial intelligence (AI). He continued to work on AI and model-based planning as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University.

He stayed in California for the next few years, working at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) on natural language understanding and text-based information processing using artificial intelligence. In 2004, he returned to Germany, where he worked for 14 years at BMW in Munich as a development engineer and in various management positions. He worked on software strategy, driver assistance systems, autonomous driving and AI. In his next positions as Head of Engineering at AID, a company within the VW Group, and as Vice President at Argo AI, he was responsible for the progress of Level 4 autonomous driving, i.e. fully automated vehicles that operate completely autonomously under certain conditions.

Since December 2023, Reinhard Stolle has been head of the Mobility Business Unit at Fraunhofer IKS, which develops innovations in the field of mobility through artificial intelligence. Since June 2024, he has now contributed his management experience as deputy director of the institute.

Would you like to find out more about Reinhard Stolle? Read our interview on our Safe Intelligence blog:

Projects of Dr. Reinhard Stolle

At the Fraunhofer IKS, Dr. Reinhard Stolle and his colleagues are researching the challenges and innovative solutions in the field of mobility in various projects:

 

© iStock.com/taranchic

AutoDevSafeOps: Development and operation of safe automotive systems

The MANNHEIM project AutoDevSafeOps, is developing a holistic DevOps approach to meet the high demands of automated and networked vehicles on the already existing software architecture. This approach enables over-the-air updates for safety-critical (driving) functions.

AutoDevSafeOps
 

© iStock.com/jonathanfilskov-photography

safe.trAIn: Safe AI for driverless trains

In the safe.trAIn project, 17 partners are working to establish the groundwork for using AI safely in driverless rail vehicles to make regional rail transport more efficient and sustainable. Fraunhofer IKS is focusing in particular on the proof of safety for AI functions, the robustness of AI and the Operational design domain (ODD).

safe.trAIn
 

© iStock.com/Oleh_Slobodeniuk

AI assurance: Safe artificial intelligence for autonomous driving

The “KI-Absicherung” project for AI assurance, an initiative by the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), has defined its goal of making the safety of in-car AI systems verifiable. To this end, the project partners are developing a stringent, verifiable chain of arguments for the assurance of AI functions in highly automated vehicles.

 

AI assurance

More mobility projects

All other current projects and references of the Fraunhofer Institute for Cognitive Systems IKS in the field of mobility and other research fields can be found on the project page.

Projects

Events

Current events where Dr. Reinhard Stolle is giving/has given presentations:

Memberships

Associations of which Dr. Reinhard Stolle is a member:

  • Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), member since 1995
  • Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), member since 1996
  • Gesellschaft für Informatik, member since 2004
 

© iStock.com/Lukas Bischoff

Autonomous Driving

Autonomous or self-driving vehicles are being increasingly treated as a trailblazing technology of the future. The question is, what does »autonomous« really mean, and what will it take to make autonomous driving safe and efficient?

Autonomous Driving

Blog articles by and about Dr. Reinhard Stolle

On our blog you will find numerous articles by our colleagues about the research topics of Fraunhofer IKS. Here are the blog articles by and about Dr. Reinhard Stolle:

 

© iStock.com/metamorworks

Interview with Reinhard Stolle / 22.4.2024

"We use AI to make systems safer“

It takes time. And it will take time. But it will come: Fraunhofer IKS is making a decisive research contribution to autonomous driving, explains Dr. Reinhard Stolle, the new head of the Mobility business unit. But there is still a lot to be done.

Interview with Reinhard Stolle