Fribourg has its specialists in machine learning and artificial intelligence
05.10.2022 ARTICLE PRÉCÉDENT ARTICLE SUIVANTData is, more than ever, at the heart of our society. Advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning have opened extraordinary doors for its analysis. The iCoSys Institute of HEIA-FR possesses strong competences in these fields and conducts research projects with companies in the region and elsewhere.
Prof. Beat Wolf is an active member of the iCoSys team of specialists and is convinced, like his colleagues, that the expertise of his institute is valuable to companies. But is there a market demand for it? Beat Wolf comments: "Yes, there is. But we must make a distinction. Larger companies are well aware of the latest developments in these fields, have research teams and come to us for specific knowledge to complement their own. Small companies are discovering a new world. They only know that these technologies exist and count on us to teach them and to develop applications that are useful to them." Today, artificial intelligence and machine learning are very popular in the context of Industry 4.0, for the analysis of data provided by sensors in production lines, among others for predictive maintenance purposes. The fields of application are extremely varied.
This can be seen in some examples of projects carried out by Beat Wolf and his colleagues. The researchers of the iCoSys institute are also working with Google on handwriting segmentation. Beat Wolf has been interested in genetic analysis since his PhD and is pursuing a project in this field. He is involved in a European project dedicated to circular economy, which aims to use machine learning to discover companies that could collaborate to create new value chains with their waste. He is currently finalizing an art project for the Murten Licht Festival and the virtual sommelier that iCoSys is creating for a start-up at the École hôtelière de Lausanne has just entered the testing phase.
In each of these projects, the Fribourg researchers are making their skills in machine learning and artificial intelligence available to their partners.