Information and communication technologies
Digital differentiation
Information and communication technologies (ICT) are at the core of future Bosch products and their development, or they are even the product itself. The ICT field of innovation delivers key differentiating factors for Bosch products and services by driving the digital transformation of Bosch in all domains. We aim to increase the efficiency and quality in the development of systems and software, while mastering their high degrees of complexity. Automation, virtualization, and data-driven intelligence are fundamental approaches to achieve these goals. To create differentiation, we enable the convergence of the embedded and the IT world where AI moves to the edge, and embedded technologies move towards the cloud. We envision an emerging “Human-Machine-Society” where smart machines and humans collectively solve problems both in everyday life as well as industrial applications. The core Bosch values shape our development, as our results guarantee quality of service, reliability, predictability, and trust.
Our activities to engineer Cyber-Physical Systems for a Human-Machine-Society are clustered into four areas: Human Machine Collaboration, Dynamic Distributed Systems, Intelligent Systems and Software Engineering, and Security, Privacy and Safety.
Dynamic Distributed Systems
The convergence of the embedded and the IT world leads to a shift of the Bosch product portfolio towards dynamic distributed cyber-physical systems. These systems combine IT-like flexibility (e.g. updates and upgrades) with challenging end-to-end timing and dependability requirements spanning from embedded IoT devices to the (edge) cloud. In the area of Dynamic Distributed Systems, our researchers provide solutions enabling Bosch to engineer such distributed systems with a guaranteed quality of service on top of predictable high-performance compute platforms as well as dependable wireless communication featuring 5G. These results are crucial for the efficient development of a wide variety of future exciting Bosch products and services, e.g. vehicle computers, connected automated driving and the factory of the future.
Intelligent Systems and Software Engineering
Bosch is currently undergoing its biggest transformation in history with a clear shift from a primarily hardware-driven to an increasingly software-driven business targeting the combination of Artificial Intelligence with the Internet of Things (AIoT). In the field of innovation ICT, we enable efficient software engineering yielding high quality delivery (in time and budget) by empowering Bosch developers with intelligent assistance and automation solutions. Simultaneously, we provide methods and tools leveraging technologies from physics-driven, data-driven, and knowledge-driven engineering that enable all Bosch divisions to develop novel, trustworthy and intelligent products.
Human Machine Collaboration
Human Machine Collaboration plays a key role in the digital transformation process of Bosch, and paves the way in our continued evolution into an AIoT company. Our work supports the intelligent, intuitive, and immersive collaboration between humans and machines for future software-related Bosch products across all the domains in which we offer services and systems. This includes research in the following areas:
- Augmented Human: Personalized and intelligent assistance powered by “super-human” perception and reasoning. In particular, we drive AI innovations in the area of intelligent data analytics (e.g. Audio AI, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Wearable Analytics) and digital assistance (e.g., Conversational AI, Mixed Reality, and Building Digital Twin) to fulfill our mission.
- Augmented Machine Intelligence: Augmented machine intelligence for trustworthy AI empowered by human intelligence. In particular, we focus our research on big data visual analytics and explainable AI (XAI) to enable trustworthy AIoT products by enhancing the transparency of black box AI systems with human-in-the-loop.
Security, Privacy and Safety
Effective protection against cyberattacks, conscientious handling of personal data, and assurance of safe operation are cornerstones of the Bosch quality promise to its customers. To achieve these goals, in the ICT field of innovation, we create methods, tools, technologies, and building blocks tailored to Bosch business needs. Solutions include automated security testing, intrusion detection, privacy-preserving computation, and trustworthy edge infrastructure. To achieve the best results, we place a strong emphasis on business-driven results, co-development with our Bosch business units, and close collaboration with leading academic institutions, external industrial partners, and emerging start-ups.
With the ever increasing amount of personal data shared across systems, secure and privacy-preserving handling of personal information is crucial. In a project on trustworthy computing, Bosch Research is working to make data sovereignty possible. This way, the researchers make sure that service providers are unable to see sensitive data while still being able to offer services using this data.
Summary
The Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) field of innovation is core for the digital transformation of Bosch in all domains, by providing the foundation to efficiently build connected and intelligent products and services.
Bosch Research Blog
Interested in the latest research topics? In the Bosch Research Blog, our researchers share hands-on information about their work at the detailed level and on a regular basis.
