IMMD VIII: Chair of Artificial Intelligence

The chair of Artificial Intelligence (IMMD VIII) was established in April 1990. Holder of the chair of AI is Prof. Dr. phil. Dr.-Ing. habil Herbert Stoyan.

Artificial Intelligence at IMMD

The Chair of AI works on AI programming languages, knowledge based systems (expert systems and their construction, evaluation, and maintenance) cognitive systems, mainly in the field of language processing, AI system architectures and abstract models of processing (inference engines) as well as the automatic acquisition, representation, and processing of knowledge. Mathematics is used as the main (prototypical) application field. The activities of the Knowledge Acquisition Research Group of FORWISS (the Bavarian Research Center for Knowledge Based Systems), which is linked to the IMMD VII, are all thematically close to Man-Machine-Communication, one of our central research projects.

Students take AI as a consolidation course in which it is possible to write a pre-diploma thesis and the diploma thesis as such. The official IMMD Computer Science curriculum assigns AI to sections I (Theoretical Computer Science) and III (Applied Computer Science).

Our AI efforts are focused on systems in which the machine acts as a partner to a human user in a joint cooperative effort. To this end, we use an approach to AI problems based on classical Computer Science, i.e. we emphasize programming techniques. We believe that theoretical ideas and new concepts in AI have to be validated through real-world implementations. That is why we see the actual construction of systems as an important part of our work.

In cooperation with FORWISS it is possible to realize product oriented projects in close cooperation with small to medium-sized local companies. These projects usually involve the construction of systems as advanced research prototypes and the production of studies within the field of Knowledge Based Systems, especially Knowledge Acquisition and Man-Machine Communication.