Since May 2013, the Division Assistance Systems and Medical Device Technology (formerly: automation and measurement technology) is a Division of the Department of Health Services Research. There is also continued close cooperation with the Computer Engineering Department of the Department of Computer Science and the Health Department of the associated institute OFFIS.

In the robotic assistance systems group, intelligent solutions are developed that use mechatronic systems to provide support for the cooperative management of everyday situations through close human-robot interaction. First, the need for support as well as the situational context must be identified. Based on this, the aim is to offer goal-oriented, intuitively controllable and expectation-compliant support actions at the right time and in the right place. The technical challenges lie in situation/ and environment detection, activity recognition and the derivation of cooperation strategies up to movement and trajectory planning. Targeted support is of particular importance in the field of outpatient care, both in supporting and relieving caregivers and in increasing the autonomy of the persons to be cared for.

In teaching the division still provides lectures in the engineering basics (Electrical Engineering, Control Theory) and their technical applications in computer science (Medical Technology, Robotics).

Scientific fields of research are applications of measurement and automation technologies in medical fields:

• Robotic Assistance Systems
• Nutrition and physical function in older adults