Developing and testing modern technologies for the use of keeping citizens safe.
This is how one could summarize the goals of the unique „Innovation Lab“ of the NRW police, which was inaugurated in Duisburg in January 2022.
Together with the State Secretary in the NRW Ministry of the Interior, Dr. Daniela Lesmeister, the chair of the DLR Executive Board, Prof. Dr. Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla, visited the lab at the beginning of February 2023.
The DLR and the Ministry of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia have been cooperating in the field of security research since 2019. The close cooperation between civil research and official evaluation and application accelerates technology transfer and ensures development close to the user. The DLR Institute of Terrestrial Infrastructure Protection has been working with the Innovation Lab to this end since it was founded last year.
Accompanied by Christoph Müller, DLR Program Coordinator for Security Research, and Michael Langerbeins, Acting Director of the DLR Institute of Terrestrial Infrastructure Protection, the first practical results of the collaboration were demonstrated in practice. For example, in the further development of robotic systems for use by emergency services: Equipped with state-of-the-art sensor technology, robots can collect information in dangerous or hard-to-reach places in order to reduce risks for people.
Other current projects include the development of a drone for rescue operations in bodies of water and the digital removal of smoke from film and photo recordings, including the evaluation of possible police applications of these technologies.
The proximity of the Duisburg laboratory to the DLR Institute for the Protection of Terrestrial Infrastructure in St. Augustin also promotes dialog and further expansion of the partnership between civil security research and the police in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Contact
Anna Baumbach
Consultant Public Relations
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Institute for the Protection of Terrestrial Infrastructures
