Embedded World 2026: Joint Embedded AI Demonstrator

At the Embedded World Exhibition 2026, the Rhineland-Palatinate Technical University Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics (ITWM) jointly presented a demonstrator showcasing the next generation of embedded artificial intelligence development. The exhibit highlighted the strong cooperation between both partners and demonstrated how tightly integrated software and hardware innovation can significantly accelerate AI deployment on edge devices.

Vlad presented the demonstrator and framework for the automatic design and optimization of AI. A key highlight of the demonstrator was its ability to achieve up to ten times faster face detection compared to state-of-the-art baseline implementations. This performance gain illustrates the effectiveness of the jointly developed solution, which combines advanced neural architecture optimization with real hardware-based evaluation.

Combining Expertise: NASE and Hardware-in-the-Loop

The collaboration builds on complementary expertise from both institutions:

• Fraunhofer ITWM is responsible for the development of the Neural Architecture Search Engine (NASE), an intelligent system that automatically designs and optimizes neural networks for embedded and edge environments.
• RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau contributes its expertise in Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL), enabling the execution and evaluation of AI models directly on real hardware platforms.

By combining automated architecture search with real-time hardware evaluation, developers benefit from faster development cycles, improved runtime efficiency, reduced energy consumption, and higher reliability in deployment scenarios.

Acknowledgment

The presented research and demonstrator were supported by the Carl Zeiss Stiftung, Germany, under the Sustainable Embedded AI project (P2021-02-009). The demonstrator was exhibited at the booth of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft at the Embedded World Exhibition 2026.

Read the full article here: RPTU and Fraunhofer ITWM Present Joint Embedded AI Demonstrator