Standards

The importance of standards  

Standards are invisible in daily life, but they are a major factor across all industrial sectors. They influence technologies and products with regard to quality, interfaces and sustainability and ensure compatibility and interoperability. In this way, they also affect day-to-day experiences for end users of products and services.

This is where the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft comes in. It harnesses its expertise and know-how in national and international standardization processes to drive innovation and technological advances. This accelerates the transfer of scientific findings into successful, market-ready and useful products. And that also strengthens the technological sovereignty of German and, more broadly, European companies.

The Fraunhofer standards team: our services

The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft standards team serves as a central point of contact for all issues and concerns relating to standardization. We find experts in various research fields and put you in touch with them. After that, we can help you get your research or development collaboration off the ground.

The committees: control centers for standardization processes

Fraunhofer works closely with key committees and institutions. This includes close collaboration with the German Institute for Standardization (DIN) and with industry associations such as the Federation of German Industries (BDI) and Bitkom, Germany’s digital association.

We also participate in strategic forums such as the German Strategy Forum for Standardisation operated by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) and the European Multi-Stakeholder Platform on ICT Standardisation.

These cooperative relationships allow the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft to effectively represent national and European interests in international standardization processes and further the incorporation of topics and themes arising from research and development activities.

The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft has completed many successful reference projects in the field of standardization. A few examples:

5G wireless standard

In its fifth generation (5G), wireless technology has gone from voice telephony to the mobile internet and beyond, becoming a universal communication standard for linking sensors, devices, and machines. The technical specifications for this global standard are developed and adopted by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and then implemented as specifications by the standardization bodies in the relevant areas.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich-Hertz-Institut, HHI and the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS have been involved in defining and further developing this powerful wireless technology since 2015, when 3GPP began working on the 5G specifications. Over 900 contributions to the 5G standard were made between 2015 and 2023.

Through parallel participation in relevant industry bodies such as the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance, the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA), and the 5G Alliance for Connected Industries and Automation (5G-ACIA), we support German industry in incorporating its requirements and features into the standard. That, in turn, is a requirement for implementation in the mobile network and in consumer devices.

The 5G focus is on the radio access network (RAN). In their work, the institutes have come to focus on professional applications in the area of the internet of things (IoT), satellite integration into mobile networks, production automation, and connected vehicles (V2X).

Research group Technologies and Standards at Fraunhofer HHI

5G and Beyond (Fraunhofer IIS)

Artificial intelligence in vehicle communication

The use of artificial intelligence is especially safety-critical in autonomous driving, more so than in almost any other application. There is no margin of error when it comes to safely navigating motor vehicles through traffic, in poor visibility or in changing road conditions. The technical rules of implementation are set as part of the standardization process. The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft plays a key role in this. The Fraunhofer Institute for Cognitive Systems IKS is involved in shaping the future of safe self-driving vehicles as part of the industry’s key standardization organizations, such as ISO, AUTOSAR, 5GAA, and ASAM.

This especially includes the safe use of artificial intelligence (ISO/AWI PAS 8800), a field where Fraunhofer IKS is an international leader, along with reliable vehicle communication and the use of Linux operating systems in vehicles. Once codified in this way, Fraunhofer’s knowledge makes its way into the vehicles of the future along this transfer path.

Autonomous Driving (Fraunhofer IKS)