Explorative learning in practice at this year’s WARA PS Demonstration Week

WASP Research Arena Public Safety (WARA PS) organized its annual Demonstration Week at Gränsö Slott in Västervik on September 16-20. The purpose of this week is to explore and learn about AI and autonomy from different domains to combine research, innovation and development.

“Our aim as a research arena is to strengthen collaboration between industry, academia and the society. This demonstration week is a crucial event for bringing these groups together and providing the right conditions to foster collaboration. It offers researchers the opportunity to test their projects in real-life settings and meet potential collaborators”, says Jesper Tordenlid, project manager for WARA PS who organized the event together with co-project manager Emma Jonsson and the rest of the core team.

Besides the demonstrations, the participants can take part of the latest research, participate in thematic workshops where researchers from all over the world discuss the upcoming challenges of autonomy in society, and network with representatives from both industry, academia and society.

Highlights from this year’s demo week
This year, the participants experienced several innovative projects in a fantastic setting at Gränsö slott. Some examples of what was exhibited:

• AI and autonomy in Search & Rescue, Transportation, Surveillance and Forest protection.
• Navigation in GNSS denied environments
• Human AI Teaming with collaborative agents and swarms of drones
• Advanced Air Mobility and new 3GPP standards
• Open innovation and shared resources to boost expert learning
• Defence innovation and dual use

“This year we have six new PhD students affiliated with WARA PS who are actively collecting data. Explorative learning plays a crucial role in the arena, allowing participants to experiment and learn in real-world settings. In addition, we can see that more startups and smaller companies are growing an interest to collaborate. These companies are eager to be more involved which we see as a positive trend”, says Jesper Tordenlid.

Next year, we can look forward to even more connected demonstrations, the latest research and inspiring discussions. All new projects together with the active involvement from society and many small companies now joining, will make 2025 a very interesting year!