Carl Schneider Foundation supports innovative technology at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart

Aalen, Stuttgart – Once again, the Carl Schneider Foundation has funded the purchase of state-of-the-art equipment to support research at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) in Stuttgart. At the foundation's board meeting on 24 July 2025, MPI-IS was granted €175,000 toward the purchase of a so-called fNIRS system. 

The abbreviation fNIRS stands for ‘functional near-infrared spectroscopy’ – a non-invasive neuroimaging technique that allows brain activity to be measured. It is therefore well suited for studies of humans in everyday environments. Using near-infrared light, fNIRS detects changes in oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin in the cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the brain, where many important processes like thinking, sensing, and planning happen.  Light sources and  photodetectors placed on the surface of the head measure how much light is absorbed versus reflected by blood in the brain at each step in time. The changes allow scientists to infer how active certain brain regions are. Unlike other neuroimaging methods, fNIRS is lightweight and portable, therefore enabling the study of brain activity in real-world scenarios. fNIRS is well-suited for investigating human-robot collaboration, decision-making processes and interactions in natural environments in real time.

With its funding, the Carl Schneider Foundation is once again strengthening the central research infrastructure of MPI-IS. As a shared resource, this new device will now give several departments and research groups the ability to record high-resolution, real-time neurophysiological data from study participants.

MPI-IS Director Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, who heads the Haptic Intelligence Department and presented the institute’s proposal at the Board of Trustees meeting, was delighted with the funding approval.

“My team runs about ten research studies with human participants each year. So far, we have been limited to observing behavior and administering surveys to our participants. With this new fNIRS device supported by the Carl Schneider Foundation, we will be able to directly measure which parts of a participant’s brain are active at different times, particularly when we modify aspects of the technical system they are using”, she said. Kuchenbecker's department plans to use fNIRS to study the cognitive load and attention distribution of subjects as they remotely control robots with different movement interfaces and different kinds of haptic feedback. She elaborated, “now we will finally be able to test whether our naturalistic vibrotactile feedback actually lowers the mental workload of the human operator.”

The Organizational Leadership and Diversity research group, led by Ksenia Keplinger, will also benefit from the new device. The group studies decision-making processes of managers, the influence of diversity on team decisions, and the nature of leadership in the age of artificial intelligence. fNIRS will be used to measure changes in brain activity during team meetings. This approach will allow the researchers to compare the effects of inclusive and exclusive leadership strategies. Hyperscanning enables simultaneous recording of multiple team members, making it possible to visualize collective decision-making processes, team dynamics, and cooperative human-machine interactions in authentic work environments.

“With fNIRS, we can move beyond what people say about their experiences and observe patterns of brain activity in real time. This allows us to see how inclusive leadership supports the conditions for trust, cooperation, and psychological safety in teams,” Keplinger said.

The meeting included the following attendees (from left to right, see image below):

Frederick Brütting, Mayor of the City of Aalen
Markus Wiedemann, Head of Department, Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts, Baden-Württemberg
Gerhard Grimminger, entrepreneur and investor in the Digital Innovation Space Aalen
Alois Zwick, Carl Schneider Foundation
Prof. Dr. Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, Director at MPI-IS
Prof. Dr. Harald Riegel, Rector of Aalen University
Stephan Bissinger, Head of Division Personnel and Legal Affairs at the University of Stuttgart
Dr. Matthias Tröndle, Scientific Coordinator at MPI-IS
Otto Kieninger, Carl Schneider Foundation