The Center of Excellence „Cognitive Interaction Technology“ (CITEC) pursues a three-fold mission:

- creating cognitive abilities in technical systems from everyday devices to humanoid robots to make them more useful, more friendly and easier to interact with for lay people,

- advancing our scientific understanding of the principles and mechanisms that enable seamless cognitive interaction, and,

- creating bridges between the cultures of engineering and humanity to better shape tomorrow‘s technology according to human needs.

In his talk, Prof. Gerhard Sagerer outlines the research areas of CITEC and illustrates ongoing work focussing on research activities in the context of social robotics. In that context, he presents various robotic systems which are successfully on the long way from the lab into the real world.