Heliophysics, FHNW School of Computer Science

The research group consists of an international team of physicists who collaborate closely with the Institute’s hardware and software engineers.

• Design and construction of telescopes for space missions
• Use of data from these and other space missions to generate high-quality data products for the scientific community
• Scientific analysis and interpretation based on these data products

• High-energy heliophysics, in particular X-ray observations of solar flares
• Development of next-generation high-precision detectors, gratings, and indirect imaging techniques for X-ray observations

Project partners include, among others, the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Commission, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI), ETH Zurich, the Paul Scherrer Institute, the University of California, Berkeley, the Observatoire de Paris, the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, CEA Saclay, the University of Genoa, the University of Graz, and Trinity College Dublin.

In the Extended Reality (XR) competence field, we research and develop immersive technologies that bridge the boundaries between the physical and the digital world. We work on applications in Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR) that enable complex content to be communicated in a vivid, experiential, and interactive way.

Our XR solutions are applied across a wide range of domains:

• Education and Training: virtual learning environments, simulation-based training
• Medicine: VR-supported therapy, medical visualisation, virtual companions
• Security and Forensics: crime scene reconstruction, decision-support systems
• Psychology: experimental environments for behaviour and perception research, XR as laboratories
• as well as in culture, architecture, and industry.

Our projects range from fundamental research to the development of prototypes on current XR platforms.