Research profile

The department's research agenda is geared towards promising or emerging innovations within the specialist disciplines of electrical engineering and computer science on the one hand and essential societal needs on the other: The progressive and ubiquitous digitization of almost all areas of life requires both an infrastructure consisting of electronic components, computer systems and devices of information, communication and automation structures as well as algorithms and software for data collection and analysis, for the extraction and machine learning of research from data and for automated decision-making. While numerous fields of application can benefit from research into technologies and methods with this objective, there is particular pressure to act in the context of climate change, which implies a sustainable and rapid transformation of energy systems towards the extensive use of renewable energies while maintaining the reliability of supply. In line with these needs, current and medium-term research activities are focused on the three key areas of learning systems, smart technologies (for digitalization) and sustainable energy systems.

The "Learning Systems" focus area groups together the activities of those specialist areas that research the ability of technical systems (also and especially in interaction with users) to generate knowledge from data, physical principles and contextual information and to translate it into goal-oriented and automated (thus artificially intelligent) behavior, even under changing boundary conditions.

The "Smart Technologies" focus area, on the other hand, combines research work on hardware and software as well as methods that enable solutions for various applications and lead to special requirements for robustness, safety and sustainability being met.

The "Sustainable Energy" focus summarizes the working groups that investigate mechanisms and procedures for the transition to energy systems without fossil fuels or the sustainable use of available energy resources.

The delimitation of these areas is intentionally not sharply defined in order to promote interaction between the specialist areas of different focal points and to achieve synergies between the three fields; several specialist areas are also active in more than one focal point.

The research profile determined by the focus areas is unique among the departments/faculties of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in the German university landscape. Even if the number of professorships is comparatively low, the profile can benefit synergistically from the combination of electrical engineering and computer science in one department. The content of the profile is related to foreseeable trends in German and European research funding (e.g. in relation to artificial intelligence and sustainability), which will enable promising applications for third-party funding in the coming years. Integration into and interaction with interdisciplinary institutions (including ITeG, CINSaT, CESR, ISAC) and the Fraunhofer IEE offer numerous opportunities for cooperation in the application for and implementation of joint collaborative projects. At the same time, the three research priorities are directly thematically linked to the newly defined university-wide research priorities "Sustainability" and "Materials and Nanostructure Sciences", so that further synergies can be expected here.