University of Paderborn

The University of Paderborn is a campus university with over 20,000 students. This makes it one of the medium-sized universities in Germany. With five faculties and 70 degree programs, the University of Paderborn offers study opportunities in the fields of engineering, natural sciences, economics and cultural studies.

The Fraunhofer IEM cooperates closely with the Heinz Nixdorf Institute at the University of Paderborn, which is the ideal partner for interdisciplinary research due to its work on the symbiosis of computer science and engineering. All directors of the Fraunhofer IEM are also professors at the Heinz Nixdorf Institute. Together, the scientists run numerous projects at the interface between fundamental university research and applied research — either commissioned directly by well-known customers or as part of publicly funded research projects.

The Fraunhofer IEM is also closely networked with other faculties at the University of Paderborn. Scientists from the Fraunhofer IEM are involved in academic teaching. In this way, the knowledge gained from research and its application at the interface with the industry sector is passed on to the students. In addition to that, though, the close links to teaching also play a role in the continuous development of the institute’s thematic competence.

Prof. Eyke Hüllermeier and Prof. Walter Sextro, two renowned scientists from the University of Paderborn, are there to assist the Fraunhofer IEM as Chief Scientists. Through events, the development of new projects or joint acquisition, the IEM benefits from regular dialog, fresh and unbiased perspectives and valuable tips and advice.

The Advanced Systems Engineering Chair constitutes a new school of development for tomorrow’s intelligent technical systems. Digitalization opens up numerous potential benefits for new kinds of market services in the industrial setting. All the same, the way in which these are developed is changing due to their high complexity and interdisciplinarity in a comprehensive value creation system. Traditional development methods quickly reach their limits when developing these systems.

One paradigm for addressing these challenges is advanced systems engineering. Advanced systems engineering focuses on collaboration between disciplines such as electronics, computer science and mechanical engineering. At the same time, the four main tasks of product creation — strategic product planning, product development, service development and production system development — must be closely coordinated and pursued in an interdisciplinary manner. Advanced systems engineering brings together various disciplines and aspects of product development into a single development approach. As such, it forms a sound basis for an indispensable holistic product development methodology in the age of digitalization.

The key research units of the Advanced Systems Engineering Chair are strategic planning and innovation management as well as systems engineering. They address interdisciplinarity and the main tasks of product creation.

More information about the Advanced Systems Engineering Chair

The “Control Engineering and Mechatronics” Chair focuses on innovative methods for the design of control systems and their application as well as on design methodology issues for mechatronic systems. Challenges lie in the increasing degree of networking of the systems under consideration, which is being accelerated rapidly by the digital transformation, as well as in the expedient combination of model- and data-based methods.

The model-based design of mechatronic systems forms the basis for designing and analyzing future products and their properties on the model with computer support in an early development phase. The aim is to enhance the informative value of the models and the product properties derived from the model in such a way that studies on prototypes, which are costly to produce, can be scaled back significantly. Models of dynamic behavior are also indispensable components in control and observer design.

The key research units of the Control Engineering and Mechatronics Chair are control and observer design, mechatronics design engineering, integration of data-driven methods, driver assistance systems and hardware-in-the-loop simulation.

More information about the Control Engineering and Mechatronics Chair

The Secure Software Engineering Chair researches, develops and evaluates methods and tools for designing software systems securely from the ground up. In many software development processes, the security of software systems is still a minor issue. Security aspects are often addressed too late, when properly safeguarding the system becomes expensive. The consequences are data leaks and other security incidents — and considerable harm for the companies affected.

The main aim of the Secure Software Engineering Chair is to make security an integral part of software development processes from the outset. The scientists are working on methods and, above all, on tools that support the systematic development of secure software. One of the working group’s flagship activities, which makes it one of the world leaders in this field, is the development of precise and efficient automated program analyses. These detect security vulnerabilities in the program code in a fully automated manner.

The key units of research of the Secure Software Engineering Chair are static and dynamic program analysis, automated detection of software vulnerabilities and malware, secure software development processes, model-based development of mechatronic and embedded systems, and operational information systems.

More information about the Secure Software Engineering Chair 

These days, new technical developments are emerging more and more often at the boundaries between disciplines, where different mindsets meet and interact with each other. The development of new mechatronic or intelligent technical systems calls for interdisciplinary thinking and action.

In our research and teaching activities, we are concerned with the modeling, simulation, reliability, optimization, operation, monitoring, diagnosis and prognosis of mechanical, mechatronic and intelligent technical systems. Key areas of research are nonlinear dynamics, contact mechanics, friction, condition monitoring, data analytics, reliability engineering, sensors, actuators and ultrasonics. In these fields of research, we focus in particular on sustainable solutions.

More information about the Dynamics and Mechatronics Chair

Good scientific practice

Scientific integrity and compliance with the principles of good scientific practice are indispensable requirements for scientific work. As an applied research organization, these principles are the basis of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft’s identity. Fraunhofer applies utmost care when implementing scientific methods and documenting data, as this is the basis on which commercial customers and the public place their trust in us.

For that reason, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft welcomes the recommendations of the “Commission on Professional Self-Regulation in Science” by the member institutes of the German Research Foundation (DFG), and implements them within the organization.

The essential principles of good scientific practice are

• Inclusion of independent ideas
• Knowledge of the state of the art
• Appreciation of the intellectual property of others
• Objectivity and critical distance to one’s own results
• Traceability through documentation and archiving of data and results