Research › Institute of Automatic Control

The research at the Chair of Automatic Control focuses on the methodological development and practical applicability of modern control-oriented methods. The research domains thereby can be divided into control and optimization and discrete event systems. An expertise of the chair is to transfer research into practice in various application domains.

Control & Optimization

One research focus at the Chair of Automatic Control is on the development and application of nonlinear and (model) predictive control schemes for nonlinear systems. An important aspect in this regard is the applicability of these methods and the corresponding development of real-time feasible algorithms especially for highly dynamical systems and embedded hardware implementations.

Learning in Control

Algorithms of artificial intelligence and machine learning are of increasing importance for control engineering. At the Chair of Automatic Control, research is mainly directed towards the extension of control methods by learning components.

Discrete Event Systems

The research group FGDES develops methods for the analysis and sythnesis of discrete-event systems with a particular focus on modular and/or hierarchical control architectures. Here, discrete-event systems are dynamical systems with a finite-range state variable. Prototypical application domains are so called “men made systems”, e.g., for automated manufacturing or logistics, which by construction can be adequately represented by discrete-event models.

Robotics

Robotics belongs to the largest fields of application for control engineering methods. Besides conventional industrial robots, as known from the automobile production, there is an increasing usage of collaborative and mobile robots, for example as vacuum cleaners or autonomous vehicles. Research projects in this area concern the control of movements and forces on the one hand and the planning of paths and trajectories on the other.

Mechatronics & Automotive

Mechatronic systems, which comprise both mechanical and electrical parts, represent an important application field of control engineering. Due to the limited computing power of the used ECUs, the application of modern control methods in these systems is associated with particular challenges. The Chair of Automatic Control researches control methods for, for example, electric drives, automatic transmissions and vehicles.

Projects & Publications

Der Lehrstuhl bearbeitet Forschungsprojekte in Kooperation mit namhaften Industriepartnern und öffentlichen Geldgebern wie beispielsweise der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). Eine Übersicht über laufende und abgeschlossene Projekte finden Sie in diesem Bereich.

Der Lehrstuhl veröffentlicht Publikationen in renommierten internationalen Konferenzen und Journale. Eine Liste der am Lehrstuhl entstandenen Publikationen finden Sie hier.