Contact

Dr. Birte Lipinski
Head of Department for Research and Transfer

+49 (0)441 798-5478

Spokespersons

Prof. Dr. Werner Damm

Prof. Dr. Martin Fränzle

Prof. Dr. Jochem Rieger

Cooperative Critical Systems

Cooperative Critical Systems

Embedded Systems are computer-based electronic systems that are ‘embedded’ into various products which we use on a daily basis. Especially in the transportation domain – i.e., in cars, planes, railway, and maritime systems – these embedded systems enable and take over more and more functionality, e.g., control, navigation, dynamic route guiding, safeguarding, and traffic optimization. From mere assistance systems supporting human operators, these systems continuously evolve to higher levels of automation. In road transport, for example, they set out to perform driving tasks in part autonomously, partly in cooperation with other technical systems and the human operators.

The research area Cooperative Critical Systems focuses its research on how these systems can be developed and built such that they are

  • functionally safe – i.e., their operation can be guaranteed to not endanger the environment or human beings
  • IT secure – i.e., they are protected against security attacks and do not compromise user privacy
  • comfortable and intuitive to operate – i.e., they adapt to human needs and avoid any ‘automation surprises’.

This inter-disciplinary and cross-faculty research joins researchers from Computer Science, Psychology, Medicine & Health-Services Research, and Physics, who together investigate processes and methods for the development of these embedded systems. They focus on human-centred engineering, formal verification, validation of functional and non-functional properties, and bidirectional man-machine interaction with its technical, psychological and neuronal foundations.

The research area evolved from the combination of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre Safety Crtical Systems with the MWK-funded large scale collaborative project CSE (Critical Systems Engineering for Socio-Technical Systems). It hosts a multitude of research projects with a combined annual level of funding of several Mio. Euros. Among its key projects are  a Graduate School (GRK SCARE) and a transatlantic large scale collaborative research project funded by DFG and NSF (National Science Foundation, US) a spart oft he PIRE (Partnership in International Research and Education) programme. The research area also established and promotes an international and inter-disciplinary master degree program on “Engineering of Socio-Technical Systems” to educate young scientists for the research area.

The research area will be continuously developed and expanded along the following directions:

  • Continued acquisition of large scale projects at regional, national and European levels, among them a CRC Safety Critical Systems Engineering for Human-Cyber-Physical Cooperation.
  • Coverage of additional application domains (especially the maritime domain), thereby also extending the intra-university network
  • Broadening the expertise in IT-security (via OFFIS)
  • Strengthening the activities in man-machine interaction, thereby also strengthening the integration of Computer Science, Psychology and Health-Services Research
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The research area strives to become one of the European top-5 research- and cooperation-partners for the design and development of Cooperative Critical Systems.

(Changed: 19 Jan 2024)  | 
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