RESEARCH GROUP Cognitronics & Sensor Systems

Connecting resource-efficent mobile systems with the environment

The cognitronics team focuses on the design of compact sensor systems. These include wireless sensor nodes for sensing ambient parameters, wireless body sensors that incorporate physiological and biokinematic parameters, but also more complex systems, such as autonomously operating mini robots.

Since all systems are mobile and therefore battery driven, the connecting goal is the resource-efficient design. This means that the systems are dimensioned according to their performance so that you can meet their requirements, but also have the lowest possible energy consumption and thus maximum running time. To fulfill this requirement already on hardware level for a specific application is a core competence of the Cognitronics team.
Examples of developed hardware platform can be found in the wireless sensor node BiSensed, the wireless body sensor BI-Vital and the autonomous mini robot AMiRo. Furthermore, the CITrack laboratory facilitates multi-modal tracking via recent technologies for conducting and evaluating e.g robot experiments or human-robot interaction.

On the basis of the different hardware platforms various applications can be executed and examined. With wireless sensor nodes, applications from Internet of Things (IoT) and home automation are possible. The body sensors cover applications from the field of health promotion and are for example used, to quantify the strain on sports or even in everyday live. The mini robots are used to investigate cooperative swarm behavior.

The expertise in the field of resource-efficient mobile systems is taught to students during the courses Sensor Systems, Cognitronics, Autonomous System Engineering and IT in Sport, as well as in projects and bachelor and master theses.