The successful acquisition of numerous research projects for state, federal and EU, as well as a variety of industry funded projects document the quality of diverse research activitites in recent years.

Here you can find an overview of current research projects of the Institute of Smart Systems and Services:

Project: EDV - Einfaches Digitales Vergessen, subproject: platform independence for EDV (funder: Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie, project lead: Prof. Dr. Schuster):
The aim of the subproject "platform independence" is to ensure interoperability and the easy integration of the EDP system in order to ensure the self-determined exchange of sensitive and personal data and information at all times. The university creates and implements a multi-platform concept and continues to devise and implement an evaluation methodology. Interoperability and the use of the application in essentially any business process requires simple and seamless integration. This requires that the computer components are developed platform independent. The university will develop a multi-platform concept for this purpose and implement it together with the other project partners. In order to facilitate client integration, the design and implementation of special multi-platform libraries is planned. With regard to intuitive operation, a corresponding practical evaluation is absolutely necessary. The university, together with the other partners and the pilot partners, will detail and evaluate the described use cases of the project. To this end, the university also designs the evaluation concept.

The research project GaNEsHA: Holistic network approach for the detection of systemic obstacles and conjunction potential (project lead: Prof. Dr. Kölmel and Prof. Dr. Bulander) The traffic jam preventer was launched in 2017. Millions of Germans are stuck in traffic jam every day. The development and expansion of transport routes can not keep pace with the ever-growing demand for mobility. The same business hours, fixed routes of public service providers and logisticians, construction sites as well as a large number of single drivers increase the problem. For the drivers this means daily stress and an additional burden. The risk of accidents increases and causes additional disabilities. The GaNEsHA system processes network and traffic information in search of a total optimum. Special logistics optimization processes are accelerated and expanded by big data technology to calculate individual recommendations. User-friendly applications pass on the calculated routes to all participants. The compliance/implementation of the suggestions made by the users should be made attractive by an incentive system. Pforzheim University is one of seven consortium partners that is involved in the development of business models and incentive systems. Please find more information about this project under the following link: https://ganesha-mobility.de.

Diverse projects regarding Displaytechnik (project lead: Prof. Dr. Blankenbach)
The projects mainly deal with the following questions: How can the car grow beyond its role as a means of transport and be converted to a private retreat? Which role does the driver play in a car that drives automatically? Which security aspects have to be considered? The display technology provides a part of the answers: screens in the vehicle interior make the continuous exchange of information between vehicle, driver and the outside world possible.
 

METHODS - Modular Engineering Techniques for HeterOgeneous Discrete Systems (Sponsor: Federal Ministry of Research and Education; Funding line: FH-Kooperativ; Project Management: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Rainer Drath)
METHODS investigates how the engineering of modular discrete production systems can be carried out in a manufacturer-independent and real-virtual environment. In interaction with the laboratory "Engineerium" (Link: https://engineeringpf.hs-pforzheim.de/detailansicht/news/arbeitsplatz_der_zukunft_neue_lehr_und_forschungsanlage_engineerium_eroeffnet), the concepts and ideas developed here are to be validated on a real problem. The project started in October 2020 and has a duration of four and a half years. The project pursues two research topics. In the first topic, an innovative engineering methodics is being developed that enables manufacturing modules from different manufacturers to be detected, explored, orchestrated and put into operation. For this purpose, the modules require a new control architecture, a comprehensive self-description, and a digital representation (e.g., the management shell) provided via a central Industry 4.0 platform. The second topic area covers the virtual engineering of the heterogeneous modules in a mixed real-virtual context. The aim is to develop and simulate manufacturing modules in a software environment virtually - including the above-mentioned functionalities - right from the start. Virtual modules should behave identically to their real counterparts in order to enable a common orchestration. As a result, the design, visualization, testing and commissioning of virtual modules can take place in the context of the real plant. By recombining real (already existing) and virtual (simulated) modules, new manufacturing plants can be created again and again.  To realize its goals, the project makes use of current technologies, such as the aforementioned management shell, information modeling, the Module Type Package and mixed reality approaches. The project led by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Rainer Drath is being pursued jointly with industrial Festo SE and Festo Didactic SE and is being worked on with dedication by two doctoral students.