Research professorship for control engineering

Engineering for Smart Cities

As part of the working topic “Engineering for Smart Cities”, the Nuremberg Institute of Technology (TH) is collaborating with its neighbour, the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) in a research cooperative known as the Nuremberg Campus of Technology (NCT).

Within Nuremberg Tech, the research specialization of automation technology is represented at the NCT by the Research Professorship in Control Engineering (held by Prof. Ronald Schmidt-Vollus).

The energy transition, coupled with increasing pressure to bring down production costs in Germany, is shifting the focus of attention towards resource requirements within production processes and machinery. For this reason, the key area of research within the competence center concerns the development of intelligent production systems and processes and, in addition, suitable engineering methods and tools that make it possible to achieve resource-efficient and energy-efficient production facilities. 

The research team

Since 2015, the laboratories of the Nuremberg Campus of Technology have been located on the AEG premises on Fürther Straße. Separate meeting rooms, numerous workstations, and well-equipped laboratories form the basis for concentrated and enthusiastic research. Cooperation and a willingness to help are the top priorities in our team, because this is the only way to pursue common goals. Our own kitchen with its popular coffee machine is the meeting place for all staff, students and professors to exchange ideas eye to eye. We are always happy to support students who are writing their final thesis or project paper with us, because we are glad to pass on our enthusiasm for our research topics to the next generations.

Research and thesis topics

Process management and control strategies

Today’s automation technology makes it possible to operate production plant processes efficiently and to optimize them in response to the available operating conditions. Tailor-made control strategies can reduce the energy requirement in variable speed pump systems and thus save money for the operators. Different applications require different control options. These are mainly pressure, volume flow, filling levels, temperatures and quantities. Find out more...

Digital planning of automation systems

The costs for managing the automation system represent a significant proportion of the overall engineering costs of an automated production facility. Many of the necessary work steps generate little added value and should therefore be automated. Under the motto “Generating rather than programming”, methods for the automated project planning of automation systems are being developed at the NCT. Find out more...

Industrial robotics

With the increasing complexity of automation tasks to be handled by industrial robots, the programming workload for these systems is also increasing, as is the importance of the human-machine interface. This is particularly noticeable when several robots, or humans and robots, cooperate with each other. The engineering workload can be significantly reduced by means of new, innovative programming methods. Find out more...

Publications

If you are interested in our further academic competences, you will find extensive publications on our research topics here. In addition, transparency in research has the highest priority for us.