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Research Interests | Resume | Publications | Projects | Teaching | Theses

ae.jpg      Dr.-Ing. Andreas Engel
Technical University Darmstadt
Computer Science Institute
Embedded Systems and Applications Group
Hochschulstr. 10
D-64289 Darmstadt
Phone: +49 6151 / 16-22430
Fax: +49 6151 / 16-22422
E-Mail: email_engel.gif
S2/02 (Piloty building), Room E106

Duration
09/2015 - 02/2018
Funded by
Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (KMU innovativ)
Funded budget
416 kEUR
Consortium
Project description
Germany is one of the leading players in software- and knowledge intensive embedded systems, such as the automotive industry and mechanical engineering. The time-to-market decreases while performance and resource efficiency requirements become tighter. The performance of application-tailored microprocessor-based architectures is often limited to a small range of specific applications. The hardware foundation for mass series products must be chosen at an early stage without proper knowledge of the final functions and algorithms, which makes it difficult to properly estimate the required performance and the appropriate computing architecture. Product variations result in modifications of the hardware and software architecture, thus resulting in significant additional costs and delayed market maturity. A modular and flexible hardware architecture based on SoC-FPGAs can be used throughout the whole development cycle, but programming these devices is error-prone, protracted (up to several hours or days per problem) and expensive due to the required vendor licenses.
UltraSynth tackles these problems by an innovative solution. Models of control algorithms are scheduled on a Coarse-Grain Reconfigurable Architecture (CGRA), which itself is executed on the SoC-FPGA. By reducing the degrees of freedom of the reconfigurable architecture, the hardware synthesis duration is reduced from hours to seconds without loosing the adaptability over a broad spectrum of applications. The productivity, reactivity, and thus the predictability and quality of the product development process is thus enhanced significantly. To dissiminate the project results, iXtronics integrates the ultrafast synthesis and the optimized hardware components develeped at TU Darmstadt as a new toolbox of its CAMeL-View development environment for model-based complex technical systems.

Duration
07/2008 - 06/2014
Funded by
Hessische Landes-Offensive zur Entwicklung Wissenschaftlich-ökonomischer Exzellenz
Funded budget
41,4 MEUR
Consortium

Project description
The LOEWE center AdRIA (Adaptronik - Research, Innovation, Application) investigates the research and technology aspects of adaptronic applications in depth, to achieve the systematic and holistic development of adaptronic products with high market maturity. Adaptronic concepts will enable a sustainable and consistent lightweight construction of technical structures with high energy efficiency over the whole life cycle. At the same time, the functionality (e.g., by integrated active safety and monitoring systems) and performance (e.g., precise, quiet and low-vibration) of these structures will be advanced. To achieve these goals, basic research and the technology development within AdRIA will be be broken down into well defined technology areas and orthogonal key project driven by cross-cutting technology demonstrators. The setup phase (year 1 to 3) will focus on fundamental technology areas, while the operating phase (year 4 to 6) will focus on the application specific key projects. Within the technology areas, innovative topics of strategic importance for adaptronic applications will be driven to a high and homogeneous technology readyness level to demonstrate their market potential in the key projects. On the long run, this project will establish adaptronics as a key technology for the mass market production and strengthen the sustainable development of the adaptronic location Darmstadt. All required technologies and technological innovations will be advanced for the main technology demonstrators adaptive car, silent office and adaptive dampers, until prototype realizations of complete adaptronic systems can be realized. The research interests of the LOEWE center AdRIA are derived from these goals and observations: