In the systems and control field, research and technology development (RTD) is working at the intersection of
Engineering Informatics
Systems &
Control RTD
Natural Sciences Mathematics
with the respective disciplines concerned, interfacing close to their specific expertise, their terminologies and methods.
Whereas the engineering areas of cybernetics focus on technical systems, the basic methods, tools and models as well find their applications and analogies in other areas of cybernetics, e.g. biological and ecological systems, socio-cultural, economical and financial systems, with a methodical strength in multidisciplinary tasks.
The systems approach, based on unifying modeling, employs simulation, complexity decomposition and interactive model reduction with the target of delivering integral hard- and software solutions, typically both construction and signal processing designs. Development is progressing through continuous improvement of both the methods and the modelbases for design and prototyping.
The Systems&Control Engineering activities originated in the mid 80's under guidance of W. Leonhard and W. Kleinkauf within the universities of Braunschweig and Kassel, leading to the foundation of the Systems Engineering department of Kassel's Institute for Solar Energy Technology (now Fraunhofer IWES) and cofounding of EUREC Agency, the association of European Renewable Energy RTD actors. Major contributions were the introduction of modular systems technology into European RTD for photovoltaic(PV) and island supplies, and protoyping of the PV string-inverter technology together with SMA, Kassel, followed by several years of RTD coordination in the European Commission and their Joint Research Centre, and the Electrical Drive Systems Chair of the Energy Systems Institute at the University of Kassel.
The current Luxembourg group, coordinated by J Sachau, focuses on
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reliability
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efficiency and
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integration
mainly engaging in the field of energy-conversion and electrical power systems, addressing the whole diversity of stationary and mobile structures in energy and transport.
This aims at high-availability stationary supply, onboard and electrical traction power as well as systems for public grid feeding or off-grid electricity and ranges from energy-converter design, power conditioning and control further to operational optimization, monitoring, design and sustainable integration of energy and transport systems.
