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Our research in the field of cyber-physical mobility focuses on the interdisciplinary intersection of control engineering, mathematical optimization, communications, embedded software, and perception. Our research interests include distributed decision-making and verification, service-oriented software architecture, machine learning and their applications to networked and autonomous vehicles.



We conduct various projects in this research area funded by public organizations and industrial partners. The Cyber-Physical Mobility Lab is our group-wide project that makes our research results tangible, both for the scientific staff as well as for students.

With our research we contribute to the Future Mobility Center and to the post graduate program "Integrated Energy Supply Modules for Roadbound E-Mobility" (mobilEM). We thank mobilEM for providing a starting fund. We are also an active member of the Mobility & Transport Engineering profile area.

We offer the course Control and Perception in Networked and Autonomous Vehicles since the winter term 2019/2020. We designed it for master's students of computer science, automation engineering, and computational engineering science. It combines theory with practical exercises in the CPM Lab. The course materials will be provided here soon.

Contact: Patrick Scheffe, M. Sc. RWTH

For bachelor's students, we offer a practical course software project in the CPM Lab since the winter term 2019/2020.

Contact: Armin Mokhtarian, M.Sc. RWTH

Since 2008, our student group Team GalaXIs implements perception and control algorithms on an autonomous model-scale vehicle in order to participate in the Carolo-Cup competition. More information can be found at galaxis.rwth-aachen.de.

We are always looking for motivated and ambitious students to join Team GalaXIs.

Contact: Alexandru Kampmann, M.Sc. RWTH

The Cyber-Physical Mobility Lab (CPM Lab) is an open source, remotely accessible platform for rapid algorithm prototyping for networked and autonomous vehicles. Its unique hierarchical service-oriented architecture enables synchronized computations of different complexity levels. The CPM Lab is our group-wide project that makes our research results tangible, both for the scientific staff as well as for students. Our vision in developing the CPM Lab is to See your Ideas Develop into Reality!

For more details on the CPM Lab visit our website cpm.embedded.rwth-aachen.de.

We thank the following programs for providing funds to the CPM Lab

• The post graduate program "Integrated Energy Supply Modules for Roadbound E-Mobility" (mobilEM)
• The project CiTi – Center for integrative Traffic investigation
• The fund "digital teaching and learning infrastructure" of the state NRW
• The quality improvement funds at RWTH Aachen University

Contact: All Cyber-physical Mobility group members: cpm-info[at]embedded[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de

Germany's leading universities in the field of automated vehicles have joined forces with selected specialists from industry in the BMBF funded project UNICARagil to rethink automated vehicles and their architectures. UNICARagil researches disruptive, modular, and agile concepts in hardware and software architecture for fully automated and driverless vehicles. The modular vehicle concept consists of a driving platform and add-on modules, which build the basis for the UNICARagil-vehicles. The UNICARagil-vehicles can be flexibly adapted to a wide range of applications in passenger transport or logistics.

The RWTH Aachen University is involved in the project with the Institute of Automotive Engineering (ika), the Institute and Chair of Flight System Dynamics (FSD) and the Chair of Computer Science 11 - Embedded Software (i11). The i11 is mainly responsible for conceptualization and implementation of a service-oriented software architecture as well as an architecture of cloud-based services.

Dr.-Ing. Bassam Alrifaee is responsible for the coordination of the digital architecture. Alexandru Kampmann, M.Sc. RWTH and Armin Mokhtarian, M.Sc. RWTH are responsible for the conceptualization and implementation of the service-oriented software architecture and the architecture of cloud-based services.

One outcome of this project is embeddedRTPS, a portable DDS implementation for embedded systems that is based on FreeRTOS and lightweightIP. It is available under MIT license on Github.

Read more on the service-oriented software architecture.

Read more on the architecture of cloud-based services.



Contact: Alexandru Kampmann, M.Sc. RWTH, Armin Mokhtarian, M.Sc. RWTH

The DFG priority program CoInCar (Cooperative Interacting Automobiles) gathers an interdisciplinary group of researchers to develop a system-theoretical framework for cooperative traffic involving autonomous automobiles. The program promotes research on several topics including

• Cooperative maneuver and trajectory planning
• Situation prediction
• Cooperative perception
• Data and information base
• System ergonomics
• Cross-cutting issues

We are working on two subprojects of the priority program, namely AutoKnigge and GROKO-Plan. Our subprojects belong to the first research area of cooperative maneuver and trajectory planning. In both subprojects, we focus on distributed decision-making and safety-verification of interacting vehicles while meeting real-time constraints of traffic.

The figure sketches distributed trajectory planning, where two vehicles communicate necessary data so that each vehicle can plan a collision-free trajectory. Major challenges of distributed trajectory planning are (I) dependability of planned trajectories, (II) real-time compliance of the optimizer on board of the vehicles, and (III) a realizable communication effort between vehicles. The first challenge arises since conflict-free trajectories are mandatory. The second challenge is due to high-dimensional non-convex optimization problems, as they occur when many road users must be considered. The third challenge is caused by the interaction, i.e., to solve the distributed optimization problem on one vehicle while parts of the optimization problems of other road users must be exchanged. In order to meet these challenges, we develop novel methods for networked trajectory planning that reduce the computation time and communications requirements while enhancing the feasibility and quality of control.

In the subproject AutoKnigge (Modeling, Evaluation and Verification of Cooperative Interacting Automobiles), we research trajectory planning methods for networked vehicles and methods for safety-verification of the vehicles' motion with our project partners of the Institute for Automotive Engineering (ika) and the Chair of Computer Science 3 - Software Engineering (i3). We plan trajectories using Networked Model Predictive Control (Net-MPC). The planning algorithms use a receding horizon approach in a continuous planning space. The cost function and constraints of the planning problem model the coupling of agents. We research on novel methods for distributed MPC for reducing the complexity of the planning problem. We verify the resulting trajectories using formal methods.

Contact: Maximilian Kloock, M.Sc. RWTH

In the subproject GROKO-Plan (Graph-based, Optimal and Cooperative Trajectory Planning for Interacting Automobiles), we research trajectory planning methods for networked vehicles using graph-based methods with our project partner of the Saarland University. The networked planning is characterized by a receding horizon approach in a discrete planning space. Maneuver automata model the dynamics and couplings of agents. We use graph search algorithms and hybrid optimization to find trajectories in the coupled automata. We focus on developing novel methods for distributed computations in order to reduce the complexity of the planning problem.

Contact: Patrick Scheffe, M. Sc. RWTH

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), such as GPS or Galileo, can suffer from performance degradation in urban areas, caused by non-line-of-sight or multipath propagation. Therefore, autonomous vehicles additionally use localization algorithms based on heuristic features extracted from sensor data to alleviate the aforementioned problems. While these algorithms tend to perform better in urban areas than GNSS, these approaches have their own drawbacks. Even state-of-the-art approaches suffer from issues with long-term stability, scarcity or ambiguity of the features. This project pursues the development of a low-cost localization system that is aided by infrastructure-based features to overcome the problems of both approaches.



Contact: Alexandru Kampmann, M.Sc. RWTH

The project eNav aimed at the development of a navigation system for disabled electric wheelchair users. For a selected navigation goal, eNav computes a route that

• avoids inaccessible routes for an electric wheelchair
• avoids uncomfortable routes for the electric wheelchair user
• considers the state of charge of the battery
• offers a multi-modal route by combining rides using the electric wheelchair with rides using public transportation systems.

The system can be transferred to research of other electric vehicles, e.g., e-bikes. Read more on the project website.

This project pursues the development of a state-of-the-art GNSS/INS, which receives input from a Statistical Absolute Position Estimator (SAPE) for an additional update step. SAPE uses features of the road surface in order to determine the absolute location of the vehicle. More specifically, Hidden Markov Models (HMM) are used for classification of inputs from acceleration sensors. The project has been implemented using a Pedelec.

We are always looking for motivated and ambitious students to join our team. We offer student assistant positions as well as theses in the following areas

• Cyber-physical Mobility Lab
• Software for networked and autonomous vehicles
• Cooperative interacting vehicles
• Localization of autonomous vehicles

Current open PhD positions can be found here. Additionally, initiative applications for PhD positions, student assistant positions, and theses are welcome. You can send your application to the corresponding member of the group, or to all members: cpm-info[at]embedded[dot]rwth-aachen.de. For PhD positions, please contact Dr.-Ing. Bassam Alrifaee.

Please include in your application: transcript of records (Bachelor and possibly Master), CV, and certificates.

Our group contributes to different national and international committees, e.g., to

• Mobility & Transport Engineering profile area of RWTH Aachen University
• Examination board of the Master's study program Automation Engineering of RWTH Aachen University
• MATLAB-AG of RWTH Aachen University
• IFAC Technical Committee 7.1 on Automotive Control
• IFAC Technical Committee 9.4 on Control Education

We also contribute to the organization of meetings and conferences in our research area, e.g., by organizing special sessions.