Smart City-Concepts and Last Mile Logistics

Within its activities on Smart City and Last Mile Logistics, IEEM has been primarily concerned with the commonalities of both research areas for several years. Both are looking for smart and innovative solutions to improve the quality of life in urban areas with the help of new technologies. The focus is on technological research and development for a sustainable improvement in the sense of a healthy and appreciative coexistence of all living beings. At the same time, IEEM prioritises an interactive, cross-age and cross-educational knowledge transfer in order to advance the development and the degree of identification of new technologies with the help of different actors and educational formats.

From a technical perspective, IEEM has expertise in the following areas:

• Use of virtual models and rapid prototyping systems. learn more
• Using virtual testbeds to develop, for example, autonomous and ADAS vehicle functions with a unity environment simulation to verify secure functioning first on a virtual level and then in reality. Security concepts can be developed in the automotive sector by means of virtual modelling of the E/E vehicle architecture and offboard interfaces, and in the industrial sector by means of digital twins that represent the control system and the control units, and their secure functioning can be verified. learn more
• In addition to virtual test fields, IEEM also offers its own real laboratory with test benches, its own workshop and its own test track, without applicable StVO, learn more
• Research activities in the field of intelligent energy and range management for e-vehicles and e-bikes, learn more
• General development of automated, intelligent functions in the automotive and industrial sectors such as autonomous driving functions, ADAS functions and IoT systems. more on IoT
• Due to the networking and thus also the opening up of the systems to form a system of systems, these complex systems must be protected more than ever by security measures, e.g. Car2Car or Car2X communication. IEEM researches in the field of security for cyber-physical and automotive systems. learn more

For the aspect of knowledge transfer from smart city solutions to user acceptance, IEEM has the expertise with the following key topics:

• Making available and preparing data, knowledge and guidance on smart city solutions in a knowledge database - for developers and the general citizenry to understand the new technologies holistically.
• Research in the field of gamification: making last mile logistics tangible, experiential, to analyse the social acceptance of new developments and bring new innovations closer to the end user 
• Operation and development of an academy with the aim of offering training concepts with blended learning approaches up to certified courses and degree programmes. learn more

IEEM aims to cooperate with science and industry in the field of smart city concepts and last mile logistics. Students can also advance the development with final theses and projects.