Involved Chairs at the KIT
Institute of Applied Informatics and Formal Description Methods (AIFB) - Efficient Algorithms and Organic Computing
(Prof. Dr. Hartmut Schmeck)
The central topic of Prof. Dr. Hartmut Schmeck's research group „Efficient Algorithms“ is the development of methods for the efficient use of modern computer architectures for planning, improving, and executing information, business and manufacturing processes. Special attention is paid to multiply interconnected, adaptive systems which are capable to benefit from self-organisation. Their controllability and efficient use is a major objective of the Organic Computing Initiative which is strongly influenced by this group due to the task of coordinating the priority program of the German Research Foundation on Organic Computing (SPP 1183).
Besides fundamental research on architectures and methods of organic computing, the focus is on concrete technical application scenarios in urban traffic, in service-oriented architectures and - based on previous work in the project SESAM - in smart energy systems, in particular in the projects MeRegio and MeRegioMobil . This is complemented by research on nature-inspired methods in optimization, in particular for multi-objective and dynamically changing problem settings.
Within the KIT our research belongs to the competence area „Information, Communication, Organisation“. Due to the profile of its research projects the group is an integral part of the KIT-Focus COMMputation, addressing the inherent combination of COMMunication and COMputation in current and future smart systems. Additionally, due to the projects on „smart energy“ and „electric mobility“ the chair is an active part of the KIT-center Energy and the KIT-focus Mobility Systems.
Contribution to MeRegioMobil
The research group of Prof. Schmeck initially takes care of the conception and supervision of the construction of the research and demonstration laboratory - the prototype of a smart home. Amongst others, this conceptual phase comprises the requirements planning and coordination of various components, e.g. the infrastructure and location of the mobile home, the chosen power plants (photovoltaic panels and combined heat and power plant), the normal as well as intelligent (communication-enabled and controllable) applicances, the charging station for electric vehicles and finally the information facilities for visitors.
It is aspired to realize a laboratory with an adaptive and self-organizing cooperation of intelligent applicances for the purpose of load shifting. The central component which will allow for such a cooperative behavior is the so called control box (SB), needing appropriate interfaces to monitor and control the system (smart home and electric vehicle) in the framework of an observer-controller-architecture. The field of Organic Computing will hereby help us to develop methods which will procure the optimization of the load behavior.
Furthermore, simulation scenarios will be developed in order to analyze scaling effects (e.g. one million electric vehicles, a city district with smart homes). The parameters of the simulations scenarios will constantly be adapted and improved according to the data gained from laboratory and field tests.
Research associates:
Institute of Applied Informatics and Formal Description Methods (AIFB) - Knowledge Management
(Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer)
Central theme of the Knowledge Management Group of Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer is research in the area of semantic technologies. The focus of the group is on the development of methods and infrastructure for intelligent ontology-based management of distributed data sources and services, as well as intelligent knowledge management applications.
The group can draw on extensive expertise acquired over years and is one of the leading groups in the field worldwide.
The group conducts semantic technology research in the context of a number of prominent projects, for example the European research projects „ACTIVE - Enabling the Knowledge-Powered Enterprise“, „NEON - Lifecycle Support for Networked Ontologies“ and „X-Media - Knowledge Sharing and Reuse across Media“, and has been actively involved in the standardisation effort of W3C‘s Web Ontology Language (OWL). Ontologies have been already applied in several national projects (funded by BMBF and DFG) to semantically describe and process electronic services, similar to what is planned for MeRegioMobil.
Contribution to MeRegioMobil
The knowledge management research group evaluates the use of ontologies and Semantic Web languages for the development of a reference model covering an electric vehicle infrastructure.
The reference model aims at identifying and defining important concepts in such an infrastructure, and may be used as a basis for communication between project partners as well as a foundation for software systems.
Semantic technologies such as the Semantic MediaWiki, an extension of the well-known Wikipedia software, enable collaborative preparation of the reference model.
Furthermore, using semantic technologies, the reference model can be encoded in a machine-readable manner. Therefore, in a second step, a reasoner can automatically check and complement the model with inferred knowledge.
In addition, semantically enhanced descriptions of concepts and services in the reference model provide a suitable basis for a software and data integration infrastructure for MeRegioMobil.
Research associates:
Institute of Telematics - Decentralized Systems and Network Services Research (DSN)
(Prof. Dr. Hannes Hartenstein)
The research group of Prof. Dr. Hannes Hartenstein (Decentralized Systems and Network Services) designs, analyzes and optimizes mobile and virtual computer networks as well as federated service-oriented architectures.
In the field of mobile networks the group mainly focuses on inter-vehicle communication (BMBF projects FleetNet, NoW: Network on Wheels, EU-FP7 project PRE-DRIVE C2X). Content-based addressing plays a major role within such networks as geographical areas have to be used as destinations and the end-to-end principle does mostly not apply.
In the field of virtual networks the group analyzed autonomous communication infrastructures in the scope of the SESAM project. Simulations as well as testbeds were conducted to evaluate scalability, robustness and practicability. Currently, advanced aspects in this research field are being explored in the BSI-project KAI.
In the context of service-oriented architectures the group‘s interests include the challenge of providing an identity management as a basic service for higher level services in federated systems. This topic is addressed by the KIM project of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Methodically, the group holds specialized expertise in the fields of simulations and analytical evaluations respectively as well as with building and analyzing prototypes and testbeds.
Contribution to MeRegioMobil
The primary interests of the DSN research group within the project MeRegioMobil are in the context of vehicular communication and identity management that are both essential for the realization of the corresponding ICT services and their underlying architecture. In particular, the impact of vehicular communication on dynamic route planning and traffic efficiency in the context of electric vehicles is evaluated.
Furthermore, a privacy-compliant identity and access management for charging stations will be designed. Moreover, the robustness of the envisioned ICT architecture in the event of exceptional situations like flash crowds will be analyzed and optimized. Methodically, the group of Prof. Hartenstein focuses on analytic evaluations as well as simulation studies.
Research associates:
Electro-technical Institute (ETI)
(Prof. Dr. Michael Braun)
The Electro-technical Institute is one of thirteen institutes of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology. The focus of this institute is on electrical drives and power electronics.
Current areas of research are the highly dynamic control of permanently magnetized synchronous machines, new inverter topologies and control modes for drive inverters or line power converters. The inverter technology is also used for our research on short time energy storage systems and uninterrupted power supply units.
The optimized usage of regenerative energy sources like wind energy or photovoltaics is one further topic of our work. The institute is equipped with a 4kW solar generator on the roof and the ability to build its own power supply system for measurements and tests on this topic.
As a result of previous work, the parking area of the institute is equipped with a power socket that allows to charge electrical vehicles.
Contribution to MeRegioMobil
Recharging of electric vehicles may decrease the power quality of the power grid. This is caused by nonsinusoidal waveforms due to the utilized topology of power electronics.
Standard charging procedures of one unit, e.g. reaching the power from 2kW to 10kW, do not affect the power grid noticeable. But in the case of charging a dozen electric vehicles in a street of houses simultaneously, the local power grid could be affected in a negative manner.
Similar undesirable interferences could also be caused by the power consumption of fast recharging electric vehicles with up to 50kW. Many electrical devices deteriorate untimely or operate inaccurate caused by disturbances of the power grid voltage.
A reliable power supply is part of our economic living nowadays. Therefore, the task of the working group is to calculate which effects are induced by charging a huge amount of electric vehicles through the power grid. To certify the calculations, the simulation results will be compared to the measured results of the demonstration unit.
The results of this research will be used to develop next generation charging devices. They will minimize the negative impact on the power grid and will be capable to even improve the power quality.
Research associates:
Institute of Electric Energy Systems and High Voltage Technology (IEH)
(Prof. Dr. Thomas Leibfried)
The research efforts of the Institute of Electric Energy Systems and High Voltage Technology (IEH) can be divided into three main areas: Modern power electronic based Energy Transmission Systems, such as Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS), and High Voltage DC Transmission Systems are specified and optimised in computer models. Further, new strategies for increasing capacity of transmission lines are developed by improving FACTS topologies and control systems.
Another research area is the „diagnostics of power grid equipment”, which is dedicated to the development of new measure und analysis approaches for state estimation and fault prediction of transformers. For in situ testing of power grid equipment, new high-voltage test systems based on power electronics are developed.
The third area of interest is the development of control strategies for a grid with a high fraction of distributed renewable energy sources. The intent is to maintain grid stability, while attaining high grid efficiency. To compensate fluctuating generation behaviour of most renewable energy sources, energy storage options will be necessary in the near future. For that purpose, the IEH also examines the potential of grid supporting Electric Vehicles (EV).
Contribution to MeRegioMobil
An increasing rate of intermittent, renewable generation in the grid demands storage solutions to sustain grid stability. Electric vehicles could be used to store spare renewable energy in their batteries. The energy should be used to backfeed into the grid, in times of peak load demand.
The integration of electric vehicles into the smart grid is able to contribute to grid quality and to optimise todays power plant efficiency. Therefore, different integration concepts are going to be developed. Electric vehicles will then be able to deliver different grid services, depending on the degree of interaction between car and grid. The concepts are going to be validated and tested on simulation models from real transmission grids.
The developed methods are going to be used on the equipment available in MeRegioMobil and thus the algorithms developed are going to be tested on real world data. To integrate renewable energy sources and electric vehicles into an intelligent grid, a good estimate of the grid state is mandatory. Hence, one of the main research areas is the development of new grid modelling techniques. With suitable models it is possible to coordinate load and generation and further to guaranty the grid stability even under very high grid demand.
Research associates:
Institute for Industrial Production (IIP)
(Prof. Dr. Wolf Fichtner)
Prof. Fichtner’s Chair of Energy Economics at the Institute for Industrial Production (IIP) analyses techno-economic questions along the whole energy supply chain, from primary energy supply, over energy conversion and energy transport to energy distribution and energy use. We provide answers to strategically and environmentally relevant problems. Strategically relevant problems relate to, inter alia, capacity expansion and deployment planning, supply chain optimization and technology assessment. Environmentally relevant problems include the development of emission-mitigation strategies and the evaluation of policy instruments. The main objective of the research group “Transport and Energy” is to determine the impacts of electric vehicles on the energy system.
In recent years Operation Research methods have proved their suitability for our research objectives and for decision support with political and industrial partners. According to the research field we also apply other methods, such as Nodal-Pricing or agent-based simulation models, and interconnect our models, such as energy system models with macro-economic models. With these tools we deliver answers on different levels of abstraction within the international, national or regional energy system.
Contribution to MeRegioMobil
In MeRegioMobil, specific agent-based simulation models and energy system models are developed to support the techno-economical analysis of energy- and mass flows. Amongst the most important cases studied are the differentiated evaluation of electricity storage by electric vehicles and their effect on the energy system. Due to the increasing share of the hardly controllable energy supply from renewable energies, one important question in this context is how the energy storage of electric vehicles in the future may contribute to an interference-free satisfaction of the energy demand.
Further focal points are the user specific acceptance analysis, market penetration analysis as well as potential business areas occurring in the course of the electrification of private passenger road transport. The theoretical knowledge and simulation results are complemented by experiences from a fleet test and from the KIT research and demonstration lab.
Research associates:
Institute of Information Systems and Management (IISM)
(Prof. Dr. Christof Weinhardt)
The research group of Prof. Dr. Christoph Weinhardt (Institute of Information Systems and Management – IISM) analyzes and designs electronic markets for various industries, e.g., finance, energy, logistics, and emission certificates.
Electronic trading platforms are analyzed with regard to their quality of results and appropriateness for the area of application. One of the methods used is the design science approach by implementing prototypes of such systems and then running experiments and simulations on these implementations. The overall approach is called „Market Engineering“, which is at the heart of the group‘s research interest.
The institute has already participated in a number of research efforts in the energy domain. The institute published a series of research articles on CO2 emission right trading which originated from research projects in cooperation with enterprises in Baden-Württemberg (SET UP) and Luxemburg. (SIMLUX). On the one hand, the research projects aimed at preparing the participating enterprises for the European emission right trading. On the other hand, these projects delivered detailed insides on how different market parameters effect emission trading.
Within the PowerACE research project (in cooperation with the IIP), the institute investigated the dynamics and interchanging effects between power markets and CO2 emission markets based on multi-agent simulations. A third research project was SESAM in which the IISM analyzed the design of different market mechanisms for power trading markets.
Contribution to MeRegioMobil
The research focus of the Institute of Information Systems and Management (IISM) within the project MeRegioMobil is the economic evaluation of intelligent and automated charging strategies for electric vehicles.
Charging strategies can have different objectives: E.g., minimizing costs for the owner of the electric vehicles, maximizing the use of energy from renewable sources, or optimally balancing the required charge processes to avoid peak loads.
Within a market, the aforementioned objectives can be combined through a flexible electricity price. The weight of each objective depends on the rules and mechanisms that determine the electricity price.
Further research is planned on discharge strategies that provide services to the grid (Vehicle-to-Grid services, V2G). Such strategies might create new revenue streams for owners of electric vehicles and, thus, reduce the operating costs of currently costly electric vehicles and their batteries.
Research associates:
Institute for Information and Business Law (IIWR)
(Prof. Dr. Thomas Dreier)
The research group headed by Prof. Dr. Thomas Dreier focuses on those legal issues which are raised by digitization and networking in the information society for the information value chain.
The institute and its researchers are renowned by numerous talks and publications in this field. In particular, the institute currently focuses on issues of regulation of e-commerce, legal enabling and validation of informational value-added services and digital rights management from the perspective which legal rules enable information technology and information services and which hinder the development of useful and desirable information technologies and information services.
Contribution to MeRegioMobil
The research group headed by Prof. Dr. Thomas Dreier focuses on those legal issues which are raised by digitization and networking in the information society for the information value chain.
The institute and its researchers are renowned by numerous talks and publications in this field. In particular, the institute currently focuses on issues of regulation of e-commerce, legal enabling and validation of informational value-added services and digital rights management from the perspective which legal rules enable information technology and information services and which hinder the development of useful and desirable information technologies and information services.
Research associates:
Institute for Programme Structures and Data Organisation (IPD)
(Prof. Dr. Ralf Reussner)
The Institute for Programme Structures and Data Organisation (IPD) is a member of the Faculty of Informatics that is concerned with an engineering approach to software design in research and teaching.
The domain of the chair for Software Design and Quality (SDQ) includes all topics in the context of systematic construction of software systems.
In particular, this ranges from architectural designs, development methods, tools and environments up to methods for ensuring the quality and economics of programming.
The chair is focused on the close interaction of software architecture, software components, model driven development and software quality.
This involves methods for prediction of software quality attributes, like performance and reliability, on the base of architectural designs.
For this purpose methods and tools have been developed within the DFG Palladio Research Project, which are currently being used and refined within the QImPrESS and SLA@SOI EU projects.
Contribution to MeRegioMobil
The research topic of the IPD Reussner in the context of the MeRegioMobil project are software architectures for the next generation power grid.
The developed software architectures provide for reliable communication between electric vehicles and the power grid.
This means the system is available even under heavy load conditions.
The IPD Reussner is using an engineering approach to software design to evaluate the performance of software archi-tectures in a very early software development stage. This approach allows to test mission critical scenarios before having an implemented and running system.
Research associates:
Institute for Theoretical Computer Science (ITI)
(Prof. Dr. Peter Sanders)
Prof. Peter Sanders‘ group works in the field of algorithm engineering, an approach in algorithm research aiming at harmonising theory and practice. The researchers are developing basic algorithms to process large amounts of data for example in the areas of parallel processing, external memory and graph algorithms.
In the last years the group has been working on fast and exact route planning in large road netword and is now the world‘s leading research group in this field. In particular, the planning of optimal routes became up to six magnitudes faster than the ‚textbook algorithm‘. These results have won several awards and are increasingly used in commercial products.
Currently, Prof. Sanders‘ group is engaged in intensive research aiming to create more sophisticated algorithms with time-dependent target functions, dynamic changes to networks (traffic jams, ...), flexible multi-criteria target functions and the simulation of the road users‘ selfish behaviour.
Contribution to MeRegioMobil
In the field of energy management for electric vehicles the research group tends to allow a consumption estimation as necessary for intelligent load-management systems.
Due to the strong dependencies of the energy consumption on the driving conditions, a detailed consumption model is needed.
The combination of physical models, traffic related studies and methods of machine learning are expected to allow the computation of not only a good energy consumption prediction, but also energy efficient routes.
Thus, the union of electric mobility and distributed energy storage can be achieved through exact modeling.
Research associates:
Institute of Telematics (ITM)
(Prof. Dr. Martina Zitterbart)
In the context of new services and applications, the team around Prof. Dr. Martina Zitterbart is focussed on the research and the prototype development of novel communication infrastructures for today‘s as well as the future Internet. Topics range from signalling and management aspects of future networks, over the realization of distributed applications and services by means of overlay and peer to peer based approaches, to communication protocols and applications for wireless sensor networks. Security aspects, the abstract modelling of processes and problems as well as network simulation play a major role in all areas.
The institute shows a high level of expertise acquired through different research projects such as ScaleNet and SpoVNet, funded by the BMBF and the Landesstiftung BW within the BW-FIT program respectively. Both projects offer flexible architectures simplifying the realization of distributed services with respect to quality of service and security constraints. With Oversim, ScaleNet additionally yielded a powerful ICT
simulation tool, which, in the meantime, is used, extended and approved by the peer to peer research community world wide. With his junior research group CoMoGrip funded by the Excellence Initiative, Dr. Oliver Waldhorst additionally investigates the use of Grid and P2P techniques within highly heterogeneous networks.
SpoVNet as well as ScaleNet and CoMoGrip is expected to yield significant input for the problems handled in MEREGIO and especially MeRegioMobil.
Contribution to MeRegioMobil
In MeRegioMobil, the team concentrates on the aspects of data acquisition and data transfer. A special focus is set on communication technology which enables the acquisition of the battery charging status of a large number of electric vehicles. The control of charging and discharging processes in many electric vehicles at the same time also poses a problem for the communication infrastructure and creates a demand for specialized communication tech39
niques. With the help of advanced communication technologies, electric vehicles can be used to store surplus energy resources which then can be used in future shortages.
Centralized approaches to communication concentrate data and control flows in few systems inside the communication network. To remedy the risks of a „single point of failure“, self-organizing and decentralized protocols are developed and evaluated.
MeRegioMobil states the problem of communication networks which not only have to scale very well but also have to provide secure communication channels and deal with the inherent mobility of its electric-vehicle participants.
Research assciates: