Digitalization Projects

Areas of Application

• Industry 4.0
• Autonomous Systems

Participating institutes

• Institut für verteilte Systeme der Fakultät Informatik, Ostfalia University of applied Science
• Institut für Informatik, Fakultät Mathematik/Informatik und Maschinenbau, TU Clausthal

Initial situation

Fires in e.g. (recycling) warehouses cause great damage and often pollute the environment. Area-wide stationary extinguishing systems are often not used or cannot be used due to technical-organizational and especially cost reasons.

Goal

A mobile autonomous fire extinguishing robot drives independently through the area to be monitored and checks it for the development of a fire. In the event of a fire, it reports this via radio and starts extinguishing the fire in parallel using the extinguishing module (a water canister with pump) carried along.

Field of Application

• Mobility

Participating institutes

• Institute for Software and Systems Engineering, Fakultät Mathematik/Informatik und Maschinenbau, TU Clausthal
• Institut für Verkehrsmanagement der Fakultät für Verkehr-Sport-Tourismus-Medien, Ostfalia University of applied Science

Initial situation

The vehicles used in public, road-based transport have so far only been partially equipped with intelligent functionalities regarding a measurement of the occupancy factor. In addition, the transport companies can fall back on historical data (e.g. from passenger counts), but current trip requests cannot be taken into account dynamically without the involvement of the passengers. The economically unattractive consequences are empty trips and high costs for the transport companies. In addition, it is difficult for public transport operators to predict possible routes.

Goal

First, research on deficient aspects of current on-demand systems and analysis of the impact of residential and commercial areas on passenger travel behavior will be conducted. Subsequently, an in-vehicle occupancy detection system (e.g., via camera detection) will be developed and an app for transportation requests will be created. This app will be used by route algorithms in the control center to process trip requests. Forecast data from traffic planning approaches should also be able to be incorporated here. A possible control center should also monitor the operating states of the vehicles.

Field of Application

• Industry 4.0

Participating institutes

• Institute für Mechatronik, Fakultät Maschinenbau, Ostfalia University of applied Science
• Institute for Software and Systems Engineering, Fakultät Mathematik/Informatik und Maschinenbau, TU Clausthal

Initial situation

A stove left on, a forgotten iron or an unattended candle - potential sources of fire can be found in all homes. It is therefore all the more important to minimize the potential damage in the event of a fire. Fire doors serve as a barrier to the source of the fire. If they are closed, the spread of fire can be temporarily reduced, thus preserving escape routes, for example. It is therefore all the more important that they are reliably closed during a fire and that the functionality of the fire doors is regularly checked throughout the building by safety officers.

Goal

In order to provide additional support for safety officers and at the same time reduce the risk of fire door failures, a system is to be developed based on artificial intelligence that detects during regular operation

• if the door threatens not to close correctly
• the failure of the closing mechanism is foreseeable in the future, in order to then inform the safety officer if necessary.

Field of application

• Autonomous Systems

Participating instituts

• Institute for Software and Systems Engineering, Fakultät Mathematik/Informatik und Maschinenbau, TU Clausthal
• Institut für verteilte Systeme der Fakultät Informatik, Ostfalia University of applied Science

Initial situation

Car sharing services can be found in many cities today. Customers can book a vehicle via an app and use it for trips. Depending on the provider, the vehicles can be found in defined parking spaces and can be parked there again after use.

Goal

To offer customers more convenience and make car sharing more attractive, we want to develop an innovative car sharing service. In this service, the rental cars will drive autonomously from the parking lot to the customer's current location. In the development process, we set ourselves the challenge of ensuring that the vehicles arrive safely at their destination, react to unexpected obstacles, perform emergency braking and recalculate routes. The implemented concept is evaluated on a 1:8 scale ADAS model vehicle in a laboratory environment.

Areas of Application

• Industry 4.0
• Autonomous Systems

Participating institutes

• Institut für verteilte Systeme der Fakultät Informatik, Ostfalia University of applied Science
• Institut für Informatik, Fakultät Mathematik/Informatik und Maschinenbau, TU Clausthal

Initial situation

Fires in e.g. (recycling) warehouses cause great damage and often pollute the environment. Area-wide stationary extinguishing systems are often not used or cannot be used due to technical-organizational and especially cost reasons.

Goal

A mobile autonomous fire extinguishing robot drives independently through the area to be monitored and checks it for the development of a fire. In the event of a fire, it reports this via radio and starts extinguishing the fire in parallel using the extinguishing module (a water canister with pump) carried along.

Field of Application

• Mobility

Participating institutes

• Institute for Software and Systems Engineering, Fakultät Mathematik/Informatik und Maschinenbau, TU Clausthal
• Institut für Verkehrsmanagement der Fakultät für Verkehr-Sport-Tourismus-Medien, Ostfalia University of applied Science

Initial situation

The vehicles used in public, road-based transport have so far only been partially equipped with intelligent functionalities regarding a measurement of the occupancy factor. In addition, the transport companies can fall back on historical data (e.g. from passenger counts), but current trip requests cannot be taken into account dynamically without the involvement of the passengers. The economically unattractive consequences are empty trips and high costs for the transport companies. In addition, it is difficult for public transport operators to predict possible routes.

Goal

First, research on deficient aspects of current on-demand systems and analysis of the impact of residential and commercial areas on passenger travel behavior will be conducted. Subsequently, an in-vehicle occupancy detection system (e.g., via camera detection) will be developed and an app for transportation requests will be created. This app will be used by route algorithms in the control center to process trip requests. Forecast data from traffic planning approaches should also be able to be incorporated here. A possible control center should also monitor the operating states of the vehicles.

Field of Application

• Industry 4.0

Participating institutes

• Institute für Mechatronik, Fakultät Maschinenbau, Ostfalia University of applied Science
• Institute for Software and Systems Engineering, Fakultät Mathematik/Informatik und Maschinenbau, TU Clausthal

Initial situation

A stove left on, a forgotten iron or an unattended candle - potential sources of fire can be found in all homes. It is therefore all the more important to minimize the potential damage in the event of a fire. Fire doors serve as a barrier to the source of the fire. If they are closed, the spread of fire can be temporarily reduced, thus preserving escape routes, for example. It is therefore all the more important that they are reliably closed during a fire and that the functionality of the fire doors is regularly checked throughout the building by safety officers.

Goal

In order to provide additional support for safety officers and at the same time reduce the risk of fire door failures, a system is to be developed based on artificial intelligence that detects during regular operation

• if the door threatens not to close correctly
• the failure of the closing mechanism is foreseeable in the future, in order to then inform the safety officer if necessary.

Field of application

• Autonomous Systems

Participating instituts

• Institute for Software and Systems Engineering, Fakultät Mathematik/Informatik und Maschinenbau, TU Clausthal
• Institut für verteilte Systeme der Fakultät Informatik, Ostfalia University of applied Science

Initial situation

Car sharing services can be found in many cities today. Customers can book a vehicle via an app and use it for trips. Depending on the provider, the vehicles can be found in defined parking spaces and can be parked there again after use.

Goal

To offer customers more convenience and make car sharing more attractive, we want to develop an innovative car sharing service. In this service, the rental cars will drive autonomously from the parking lot to the customer's current location. In the development process, we set ourselves the challenge of ensuring that the vehicles arrive safely at their destination, react to unexpected obstacles, perform emergency braking and recalculate routes. The implemented concept is evaluated on a 1:8 scale ADAS model vehicle in a laboratory environment.

Fields of application

• Mobility
• Digital Transformation

Participating Instituts

• Institut für Verkehrsmanagement, Fakultät Verkehr-Sport-Tourismus-Medien, Ostfalia University of applied Science
• Institut für Informatik, Fakultät Mathematik/Informatik und Maschinenbau, TU Clausthal

Initial situation

Up to now, stops for public, road-bound local transport have often been purely static objects, which are not equipped with communication and information systems. Some stops only consist of a stop sign and do not consider any accessibility aspects. In addition, the transport companies can draw on historical data regarding the number of passengers. Without IT systems that do not incorporate passenger data, current travel requests cannot be taken into account dynamically. This leads to empty runs, which cause unnecessary costs. Digitalization therefore offers enormous potential here!

Goal

In order to enable public transport companies to reliably detect travel requests, a stop is to be developed that can reliably detect them. Various technical principles are conceivable for this, such as registration via QR code on the cell phone, RFID or camera-based image recognition. The stop should also be able to recognize dangerous situations, such as the presence of people in the action area of an approaching automated vehicle. The use of Car2X technology is a predefined condition for communication between the individual systems.

Field of Application

• Digital Transformation

Participating institutes

• Institut für Information Engineering der Fakultät Informatik, Ostfalia University of applied Science
• Institut für Elektrische Informationstechnik, Fakultät Mathematik/Informatik und Maschinenbau, TU Clausthal

Initial situation

The weather station on the roof of the institute building C14 in the campus Feldgraben of the TU Clausthal has existed for 10 years as a hobby of a professor. Local weather data are recorded and made available online on the institute's website and that of the TU Clausthal. The data are evaluated in research and graduation work and used by tourists and insurance companies. For several years, a webcam has also been part of the hardware, providing an impression of the Feldgraben campus every 10 minutes.

Goal

The currently used system consisting of hardware and software stack is getting on in years and should be modernized and extended by further modern features. We want a top weather station of the next generation, which defines the state of the art in central Germany.

Field of application

• Circular Economy and Environmental Technology

Participating instituts

• Institute for Software and Systems Engineering, Fakultät Mathematik/Informatik und Maschinenbau, TU Clausthal
• Institut für Biotechnologie und Umweltforschung, Fakultät Versorgungstechnik, Ostfalia University of applied Science

Initial situation

Standing waters are reflections of their catchment area: Due to heavy development and agricultural use, they are usually polluted by nutrient inputs over a wide area. The impact of nutrient inputs on the aquatic ecology and water quality of bathing waters depends on many characteristics, the combination of which is individual for each water body.

Goal

A universal and very informative parameter is the oxygen content in the nearsediment deep water over the course of the year. However, episodic onsite measurements with mobile probes are timeconsuming and allow only limited conclusions about the seasonal development. The aim of the project is to design a measurement sensor for permanent use in water bodies, after prior testing in reference lakes.