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Embedded Systems

The last two decades have witnessed a remarkable evolution of computer systems, in particular embedded systems. Such systems are typically hidden within larger electronic devices and carry out a particular function, potentially critical in terms of money or human lives. Examples of such systems are smart-phones, anti-lock brakes, auto-focus cameras, fax machines, life-support devices, flight management systems and hundreds of other use-cases, in which embedded systems are completely unrecognized by the device’s user.

 

Embedded systems enable the real-time computer control of physical devices and systems, resulting in an unprecedented level of performance and utility. The specific imposed requirements that must be satisfied by embedded systems, such as timeliness, dependable operation in safety-relevant scenarios, short time-to-market and low cost in combination with the pressure to increase the functionality, lead to an enormous and challenging growth in the complexity of the design at the system level.

Embedded Systems
MOD2SDV-Kickoff

Kickoff Meeting of MOD2SDV Project

The research project MOD2SDV is officially underway — shaping the future of Software-Defined Vehicles! 

A great milestone for the Mod2SDV consortium! This week, project partners came together in Munich for the official kick-off meeting, hosted by our project coordinator Dr. Mohammed Abuteir from TrustMotion. Representing the University of Siegen and bringing our team's expertise to the discussions were Prof. Dr. Roman Obermaisser, Dr. Yosab Bebawy, Omar Hekal and Fatima Mammadova.

Across two productive days, we aligned our vision, defined our priorities, and laid the groundwork for developing safe, secure, and modular architectures for the next generation of Software-Defined Vehicles (SDVs).

As part of Mod2SDV, the Chair for Embedded Systems at University of Siegen brings its expertise in dependable embedded systems, deterministic computing, and reconfigurable AI hardware to the S-CORE architecture. Our contribution focuses on developing and integrating three key modular services into the System Services layer:

  1.  Reconfigurable Time-Triggered AI Accelerator Enabling FPGA-based AI inference with deterministic execution schedules to satisfy stringent real-time and reliability requirements.
  2. Incremental Partial Reconfiguration Enabling runtime updates and reconfiguration of distributed hardware accelerators and communication structures while preserving system continuity and real-time behavior.
  3. Proactive Scheduling & Meta-Scheduling Anticipating faults, performance anomalies, and changing operating conditions to adapt execution schedules and resource allocation proactively.


The goal is to bring together deterministic AI execution, runtime adaptability, and dependable system operation — supporting UC3’s vision of continuous and incremental development.

We are excited to contribute to this collaborative effort and work alongside our partners to advance modular, safe, and secure automotive software architectures. The journey has just begun, and there is much to build together.


 

𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐟. 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐝 𝐏𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧’𝐬 𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐭

𝐀 𝐑𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐄𝐱𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐬: 𝐖𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐮𝐩 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐟. 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐝 𝐏𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧’𝐬 𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐢𝐞𝐠𝐞𝐧!

We recently had the distinct pleasure of hosting Prof. Todd Peterson from the Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science for a highly productive two-week research visit at the University of Siegen.

Prof. Peterson is a leading expert in medical imaging. His research drives innovation in two major areas: the development of high-resolution, multi-pinhole SPECT capabilities utilizing novel semiconductor radiation detector technology, and the advancement of quantitative CT, SPECT, and PET techniques for preclinical research applications.

During his stay, Prof. Peterson collaborated closely with two key research groups at the University of Siegen:
⚛️ 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞 𝐏𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 (Department of Physics, led by Prof. Ivor Fleck)
💻 𝐄𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐒𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬 (Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, led by Prof. Roman Obermaisser)

It was fantastic to see our PhD students— Yazeed Balasmeh, Lars Maczey, Aravinda Lasya Indukuri, Kritima Rajbanshi and Charles Onuoha—actively participating in these cross-disciplinary discussions.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬: 𝐏𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐂𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐚
The primary goal of the visit was a deep dive and exchange of ideas regarding our DFG-funded project to develop a next-generation Compton Camera. This new camera will successfully detect gammas above 1 MeV opening up entirely new fields of study and allowing a broader range of isotopes to be detected.

This is a massive system-level challenge requiring cutting-edge hardware and software:
𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐞: Utilizing SiPMs connected to ASICs for charge integration and ultra-precise 200 ps resolution timestamping.
𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥-𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠: Using FPGAs to process signals in real-time, performing critical data reduction by sorting signals by production time at ultra-low latency.
𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Developing reconstruction algorithms and physics-based system models for accurate 3D localization of radioactive sources.
𝐀𝐈 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Training a neural network on data from known radioactive sources to accurately reconstruct the position of the source, ultimately enabling real-time imaging.

We want to extend our most sincere thanks to Prof. Peterson for his time, his invaluable expertise, and the fantastic exchange of ideas over the last two weeks. Collaborative discussions like these are exactly what push the boundaries of science and engineering forward!

meeting

MESITA Kick-Off Meeting Marks the Launch of a New EU-Nigeria Partnership

MESITA (Master of Science in Smart Farming and IoT in Agriculture) is a new Master's programme established across four universities in Nigeria to modernize agriculture through smart farming, IoT, embedded systems, and AI-based applications. The programme is delivered by the Nigerian partner universities University of Port Harcourt, Obafemi Awolowo University, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, and Enugu State University of Science and Technology, in collaboration with EU partners University of Siegen, University of Food Technologies Plovdiv, and Wrocław University of Science and Technology, and with industry involvement from AlumUnite Limited.

embedded meeting

Successful Final EmbeddedAI Project Meeting

EmbeddedAI is an international Master of Science programme focused on studies in embedded systems and artificial intelligence. The program covers application areas like agriculture, healthcare, telecommunication, and manufacturing. EmbeddedAI aims to enhance the employability and entrepreneurial skills of Nigerian students by providing them with cutting-edge digital education. It seeks to promote the collaboration between Nigerian and EU universities.

About the Chair

Research and Teaching

chair es

Research

  • NoC-based multi-core architectures with real-time support, fault tolerance and energy effiency
     
  • Networked embedded systems including system architectures, time-triggered protocols and scheduling algorithms
     
  • Methods for dependability including fault diagnosis and fault tolerance (e.g., organic computing)
     
  • Embedded Artificial Intelligence (AI) including embedded AI models and hardware accelerators with real-time support and dependability
     
  • Application domains including industrial control, automation, automotive systems, avionics and medical systems

     

Teaching

  • Basic computer science courses (e.g., technical computer science, object-oriented design)
     
  • Specialized courses in the area of embedded systems(e.g. embedded system design with FPGA, embedded system)
     

Research Fields

Embedded System Technologies

Our research offers solutions to the challenging problems of designed embedded systems through significant advances in the area of distributed system architectures. A system architecture provides the scientific and engineering foundation for the construction of embedded systems.

The goals of our research are to discover design principles and to develop architectural services that enable a component-based development of embedded systems in such a way that the ensuing systems can be built cost-effectively and exhibit key non-functional properties (e.g. composability, robustness, maintainability).

Our investigations have resulted in contributions ranging from conceptual models of component-based system architectures, to distributed algorithms for protocol transformation and fault-tolerance, to embedded operating system technologies, to embedded AI technologies and a multi-processor system-on-a-chip for safety-relevant applications. We follow a balanced intermix between conceptual work with a sound theoretical basis and prototype implementations with experimental evaluations. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of embedded systems, we employ close cooperation with researchers from other fields (e.g. experts on hardware-software co-design, knowledge management, theoretical computer science, specialists from automotive, railway, avionic and industrial control domains). Furthermore, our close collaboration with industry provides real-world requirements and research challenges, as well as industrial feedback.

Research focus

  • Mixed-criticality systems
  • Adaptive and dependable real-time systems
  • Networked embedded systems
  • Predictable multi-core architecture
  • Embedded AI
  • Domain-specific architectures and platforms

     

 

Publication Lists

Publications

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Christian Fibich, Martin Horauer, Roman Obermaisser

Automated Bitstream-Level Cost-Reliability Design-Space Exploration for SRAM-Based FPGAs

Utkarsh Raj, Roman Obermaisser

CASCADE: Engineering a Secure, Real-Time, and Collaborative Code Execution for Multi-tenant Learning Platforms

Nasrin Ghadami Vaghalandari, Agata Kołakowska, Christoph Grundig, Li Dongchen, Bogdan Wiszniewski, Kai Daniel, et al.

Performance Evaluation of Nomadic Data Collection with a UAV-LoRa System

Hasan Abu-Rasheed, Constance Jumbo, Rashed Al Amin, Christian Weber, Veit Wiese, Roman Obermaisser, et al.

LLM-Assisted Knowledge Graph Completion for Curriculum and Domain Modelling in Personalized Higher Education Recommendations

Rashed Al Amin, Viplav Vijay Patil, Roman Obermaisser

Resource-Efficient Convolutional Tsetlin Machine Accelerator for Real-Time Image Classification on FPGAs

Mario Qosja, Simon Meckel, Roman Obermaisser

Dynamic TSN Reconfiguration for Time-Triggered Organic Computing

Constance Jumbo, Rashed Al Amin, Hasan Abu Rasheed, Veit Wiese, Christian Weber, Roman Obermaisser

A Knowledge Graph-Based Approach for Personalized Course and Curriculum Path Recommendation

Omar Hekal, Daniel Onwuchekwa, Roman Obermaisser

Incremental Multi-Schedule Graph for Memory Optimization in Adaptive Time-Triggered Systems

T.K. Dey, R.A. Amin, R. Obermaisser, F.S. Hossain

PUF-Enabled Trojan Trigger Prevention in IoE Edge Devices (Best paper award)

Yosab Bebawy, Aniebiet Micheal Ezekiel, Roman Obermaisser

Superscalar Time-Triggered Versatile-Tensor Accelerator

Josepaul Paulachan, Omar Hekal, Daniel Onwuchekwa, Roman Obermaisser

A Time-Triggered Edge–Fog–Cloud Architecture With Hierarchical Genetic Optimization for Safety-Critical Applications

Daniel Onwuchekwa, Omar Hekal, Roman Obermaisser

Scheduling the Exchange of Context Information for Time-Triggered Adaptive Systems

Embedded Systems Projects

Topic Areas

WISES
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Predictive maintenance in industry to increase availability and energy efficiency using multimodal analysis models and agent-guided mobile sensor technology (WISES)

BANNER
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Bidirectional connection of commercial vehicles for greater grid stability and increased efficiency (BANNER)

Roman Obermaisser

Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Roman Obermaisser

Professor

Prof. Dr. Roman Obermaisser is full professor at the Division for Embedded Systems of University of Siegen. Roman Obermaisser has finished his doctoral studies in Computer Science with Prof. Hermann Kopetz at Vienna University of Technology as research advisor in 2004.

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Dipl.-Ing. Stefan Otterbach

Mitarbeiter Technik und Verwaltung
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Abdulmajeed Alhumaidi

Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
Yosab Bebawy

Yosab Bebawy M.Sc.

Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
Ugonna Oleh

Ugonna Queen Oleh M.Sc.

Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin

Ugonna Oleh is a research associate at the Chair of Embedded Systems, University of Siegen.

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Omar Hekal

Research assistant
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Aravinda Lasya Indukuri

Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin
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Kritima Rajbanshi, M.Sc.

Research Associate

Doktorandin und wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Lehrstuhl für Embedded Systems.

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Dr.-Ing. Daniel Lucky Ndubuisi Onwuchekwa

Research assistant
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Jan Kunze

Technischer Mitarbeiter
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Matthias Bundschuh

Technischer Mitarbeiter
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Sina Marie Bundschuh

Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin

Contacts of Chair

Postal address

Universität Siegen
Fakultät IV
Embedded Systems
Hölderlinstr. 3

57068 Siegen

Visitor address

Universität Siegen
Fakultät IV
H-E Ebene 0
Hölderlinstr. 3

57068 Siegen

Secretariat

Manuela Popp
Universität Siegen
Hölderlinstr. 3

H-E 008
57068 Siegen