Research Projects

At the ITM we regularly perform a research projects with partners from industry and academics within funded regional, national and European programs 

Running Projects

• COPICOH (CISCO)
  The „Center for Open Innovation in Connected Health“ is an academic center at the University of Lübeck with an open interdisciplinary alliance of scientific institutions and innovative companies, helping to design the future of connected health.
• Primary Doctor's Office of the Future
  Within the scope of this project, telemedical approaches for the primary doctor's office of the future are scientifically evaluated. The first step will be to ascertain which telemedical solutions may offer additional benefits to the medical supply from the perspective of the users. In addition, determinants are identified for the appropriate implementation of these solutions in the local care sector.
• Ambient Care
  The project aims at the user-centered development and evaluation of a socio-technical system for context-aware provisioning and communication of professional or clinical, i.e. patient or resident-related, information.
• ParkProTrain
  In this project, a tablet-based training program for parkinson patients will be implemented, which will be performed during and after inpatient treatment. It supports Parkinson's patients to continue the learned physical-activating exercises under guidance on a regular basis in their daily lives. The adjustments and / or increase of the different exercises take place on the basis of the evaluations of the training program on an administration panel ("cockpit") for the physiotherapist. It is expected to increase the quality of life (PDQ-39) and social participation (IMET), as well as delay the progression of the impairment.
• Digital Test Field Highway and Railway - Project Intelligent Bridge 
  (Multiple follow-up projects of iBAST) Bridges are subject to a continual process of aging and injury and require continuous monitoring and maintenance, which is associated with considerable costs. Under acute pressure on costs, these measures are often minimized, which in the past led to the expansion of existing damage. The aim of this project is therefore to design a cost effective building management and maintenance through continuous monitoring with advanced information technology. Through the use of sensor network technology, existing measurements in the form of manual inspections should not be replaced but seamlessly complemented.

Completed Projects

• FPOplus
  Since the introduction of the Deutschlandticket, the rail passenger transport sector has lacked an important source of information: because the flat-rate ticket no longer allows detailed conclusions about travel habits, it is barely possible to predict how passengers will be distributed across train stations and other mobility hubs. The joint research project Fahrplanoptimierung plus (FPOplus, schedule optimisation plus) investigates how this gap can be closed using 5G mobile networks (OpenRAN), artificial intelligence, and digital twins. The goal is data-driven flow management: passenger flows are captured, predicted in the short term, and steered through personalised, privacy-compliant information and navigation services so that bottlenecks are avoided, the usable capacity of existing infrastructure is increased, and cascading delay effects caused by overcrowded stations are reduced.
  The project builds on an experimental system that links a realistic station environment – the Gleishalle in Hamburg's Oberhafen – with a digital twin. Anonymised movement and occupancy data is collected without person recognition – among other things via a 5G campus network with positioning capabilities and via sensor technology such as people-counting cameras and a UWB-based reference system. This data is complemented by external context factors that influence mobility behaviour at short notice, such as timetable and real-time traffic data, weather information, and event information for the greater Hamburg area.
  Within the consortium, the Universität zu Lübeck, led by the Institute of Telematics (ITM), is responsible for the software side of flow management. A central data lake consolidates data from simulation, sensors, and external sources, cleans and synchronises it, and makes it available in a uniform, machine-readable form for analysis, prediction, and visualisation.
  Another core element of the Universität zu Lübeck's contribution is the prediction of passenger flows: transformer-based encoder–decoder architectures process a time-windowed occupancy history and forecast the expected occupancy of all relevant station areas for the near future. The models are trained and evaluated on both digital-twin simulation data and real occupancy data; simple statistical methods such as persistence baselines, which simply carry forward the current occupancy, serve as a reference. At the same time, the predictions form the operational foundation of the entire flow management: indoor navigation uses them to select the likely fastest route, and the reallocation component can detect impending overload before it arises. Methodologically, this is particularly demanding because prediction and steering influence each other: the more the system intervenes in the passenger flow, the more the real flows deviate from the original forecast – prediction and steering must therefore be viewed together as a closed control loop. Moreover, since the models have a modular design, many of the project's components can be transferred to other contexts – for example other train stations, airports, shopping centres, or festival grounds.
  A modular multi-agent simulator with a detailed 3D model of the experimental environment also allows steering strategies to be tested realistically and reproducibly without affecting real passengers. Since comprehensive real-time data on passenger volumes in active stations is not available, the simulator models visitor behaviour with a wealth of detail on individual passengers: they pursue individual goals, have needs and attributes – for example regarding mobility or luggage – and respond to information in differentiated ways. Scenarios can be compared systematically using metrics such as waiting times, rerouting, or goal attainment. For passengers already waiting, an intelligent reallocation component steers the distribution of travellers across less busy platform sections and disseminates these recommendations in a targeted, personalised manner.
  For passengers themselves, the project developed assistance and navigation services. An indoor navigation app computes routes to platforms and points of interest on a graph model of the station and incorporates predicted occupancy, so that not the shortest but the likely fastest and least complication-prone route is suggested. The design also envisages taking personal preferences into account – such as preferred walking speed or avoiding stairs. A navigation assistant based on locally operated language models additionally answers natural-language questions, for example about the next departure or station facilities. For the journey to the station, a multimodal outdoor navigation component was developed that builds on open data and standards – OpenStreetMap, GTFS and GTFS-Realtime, as well as timetable APIs – and employs routing engines such as GraphHopper and OpenTripPlanner. It plans complete door-to-door trips on foot, by bicycle, by car, or by public transport, accompanying passengers from their point of departure to the station entrance, from which indoor navigation takes over. The realistic trip chains generated in this way also fed back into the project as a data source for simulation, prediction, and capacity planning.
  FPOplus is a joint research project funded under the “Innovative Network Technologies in Mobile Communications” (InnoNT) call of the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport (BMDV), with a duration from May 2023 to April 2026. It is carried out jointly by HafenCity University Hamburg (HCU), Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Universität zu Lübeck (UzL), RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU), and Breuer Nachrichtentechnik GmbH in collaboration with Deutsche Bahn AG.
  Publications:
  - T. Dohnke, P. Pfau, C. Hyttrek, T. Groth, E. Baake, A. T. Ali, S. Fischer, N. Russwinkel, M. Leucker: Accelerating Multi-agent Simulations via Abstraction. In: Advances in Practical Applications of Agentic AI and Multi-Agent Systems (PAAMS 2026), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, 2026, pp. 115–127. doi:10.1007/978-3-032-41794-7_10
  - E. Baake, C. Hyttrek, P. Pfau, A. T. Ali, T. Groth, M. Khodaygani, S. Fischer: A 3D Multi-agent Simulation Architecture for Passenger Flow Optimisation in Mobility Hubs. In: Multi-Agent Systems – 22nd European Conference on Multi-Agent Systems (EUMAS 2025), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, 2026, pp. 236–244. doi:10.1007/978-3-032-22820-8_15
  - C. Schellenberger et al.: A 5G Positioning Demonstrator for Indoor Localization in a Simulated Train Station. Demonstration paper, Next Generation Communications Conference (NextGCom 2026), Argostoli, Greece, 2026 (to appear).
  - M. Khodaygani, A. T. Ali, T. Dohnke, T. Groth, E. Baake, M. Leucker, N. Russwinkel: Cognitive Modeling of Agents: Integrating Emotions, Goals, Needs, and Decision-Making. In: Proceedings of the Joint Workshop on Humanities-Centred Artificial Intelligence and Formal & Cognitive Reasoning (CHAI+FCR 2025), co-located with the 48th German Conference on Artificial Intelligence (KI 2025), CEUR Workshop Proceedings Vol. 4058, 2025, pp. 72–92. ceur-ws.org/Vol-4058/paper7.pdf
  - M. Plitt, N. Russwinkel: Modeling of Individual Naturalistic Decision Making in a Cognitive Architecture. In: Proceedings of the 10th Workshop on Formal and Cognitive Reasoning (FCR 2024), co-located with the 47th German Conference on Artificial Intelligence (KI 2024), CEUR Workshop Proceedings Vol. 3763, 2024, pp. 5–10. https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3763/paper0.pdf
• OrganiCity 
  Das Organicity-Projekt entwickelt das Konzept "Experimente als Service": In drei europäischen Städten (London, Santander, Aarhus) können Bürger, Unternehmen und die Stadt gemeinsam digitale Lösungen für städtische Herausforderungen entwerfen und umsetzen. Die Organicity-Platform erlaubt den Experimentierenden einfachen Zugriff auf Internet-basierte Services, die die Daten aus tausenden Sensoren zusammenführen und geordnet bereitstellen.
• Firestation (EU FP7 Call 5 CSA)
  Firestation supports all FIRE (Future Internet Research and Experimentation) projects - both facility and research projects - in their cooperation with each other and with international communities such as GENI. A major task is the operation of the so-called "FIRE Architecture Board".
• Hybrides Unterwasser-Umweltmonitoring („Zukunft Meer“)
  Hybrid underwater environmental monitoring is a project to investigate the feasibility of monitoring water conditions using sensor networks and mobile robots.
• iBAST Bridges are subject to a continual process of aging and injury and require continuous monitoring and maintenance, which is associated with considerable costs. Under acute pressure on costs, these measures are often minimized, which in the past led to the expansion of existing damage. The aim of this project is therefore to design a cost effective building management and maintenance through continuous monitoring with advanced information technology. Through the use of sensor network technology, existing measurements in the form of manual inspections should not be replaced but seamlessly complemented.
• IoT-I (EU FP7 Call 5 CSA) 
  The IoT initiative (IoT-i)works on a joint European strategic vision of the Internet of Things. It bootstraps the IOT International Forum.
• OR.NET - Sichere und dynamische Vernetzung in Operationsaal und Klinik
  Nowadays, numerous medical device vendors produce a large variety of medical device systems with different diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. New challenges arise to integrate these medical device systems in existing operating rooms and to connect them with complex clinical IT infrastructures. At the same time, a growing demand for using different and new medical device systems is emerging.
  In the OR.NET project, medical device vendors, clinicians, research institutes and even regulators pave the way to design novel software architectures for future hospitals. The project focusses in particular on the interoperability and safe use of distributed medical device systems. Previous projects aimed on technical feasability, whereas OR.NET aimes on future infrastructures that will be convertible to practical use and be approvable by means of regulatory affairs.
  Tools: OSCP-Explorer
• SmartLübeck
  The ITM is member of the Smart City Research Center Lübeck (SmartCiRCLe). In this context we are performing several activities in the city of Lübeck with partners from Science, Industry and Government.
• SmartSantander (EU FP7 Call 5 IP)
  In this project we build a city-scale experimental research facility for applications and services of a Smart City. We envision the deployment of in total 20,000 sensors in Belgrade, Guildford, Lübeck and Santander. In addition to the experimental platform we aim to provide useful services and applications for the inhabitants of the cities.
• SPITFIRE (EU FP7 Call 5 STREP)
  The goal of SPITFIRE is to investigate unified concepts, methods, and software infrastructures that facilitate the efficient development of applications that span and integrate the Internet and the embedded world. The key metric of success for our project is the effort required for development of robust, interoperable, and scalable applications in the Internet of Things (IoT).
• Ensembles (BMBF)
  In this project, we propose and study a radical change in the process of developing and deploying of interaction techniques. We aim to develop an interactive ecosystem from dynamically composed interaction components (Interaction Ensembles) according to users’ physical context, abilities, and preferences.
• BikeWars!
  The "BikeWars!" shows the potential of the SmartAssist platform. BikeWars is a multiplayer social exercise game which uses the health sensor values to improve training results and increase enjoyment during exercise. In BikeWars two or more bikers train together in a virtual bike race using home training bikes.
• Real-World G-Lab (BMBF)
  The G-Lab project develops a Germany-wide research and experimental facility used to investigate the interplay between new technologies and the requirements of emerging applications. The goal of the G-Lab project is to foster experimentally driven research to exploit Future Internet technologies.
• SmartAssist (BMBF)
  In the project SmartAssist, ambient in-home sensors in conjunction with a mobile component are used to monitor sudden or subtle changes in the daily routine. Through the integration of open standards (Android, OSGi, OpenSocial, etc.), the system can be extended in a flexible manner through context-sensitive services.
• WISEBED (EU FP7 STREP)
  WISEBED provides a multi-level infrastracture of interconnected testbeds of largescale wireless sensor networks for research purposes, pursuing an interdisciplinary approach that integrates the aspects of hardware, software, algorithms, and data. This will demonstrate how heterogeneous small-scale devices and testbeds can be brought together to form well-organized, large-scale structures, rather than just some large network.
• FRONTS (EU FP7 STREP)
  The aim of FRONTS is to provide a unifying scientific framework and a coherent set of design rules, for global systems resulting from the integration of autonomous interacting entities, dynamic multi-agent environments and ad-hoc mobile networks.
• SwarmNet (DFG)
  SwarmNet is to addresses problems that arise in networks during self-organized setup and operation. The sensor networks we consider consist of a potentially huge number of independent small devices that can communicate only by radio transmission. These devices are generally equipped with very scarce resources like energy, computing power and memory.
• FleGSens (BSI)
  FleGSens is a monitoring system for critical areas and properties which incorporates mechanisms to ensure information security. The prototype consists of 200 wirelessly communicating sensor nodes for monitoring a 500m long land strip. The system is focused on ensuring integrity and authenticity of generated alarms and availability in the presence of an attacker who may even compromise a limited number of sensor nodes.
• AutoNomos (DFG SPP 1183)
  In the AutoNomos project we use methods from the field of Organic Computing, in order to develop a distributed, self-organizing traffic information system.
• MarathonNet
• AESOP'S TALE
• L2D2
• Swarms
• TeKoMed
• WSNLAB
• FRED
• ANSim
• FlowerNet