Fraunhofer IESE at a Glance

Embedded Systems

Hidden in transportation systems, medical devices, consumer goods, and almost all other technical products, embedded systems are performing essential tasks that make our daily lives safer and more comfortable. Every year, more than three billion embedded components and devices are manufactured, incorporating 98% of all microprocessors built. Embedded systems are omnipresent, and our modern economy and society would be unable to survive without them..

The requirements regarding the reliability and functional safety of such systems are correspondingly high. Failures can rarely be tolerated – particularly when such failures might jeopardize people or the environment. At the same time, the systems are quickly becoming more complex, are highly interconnected, are developed in a distributed manner, and must also fulfill numerous, partly contradictory, functional and non-functional requirements at the same time. To master this challenge, the division “Embedded Systems” focuses on innovative methods and techniques for the cost-efficient development of highly dependable and safe systems. The division is organized into three departments dedicated to “Systems Engineering”, “Virtual Engineering”, and “Safety Engineering”.

Smart Digital Solutions

The digital transformation puts software and systems engineering at the heart of business and makes them the core of new, sometimes disruptive innovations that increasingly challenge established companies and success models.

Where previously disciplines and application areas could be clearly distinguished, we are currently experiencing a rapid fusion of products and services in the direction of Digital Ecosystems, which require a multidisciplinary approach. Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) promise completely new possibilities: from Smart Mobility to Industry 4.0. Across domains, business and technical processes increasingly depend on available data and software.

The division “Smart Digital Solutions” at Fraunhofer IESE deals with what concrete applications of digital innovations and intelligent solutions for tomorrow's digital society will look like and how they will evolve. Our focus is, on the one hand, on how to transform AI-based solutions into products and services with guaranteed qualities (such as trustworthiness) and, on the other hand, on the development of digital ecosystems for rural and urban areas.

More information on “Smart Digital Solutions” can be found here. 

Digital Ecosystem Engineering

Digital Ecosystems and digital platforms have fundamentally reshaped entire industries. They offer companies the opportunity for disruptive change with new business models. The best-known examples include AirBnB, Uber, and Amazon Marketplace; in Germany, companies such as Delivery Hero, ImmoScout24, and Flixbus have established Digital Ecosystems. This development is affecting more and more industries, and increasingly also the B2B sector.

The division “Digital Ecosystem Engineering” develops innovative methods and solutions for the establishment of Digital Ecosystems and the development of digital platforms. We provide support to companies from the initial design of Digital Ecosystems, assist with the technical implementation, and accompany their market entry. In doing so, we get directly involved in our customers’ projects and transfer our knowledge and our solutions to our customers. Our services in innovation-, systems and software engineering range from the initial generation of ideas and the design of digital solutions to the design and implementation of suitable architectures. We focus on quality attributes, with an emphasis on user experience, IT security, and data sovereignty. A majority of our methods is, of course, also suitable for system types other than digital platforms: For example, we also work on the development of other innovative data-based information systems, and especially on their modernization, in order to lead them into a successful future.