Sustainable Communication Networks
ComNets Blog and Twitter channel
Prof. Anna Förster has just started a new blog to share her educational and research experiences, check it out here:
https://blogs.uni-bremen.de/profanna/
We now also have a brand-new Twitter channel, follow us here:
Contacting Anna Förster
Office hour
online via Zoom
Thursday 14:00-15:00 hrs
PLEASE NOTE!
no office hours on:
March 23,
April 6,
May 11 and 18.
Overview
The main research focus of the Sustainable Communication Networks group at the University of Bremen is design and performance analysis of communication networks and their protocols. This includes the implementation of prototypes as well as performance studies by mathematical analysis and simulation. The main keywords are: sensor networks, opportunistic networks, future internet. An important aspect across all reseach projects is sustainability in a two-fold aspect, i.e. how communication networks can enhance the sustainability of networking applications, and how the network itself can be designed in a sustainable way. Research projects are mainly funded by national and international government institutions.
The group consists of several post-docs as well as fully employed research assistants working on research projects and their doctoral thesis. Additionally there is a small technical and assisting team and many students working as student workers or doing their thesis.
News
November 2022
New Seminar Series "Connect-Them-All"
In the upcoming talk of the connect-them-all seminar, Dr. Dirk Pesch will talk about Low Power Wide-Area Wireless Internet of Things with LoRaWAN.
Date: January 05, 2023
Live stream: https://bit.ly/3VHBBiI
For further details please visit the website: www.connect-them-all.net
Please subscribe to our newsletter for regular update about the Seminar:
https://mailman.zfn.uni-bremen.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/connect_them_all
Organizers:
Prof. Dr. Anna Förster | Comnets, University of Bremen - https://www.uni-bremen.de/comnets/people/personal-profiles/prof-dr-anna-foerster
Dr. Marco Zennaro | Science, Technology and Innovation Unit, The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics - http://users.ictp.it/~mzennaro/
Prof. Dr. Pietro Manzoni | Department of Computer Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de València - https://pmanzoni.github.io/
Dr. Fredrik Ahlgren | Faculty of Technology, Linnæus University - https://lnu.se/en/staff/fredrik.ahlgren/
October 2022
New Lecture "Grundlagen der Informationstechnik"
With the winter semester 2022/23, we have started a new lecture "Grundlagen der Informationstechnik" (Foundations of Information Technology) for Bachelor students in Electrical Engineering and related programs. More information is available here.
September 2022
New Project "Smart Farming Made Simple"
We have launched a new project named "Smart Farming Made Simple" which aims at the development of low-cost, self-configuring sensor and actuator nodes for smart agriculture. More details are available here.
May 2022
New technologies for more efficient tropical medicine" is a new joint DAAD project between
ComNets and Mahidol University in Bangkok.
Read more about this exciting project here:
November 2021
Best paper award at IEEE GHTC Conference for our PhD student Gibson Kimutai
Our PhD student Gibson Kimutai (in cooperation with the University of Rwanda and Moi University, Kenya) has won the best paper award at the IEEE Global Humanitarian Conference - congratulations! He is working on bringing the Internet of Things and Machine Learning to Tea factories in developing countries and his results can be easily transferred to other industrial processes. Check out his talk here:
His papers are available here:
1.7.2021: IoT Innovation Project starts
Recognising and repelling wolves with an intelligent fence
Our project “mAInZaun: Modular and AI assisted Intelligent Fence for Protecting Domestic Animals” has received financing from the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) and is now running from beginning of July 2021 until end of June 2024. Together with the University of Giessen and RoFlex GmbH, we will design, develop and prototype an intelligent fence, which is able to reliably recognise approaching wolves and to scare them off by using light, ultrasound, moving elements, scent marks, etc. One unique property of our system will be the recognition of individual wolves and the personalisation of the repellant methods applied to avoid habituation, a common problem with other wolf repellants. More information about this project can be found on the dedicated website: https://www.intelligenter-herdenschutz.de. A press release (in German) is available here: https://www.uni-bremen.de/universitaet/hochschulkommunikation-und-marketing/aktuelle-meldungen/detailansicht/der-intelligente-zaun-gegen-den-wolf
18.09.2021: MoleNet with its own website
Our large ongoing project MoleNet has received its own website, which you can find here: http://molenet.org. There, you can find information about the hardware and software, about our publications and cooperations and especially how to contribute! Join the team by making a project or a thesis with us!
On the Same Side ― Prof. Förster talks about the challenges of online teaching
The lecture period of summer semester 2020 was a challenge for staff and students, all lectures had to be done online. In University's online magazine up2date, Prof. Förster talks about her experience with online teaching.
Prof. Förster receives Berninghausen Award 2019
Prof. Förster has received the Berninghausen Award 2019 in the category “excellent and innovative lectures”. Prof. Förster and hear team have deployed the Inverted Classroom concept in the lecture “Foundations of Computer Science” for Bachelor Students in the study program “Electrical and Information Engineering”. This teaching method shifts the task of acquiring the basic knowledge from the classroom presentation to videos and supporting learning material which the students can access anytime and anywhere through the e-learning platform. The Center for Multimedia in Teaching (ZMML) assisted the ComNets group in setting up the facilities for recording and editing the videos. The time in the classroom is used for programming assignments (“Hackathons”) which the students have to work out in teams and which are part of the grading.
The lecture includes two semesters. In the first one, the Arduino platform is used for the Hackathons which demonstrates the interaction of programming and electronic circuits which is in particular motivating for Electrical Engineering students – “software meets hardware”. The second semester introduces the powerful, but easy-to-learn Python scripting language.
More information is available here.
ComNets goes on air
ComNets now has its own YouTube channel where you will find our inverted-classroom teaching videos as well as information about our research and related topics. As a first step, the videos for the inverted-classroom lecture series "Grundlagen der Informatik" (German) are available. The videos are published in the course of the ongoing lecture.
General Studies Seminar "Aspects of Sustainability"
In the seminar "Aspects of Sustainability" we will learn about the different and sometimes contradictory aspects of sustainability by viewing various documentary films (English with German subtitles) and have a discussion after each film. The seminar is part of the General Studies and open for all university members. The seminar starts on Thursday, 25th October at 18:00 hrs in lecture hall H2. More information is available here.
Presentation in Ruzena Bajcsy Lectures on Communications
The head of the Sustainable Communication Networks Department, Prof. Anna Förster, gave a presentation titled "Organic Data Dissemination in Opportunistic Networks" in the context of the lecture series "Ruzena Bajcsy Lectures on Communications" at University of Darmstadt, Germany. A summary of the event can be found here.
ComNets goes to space!
Just a couple of days ago, ComNets became partner in the European Space Agency Topical Team on Tissue Healing in Space, where it will contribute to the communication and data analysis system for innovative sensor devices.
PhD student of ComNets develops miner location system
In cooperation with the Wits mining institute in South Africa, a PhD student of the ComNets department, Idrees Zaman, is working on a system which assists miners by providing information about possible threats and supporting rescue staff to locate miners who have become lost in case of a disaster. The system is based on a wireless underground sensor network which is under development at the ComNets department. There is an article about the project in the South African newspaper "Sowetan" and a video by Wits university available on Youtube.
kids4mint - ran an die Elektrotechnik!
Gerade ist die erste kids4mint Kinder-Sommerschule erfolgreich abgeschlossen! Wir hatten viel Spass, gutes Wetter und tolle Experimente zusammen gemacht. 12 Kinder im Alter von 10 bis 12 Jahren haben Motoren gebastelt, elektrotechnische Schaltungen kennengelernt und kleine Maschinen gebastelt.
Nächstes Jahr im Sommer geht es weiter - also sofort auf die Mailing Liste setzen und gespannt bleiben!
We are member of the high-profile area Minds, Media, Machines
ComNets has become a member of the the high-profile area Minds, Media, Machines which is a cooperation between researchers of different disciplines in the topic of intelligence, cognition in autonomous agents and teams of agents in the context of mediatized worlds. More information is available under this link.