How cyber-physical systems (CPS) are by no means just futuristic concepts but already relevant players in our real world, Prof. Dr. Bernd-Christian Renner and Prof. Dr. Olaf Landsiedel vividly demonstrated in their inaugural lectures on November 25, 2025, providing insights into their research focus areas.
With his lecture on “Reliable Internet of Things for Mice and Men,” a familiar face sets the thematic framework of the EIM colloquium, guest speaker Prof. Dr. Kay Uwe Römer from TU Graz: “I can only congratulate TUHH for having appointed two outstanding scientists in Olaf Landsiedel and Christian Renner. I have worked closely with both for more than a decade, including in scientific competitions on reliability and sustainability of the Internet of Things, where they achieved top ranks internationally with their innovative technical solutions.”
“Towards a Life Without Batteries”
“To be quite frank: The Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical Systems have a battery problem.” Prof. Dr.-Ing. Bernd-Christian Renner, Head of the Institute for Autonomous Cyber-Physical Systems at TUHH, directly pinpoints the ‘crux of the matter’ for his research on energy autonomy at the start of his inaugural lecture. Our critical infrastructure – such as bridges, train stations, or wind farms – must become smarter. To prevent a sudden bridge collapse like in Genoa, sensors are indispensable for early detection of cracks or structural elasticity. “However, if billions or trillions of tiny sensors were equipped with batteries, we would face a massive environmental problem or an insane, unmanageable battery replacement demand, or both,” outlines Christian Renner the challenge that leads him to the conclusion: “Battery-free sensors – powered either by renewable sources or wirelessly supplied by energy transmission – are essential.” In the case of the bridge, this would mean, for example, solar cells combined with intelligent algorithms to bridge the night. These algorithms determine precisely when and how measurements are taken to collect data efficiently and continuously. Alternatively, the bridge could be equipped with sensors powered wirelessly via so-called vibration or acoustic harvesters by a remote reader using sound or vibration energy. The resulting mechanical movement is used by the sensors to supply themselves with energy and to passively transmit their measurement data, similar to RFID (Radio Frequency Identification).
“Both versions operate completely energy-autonomously and maintenance-free,” summarizes Renner, who has been working at TUHH since 2016 as Junior Professor and head of the smartPort research group. In 2020, he accepted a call to the University of Koblenz-Landau before returning to TUHH in 2022 to assume his current position.
“From Connected Things to Thinking Systems”
While Renner focuses on energy autonomy, Prof. Dr. Olaf Landsiedel, Head of the Institute for Networked Cyber-Physical Systems at TU Hamburg, concentrates on connectivity and artificial intelligence. “The way we design and deploy intelligent networks today has fundamentally changed,” he explains at the outset, “because Internet of Things (IoT), CPS, AI, and increasing connectivity are increasingly converging.” Within modern CPS, a paradigm shift has taken place from the traditional focus on mere data collection to the use of AI at the edge of the network. “Decisions can thereby be made in real time directly at the point of data generation.” Numerous current application examples of such “edge-native intelligence” already exist, according to Landsiedel. For example, underwater sensing applied together with Geomar in Kiel: very small devices containing minimal battery power and computing resources but highly efficient AI systems are deployed on the seabed to operate autonomously. If they detect something interesting – such as an earthquake in this instance – the sensors report independently. Another example from the computer science professor concerns autonomous ships: The intelligent sensor on board predicts how the cellular network will behave in the next few minutes and accordingly advises against complicated maneuvers or autonomously switches off a camera that is unnecessary at that moment.
Prof. Landsiedel had been a Professor of Computer Science at Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel since 2018 before being appointed to TU Hamburg in April 2025 to lead the new Institute for Networked Cyber-Physical Systems.
