The institute is engaged in selected research questions for the design, modeling and analysis of networked, wireless and embedded systems. The spectrum ranges from hardware components and network protocols to applications, from pure knowledge-driven basic research to prototype realization. This focus is unique in the Austrian academic environment.

Professor Huemer’s research group is concerned in particular with hardware-oriented aspects, signal processing and the physical layer of wireless communication systems. Professor Bettstetter’s research group is immediately related to this group and researches questions of networking (algorithms and protocols, modeling, network theory, system architectures). Professor Rinner’s team is the most application-oriented research group with the main focus on intelligent cameras, sensor networks and fusion.

- Embedded Systems and Signal Processing Group

- Mobile Systems Group

A high value was placed on a ‘good mix’ of research projects.

For this reason the institute portfolio currently includes the following project types (end of 2008):

* Institute’s own projects, scholarship projects as well as projects funded by the ‘FWF’ (Funds for the Promotion of Scientific Research), in which basic and technological questions are researched at a high scientific level;

* Projects funded by the ‘FFG’ (Society for the Promotion of Research), in particular within the scope of the FIT-IT und COMET programs, in which a small consortium of industrial and academic partners deal with

technological and application-oriented questions;

* Research assignments from industrial partners, in which both sides work on technological and application-oriented questions;

* Projects within the scope of Lakeside Labs, which enable large research ventures to be carried out in collaboration with several institutes and external partners and

in this way to create a thematic main focus;

* A project funded by the European Research Council (ESF) for the mobility and international networking of junior scientists.