paluno – The Ruhr Institute for Software Technology

Research Areas

An outline of paluno’s research areas is available at www.paluno.uni-due.de.

Examples of current research themes are:

• Augmented Reality Interface: Our research in this area includes work on the use of smart glasses to assist the elderly in their everyday life. Here we apply a specific set of methods to test smart glasses to evaluate, together with our industrial partners, their role in 24/7 health care provision.
• Automatic assessment of eLearning tasks: Our software system supports test composition, automatic analysis and evaluation of responses to open and closed questions in both strong and weak structured domains such as mathematics, economics or education. The system additionally provides structured feedback to support students in solving the tasks.
• Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) form a network of systems that interact on a situation-­dependent basis to fulfil complex services. To ­ensure the reliability of such complex systems, new methods of modelling and simulation are being developed which reproduce the tasks executed by them as closely as possible. Central to CPS research is the development of a comprehensive engineering approach that con­siders and defines all facets and aspects of CPS, from requirements analysis, system design and implementation to start-up and operation.
• Digital transformation: Our focus in this research area is on organizational structure and the design of suitable processes for the digital transformation.  For example, we research under which conditions it makes sense to ­systematically extend the scope of traditional IT departments, set up a dedicated organizational IT unit, or even shift activities to new organizations. In addition we research how centralized or distributed innovation management processes and governance should be integrated into an organization.
• Runtime adaptation of software-intensive systems: Future software-intensive systems must have the capacity to adapt to unforeseen changes during runtime. At paluno, we work with partners in European and German research consortia to develop innovative adaptation techniques for software-intensive systems and techniques to dynamically predict the need for changes during runtime (“predictive monitoring”).
• Localization: Work in this area focuses on the development of methods for automatic recalibration of wireless indoor localization systems. We evaluate usage of such systems in real life and develop models and algorithms to improve their accuracy, including in changing environments.
• Security, safety, trust: Quality requirements such as security, safety, privacy, trust and compliance must be given due consideration at an early stage for successful software development. Our research in this area focuses especially on requirements engineering, generation of architecture alternatives, and threat identification and assessment. 
• Safety-related systems: For safety-related automotive systems (ISO 26262) we cover the entire development process, from hazard analysis and risk assessment, suitable functional and technical safety requirements and concepts to appropriate verification and validation activities. Specific UML profiles provide appropriate modelling constructs and extend formal valid­ation options.
• Software architectures and development platforms: Our research in this area focuses on flexible applications for supporting key business processes, and specifically on suitable mobile application front-ends. Activities to support the development of such applications include designing flexible IT architectures and patterns and creating suitable agile software development processes. Continuous evaluation of the latest platforms for server and mobile components is a further element of our work in this area.