In the course of the digital transformation and the resulting increase in complexity and networking of organizations and machines, enterprise cybernetics provides methods and tools for the intelligent control and regulation of complex, socio-technical systems as well as their subsystems and processes.
The Institute for Enterprise Cybernetics e.V. (IfU) is a non-profit, independent, cross-industry and interdisciplinary research and development institute at RWTH Aachen University. Application-oriented research is conducted in three research groups - Economic and Social Cybernetics, Technical Cybernetics and Mobile Robotics.
Economic and Social Cybernetics explores the interactions of technical, economic, organizational and cultural factors in science and industry. The focus of technical cybernetics is the development and research of intelligent planning and control systems using methods from the research fields of artificial intelligence, distributed systems, and neuroscience. In an interdisciplinary team of engineers, business economists, humanities scholars, psychologists and physicists, holistic models and solutions for practical applications are thus researched and put into practice, taking into account the recursion levels human - organization-technology. Mobile robotics deals in particular with the autonomy and navigation of mobile robot systems in partially structured and unstructured environments. These systems are applied and tested in application areas such as intralogistics, on construction sites, in the service sector (e.g. in geriatric care) and on streets, sidewalks and in parks, e.g. for last mile delivery systems.
Christoph Henke
