The research cluster “Environmental Sensing and Deployment Platforms” coordinates and fosters all engineering activities for the development of sensor-technology and automized or even autonomous robotic platforms required for environmental and climate research. At Hamburg University of Technology, sensors for temperature, water, salinity, conductivity , distance-measurement, ballistics and body-sound in spectroscopic and tomographic applications are under development and part of ongoing research. Those combined with platforms like drifters, underwater robotics, and land-based robots drive innovative solutions to global challenges, not only considering the pure acquisition of data, but also the safe and secure transmission and data-exchange. For example underwater communication technologies enable seamless data exchange between platforms, enhancing real-time environmental monitoring and analysis. Satellite support further amplifies these efforts by integrating measurements and distributing data for large-scale climate research and monitoring. These systems contribute to soil quality assessment (SDG 2), protecting ecosystems (SDG 15), and track ocean and urban climate dynamics (SDG 13). Our cluster is open to global collaborations on devices but especially also towards users of our technology, which we are supporting covering aspects of system-design, system-data-exchange, of course specific sensor development and field-implementation in any relevant area.

The cluster is led by Prof. Dr. Thorsten A. Kern, Professor of Mechatronics. For more information about this cluster contact t.a.kern@tuhh.de