Prof. Dr. Dieter Schramm l Mechatronics
Personal Details
Dieter Schramm graduated in Mathematics at the University of Stuttgart in 1981, worked there from 1981-1986 as a research assistant and received his PhD in Engineering in 1986. From 1986-1998 he was with Robert Bosch GmbH as group leader, head of pre-development and series development departments for automotive systems. He then joined Tyco Electronics Ltd. in 1999 and held several positions as e.g. Director Global Automotive Engineering, CEO of Tyco Electronics Pretema GmbH and Product Director Global Mechatronic Products until 2004.
In 2004, he was appointed Full Professor and Head of the Chair of Mechatronics at the University of Duisburg-Essen and since 2006 elected Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Head of the de-partment Mechanical Engineering. Since 2010 he is also Director of the Center of Automotive Research (CAR) at the University of Duisburg-Essen.
In 2015, he was awarded as honorary doctor by the University of Miskolc, Hungary.
Along with his research activities he is Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Institute of Energy- and Environmental Technology (IUTA) (Rheinhausen), Associate of D+S-Automotive (Duisburg), Associate of Automotive Executive Education UG (Duisburg) and Director of Mercator Science & Education Ltd. (Kuala Lumpur).
Teaching
The Chair of Mechatronics offers a variety of courses to the Bachelor's and Master's degree programs' students under the Faculty of Engineering. The subjects explain the basic principles of Mechtronics and provide knowledge in vehicle dynamics, sensor and manipulator technology. The students also learn how to use numerical methods, the use of modern simulation methods and the design and planning of mechatronic systems and components.
The lectures provided in the Master's degree level are strongly related to the research areas in vehicle technology and manipulator technology and consequently, Masters' Theses are offered in these areas.
Research
Since the introduction of the term "Mechatronics" more than 30 years ago, it has been developed into a discipline of engineering sciences and also been well established both in science and industry. Mechatronics deals with the interaction of mechanical, electronic and information technology components. The Chair of Mechatronics at UDE was founded in 1991 and hence it is one of the oldest university-based chairs for Mechatronics in Germany. A team of about 20 scientists, headed by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. h.c. Dieter Schramm, is mainly working with applications in the mobility sector.
A main focus in both, research and teaching, is Vehicle Technology. Major emphasis is given on energy-efficient vehicle systems and electro-mobility, the development and use of driving simulators as well as the modeling and simulation of vehicle dynamics. Based on this, modern assistance systems are being developed and evaluated in tests on driver acceptance. Immediate practical applications are found in the automotive and component supply industry, in particular in systems for active and passive vehicle safety and for vehicle on-board networks.
The extensive research work in the area of driver assistance systems is being concentrated on the one hand, in cooperation with the chairs in the teaching unit Komedia on the Human-Machine interface and, on the other hand, on the use of "Machine Learning" methods in a variety of applications in the areas of driver assistance and driving dynamics.
Scientific studies on electro-mobility have been pursued at the chair since nearly 10 years. In the course of the accompanying research, the chair has been involved with several employees both in the fleet projects ColognEmobil and PREMIUM as well as in the CAR Sharing project RuhrAuto E. Within the scope of the projects, several hundred vehicles are equipped with data loggers and the results are scientifically evaluated.
In addition to the experimental recording of flotation data, the chair’s staff is involved in the investigations of traffic situations in driving simulators as well as in the simulation of traffic flows. One goal is to study the impact of electric motor drives and driver assistance systems on real traffic situations with up to 20,000 vehicles in real time. In driving simulators, there has already been an intensive cooperation with the Hochschule Westfalen for several years. In the simulation of large vehicle groups, the chair cooperates with the Chair of Distributed Systems (Prof. Torben Weis).
In the field of robotics, a major focus is given to the research on cable-driven robots. The field of application for this area is, for example, in the industrial assembly of large components, where cable robots make it possible to realise enormously large manipulators cost-effectively. Other fields of application are bearing technology. Here, a demonstrator is developed in the LEAN project, in cooperation with the Department of Transport Systems and Logistics (Prof. Bernd Noche) as well as a consortium of industrial partners, which is tested in practice-oriented use.
Cable robots also have great potential for the automated erection of buildings in the area of building construction. Here, a cooperation exists with the UDE Institute for Building Construction (Prof. Alexander Malkwitz). Due to its highly interdisciplinary character, however, the topic of research is also being explored across the entire university with chairs of the Ruhr University such as the Chair for Computer Science in Construction.
With these activities, the chair is working in co-operation with other departments of the faculty with focus on human-centered cyber-physical systems, Smart Engineering and Resource Engineering. The chair is also represented with research co-operations in the framework of the Areas of Focus of the Faculty of Engineering (Fakultätsschwerpunkte).
The Chair of Mechatronics is since many years part of the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) and was involved in the creation of the start-up companies Mercatronics GmbH, SHS GmbH, NectOne and D+S Automotive GmbH.