Professor Matthias Gerdts holds the Chair of Engineering Mathematics at the Institute of Applied Mathematics and Scientific Computing and heads an interdisciplinary team of mathematicians and engineers.

Engineering problems, especially in the aerospace sector, are becoming ever more complex and are difficult to work on without computer-based simulation methods and optimization procedures. Efficient mathematical methods play a key role in this context. The engineering mathematics team develops mathematical methods for the modelling, simulation and especially the optimization and control of dynamic processes in engineering applications.

One focus of our research activities is the development of numerical methods for trajectory optimization/path planning and their translation into software packages. Based on this work, real-time optimization methods and model-predictive control methods for the path planning of autonomous systems are developed. These methods have been developed in collaboration with the automobile industry, the German Aerospace Center, the ESA and others and are applied in computing collision-free trajectories for docking maneuvers and in planning paths for mobile robots and automated vehicles.

For detailed information, see the Mathematical Engineering website >

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^{Images: © Angelika Wagener / Universität der Bundeswehr München}