Ralf Steinmetz

Ralf Steinmetz

Ralf Steinmetz
Technische Universität Darmstadt   GERMANY

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ralf Steinmetz is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology as well as in the Department of Computer Science at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany. From 2002 to 2004, he managed the department as dean. Since 1996, he is managing director of the “Multimedia Communications Lab” and until end of 2001, he directed a Fraunhofer Institute. In 1999, he founded the Hessian Telemedia Technology Competence Center and holds a chair position. See www.kom.tu-darmstadt.de
He is the author and co-author of more than 820 publications. He has edited and co-written a multimedia course which reflects the major issues of the first in-depth technical book on multimedia technology. He has served as editor of various IEEE, ACM and other journals. He was awarded as Fellow of both, the IEEE and the ACM. He is a member of the Scientific Council and president of the Board of Trustees of the international research institute IMDEA Networks, Madrid, Spain.
Since 2005, he is serves as Hessen’s Advisor for Information and Communications Technology. In 2013, he became speaker of the DFG funded Collaborative Research Center MAKI – Multi-Mechanisms Adaptation for the Future Internet, which focusses on adaptive communication systems technologies for the Future Internet. See www.maki.tu-darmstadt.de

Research stay at UC3M: DEPARTMENT OF TELEMATIC ENGINEERING.

Project: Towards the Fundamentals of a Transition as a new Technology Paradigm of the Future Internet. Future communication systems will face (i) an increase in dynamics and variations of the conditions they operate in, (ii) a constantly increasing amount of use cases, and (iii) growing quality requirements. To deal with these challenges, the mechanisms of communication systems, representing both, communication protocols and parts thereof, have been constantly optimized and adapted. These changes lead to broad range of coexisting mechanisms that provide equivalent functionality under different conditions. The coexistence of mechanisms can be exploited to adapt future communication systems to a broad range of environmental conditions and functional requirements by seamlessly executing transitions between functional equivalent mechanisms.
To investigate the concept of transitions in communication systems, an exemplary decomposition of a wireless and wired communication systems into a set of mechanisms is conducted followed by an in-depth performance and cost analysis of individual mechanisms as well as entire compositions of mechanisms. Subsequently, a specification language is derived that allows for the description of functional aspects of mechanisms, their interdependencies, as well as their performance and cost profiles. Using the specification language, a repository of mechanisms is established, which forms the basis for a transition and optimization process. In context of this process, the overall communication system can and will be adapted by deriving and deploying an optimized mechanism configuration using transitions.

Stay period: FEB 15 - AUG 15