FOKUS Research Areas

The research areas of FOKUS are based on the assumption that the future use of information and communication technologies requires the technological basis to be more flexible and universal and that infrastructures, services, terminal equipment and content should be seamlessly connected.

In the future, only personalized systems will be able to meet the user’s requirements for constant availability and convenient use. This implies the need for new developments in the fields of communication networks, service platforms and application systems as well as in context-related availability and the delivery of multimedia content. A new kind of software development has to be adopted in order to handle the complexity of future communication and application systems.

FOKUS is working in the following research areas:

Future Internet and Autonomic Communication
In this research area new network-based methods are explored in order to implement functions for self-management and self-protection for the Internet of the Future.

Next Generation Network Architecture and Infrastructures
This research area focuses on component-based service platforms for converging systems of Next Generation Networks, the integration of telecommunication and Web technologies and the provision of a test bed for NGN services.

Media Interoperability: Media 3.0
The emphasis of this research area is on the development of new interactive media formats and their distribution by different packet-based networks. For this purpose, the whole value chain is considered from the technical point of view in order to analyze and improve, for example, the production, allocation and consumption of content.

Model Driven Engineering and Testing
This research area is the modelling and testing of software-intensive systems in the fields of telecommunication, IT and automotive.

Automotive Systems
This research area is working on automobile-oriented communication with the objective of advancing security, efficiency and comfort as well as on model-based development und testing of automotive software.

Web of Services und Communities
The future of Web-based and mobile communication systems (Web X.0), the development and extension of architectures of “Next Generation Service Overlays” (NGSON), and the adaptable service environment in communities are the main tasks of this research area.

Architectures und Services in eGovernment
The main focus here is on new strategies for eContent, such as process orientation and service-orientated architectures as well as technical, semantic and organizational interoperability. Other issues are high performance packages, knowledge-based legal systems and the interaction of Open Source and Closed Source Systems.