The reviewers of the examination committee with the successful doctoral candidate (from left to right): Prof. Dr. Moritz Diehl (University of Freiburg), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Johannes Reuter (HTWG Konstanz), Hannes Homburger (University of Freiburg / HTWG Konstanz), Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Andreas Rauh (University of Oldenburg).
On June 18, 2026, Hannes Homburger successfully defended his dissertation at the University of Freiburg with "summa cum laude." His dissertation, titled "Optimal Control for Efficient Vessel Operation: From Theory to Real-World Applications," was supervised by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Johannes Reuter, Head of the Institute for System Dynamics (ISD) at HTWG Konstanz, and Prof. Dr. Moritz Diehl, Head of the Systems Control and Optimization Laboratory (SYSCOP) at the University of Freiburg. The research was conducted between 2022 and 2026, during which time Hannes Homburger was employed as a research associate at the ISD Konstanz and enrolled as a cooperative doctoral candidate at the SYSCOP Laboratory of the University of Freiburg.
In his research, he developed and investigated new methods for the numerical solution of optimal control problems. These found direct application in the energy-efficient control of real vessels on Lake Constance. His time in research was also characterized by interdisciplinary collaborations: These included professional exchanges on motion planning with ZF Friedrichshafen, joint work in the SGC project with the University of Konstanz, as well as with Bodensee-Schiffsbetriebe GmbH (BSB).
Furthermore, he was passionately committed to teaching: As a freelance lecturer, he taught the course "Control Systems" at the DHBW Stuttgart and established the new lecture course "Optimal Control with Applications in Robotics" at the Faculty EI of the HTWG Konstanz.
The ISD warmly congratulates Mr. Homburger on the successful completion of his doctorate!
The Institute of System Dynamics (ISD) Konstanz and the Faculty EI congratulate Dr.-Ing. Michael Schuster very warmly to the doctorate, which was awarded the top score of summa cum laude. The doctorate was supervised by Prof. Reuter in cooperation with Prof. Wanielik, professor of communications engineering, at TU-Chemnitz. Mr. Schuster is thus the second doctoral candidate of the ISD working group on control engineering and sensor data fusion, founded in 2010.
In addition to maritime scenarios, the co-operation with the TU-Chemnitz also involved questions on the field of environment recognition for automotive driver assistance systems. In the course of time, the concrete scientific questions emerged, to which Mr Schuster wanted to contribute. Multi-sensor data fusion is an area with especially high research activity due to the requirements for automated driving.
A central scientific result is the exact formulation and solution of the general filter equations for the tracking of extended multiple targets based on random matrices, the so-called Multiple-Detection Joint Integrated Probabiilistic Data Association Filter (MD-JIPDA). With this method, in addition to the state estimation of multiple targets under interference conditions, the extent of the tracked objects can also be determined based on e.g. Radar data. In addition to the theoretical elaboration in a variety of simulatory and experimental investigations, Michael Schuster compared his approach with the state of the art and proved that his MD-JIPDA filter in many cases provides better results than with methods currently available.
We congratulate Mr. Schuster on the successful doctorate and we wish Dr. Schuster all the best for the private and professional future.
Michael Blaich, research associate at the Institue of System Dynamics, has successfully completed his doctoral procedure at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg on June 10th 2016. His dissertation is entitled "Path Planning and Collision Avoidance for Safe Vessel Autonomous Navigation in Dynamic Environments".
We congratulate Mr. Blaich on the successful doctorate!
