Smart Sensors Group

This week, the Smart Sensors Group had the privilege to take part in an exceptional experiment at HollandPTC, conducted within the framework of the RADNEXT initiative. The main goals of our experiment were 1) Observing the radiation resilience of SpacePatch, our SCG sensor system designed for astronaut health monitoring and 2) Validating the ISFD mechanism in FPGAs for Single Event Upset (SEU) detection. Both experiments were successfully carried out under a proton beam environment. Huge thanks to our PhD researchers Kazi Mohammad Abidur Rahman and Lucas Bublitz for their excellent planning and flawless execution of the experiment, and to HollandPTC, with special appreciation to Thomas Toet and Dr. rer. nat. Nils Krah, for their excellent support. We are also grateful to RADNEXT for providing this invaluable opportunity.

In the upcoming winter semester WS25, we will again offer interesting courses. The lecture Energieeffizienz in eingebetteten Systemen and two Seminare on the topics of recent topics in machine learning, and sensors under space conditions. Another interesting course will be Research Based Learning. Seats are limited, please read the comments on the websites.

To mark the anniversary of the Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre, NDR Hamburg Journal produced a report in which our CubeSat LAB was also featured. Many thanks to NDR for the wonderful presentation of our work, and we hope that we will be able to further expand teaching at the TUHH in the field of space electronics in the future. The report is available in the ARD media library here.

Davis Rakhshan joined the Smart Sensors group as Doctoral Researcher with the 1st of September. He will strengthen our research team and will work on the very exciting project BioDivKI2. Welcome, Davis!

The DLR released a very nice video that illustrates the PLUTO mission. Furthermore, the video shows nice insights to the architecture and components of the Satellite. We are proud and feel very honored that we are part of this great mission with our RISA experiment. Video can be found here and many thanks to our partners from DLR Bremen.

KORVEKSiS is dedicated to the overarching research question of how seismocardiographic signals (SCG) can be clearly characterized using resource-limited sensor technology in order to offer cost-effective, portable alternatives to traditional imaging methods for diagnostics and monitoring in medical care, prevention, and health promotion in the future. In the project, 3D acceleration sensors are fused with 3D gyroscopes and compensated, orientation-configurable local vectors are derived. This enables a location-based interpretation of the SCG signals based on the sensor position. In KORVEKSiS, previously KORVEKSiS takes into account previously neglected measurement uncertainties of the reference systems (artifacts, latencies, jitter, drift). Compensated location vectors provide a more stable and standardizable basis for the assignment of characteristic cardiac physiological signals of the reference systems, which are used in translational models. The project is funded by the DFG under the grant number 542151450.

As part of the two ongoing projects SArES and AuRelia we develop a spacegrade SCG sensor SpacePatch. Using the technology of this sensor, measurements of SCG in zero gravity and under hyper-g were carried out from June 2 to June 13, 2025, during the 44th DLR parabolic flight campaign. The aim was to collect data in order to investigate the hypothesis of artifact formation under gravity conditions during SCG signal formation. The measurement campaign was successful and data was collected from all phases of the flight. The data is currently being evaluated to derive novel signal processing for SCG. Further information can be found in the DLR press release. Many thanks to DLR, NoveSpace and our project partner from Bielefeld University.

Under the name RISA - short for Reliability Investigation of Low Power FPGAs for Space Applications - the flight model of the payload was handed over to the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Bremen following successful laboratory tests. This handover marks an important milestone, as the system will now be integrated into DLR's PLUTO satellite (Payload under Test Orbiter), which is due to be launched into space on the Spectrum rocket in the third quarter of 2025.

In the upcoming summer semester SS25, we will again offer interesting courses. The 'classic' lecture Smart Sensors for master students as well as our highlight Grundlagen Raumfahrtelektronik for bachelor students are on the List. One additional Seminare on the topic of RIOT OS complete the teaching activities.

Here we go! Our BMBF-funded joint project Biointakt - BioDivKI2 has started. Under the coordination of TU Clausthal and with the partners University of Göttingen, CAU Kiel, JKI, wer denkt was GmbH and Agvolution GmbH, we will be researching methods of biodiversity factor measurement based on robust intelligent acoustic sensors over the next 3 years. More information on the BioIntAkt website and our internal BioDivKI2 webpage.

On November 11, 2024 at 8:38 a.m., DLR's MAPHEUS 15 sounding rocket took off from Kiruna, Sweden, for a flight of over 300 km. Full press release of the TUHH can be found here. On board were 6 SpacePatches sensor systems from the Smart Sensors Group, which were developed as part of the ongoing AuRelia and SArES projects. Christopher Büchse played a key role in the project under the name RocketPatch. Many thanks to Dr. Jens Hauslage for enabling this opportunity and kudos to the entire DLR MAPHEUS team.

Missions to the moon and Mars are increasingly attracting the interest of manned space travel. What does this mean for researchers and space travelers? This question was the focus of the latest “Future Lecture” at Hamburg University of Technology. A particular highlight of the event was that TU Hamburg was able to welcome Dr. Markus Braun from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) as a guest speaker.