At the Institute for the Protection of Maritime Infrastructures in Bremerhaven, we research and develop innovative solutions to strengthen the resilience of maritime infrastructures and make them adaptable, safe and sustainable. In close cooperation with partners from research, industry and other maritime security stakeholders, we combine technological innovation with practical expertise and offer you the opportunity to work on pioneering projects.

What you can expect:

As a new team member in the Situational Awareness and Cyber Security Group within the Maritime Security Technologies Department, you will research innovative methods for collective self-organisation and cooperation strategies for autonomous unmanned vehicles on land, at sea and in the air (UxVs). These enable complex tasks to be tackled through a division of labour without the need for a central control component. You will initially develop and test your methods using models, and later using real sensor-carrying systems. To this end, you will also make use of joint testing missions with our partners. By integrating your work into our mission planning and situational awareness system, you will enable the control of the systems and access to the available sensors. This allows for the automatic, reliable and secure execution of data collection missions. Through your work, you will actively contribute to the creation of a robust, adaptive and decision-supporting situational awareness system for maritime infrastructure – directly linking fundamental research, technological innovation and practical application. We would be happy to offer you the opportunity to use these topics for a PhD.

Your tasks:

• You will model task distribution, role formation and coordination within autonomous system networks and, based on this, develop scalable and robust cooperation strategies.
• You will implement scientific prototypes of the developed methods for use on various sensor-carrying systems on land, at sea and in the air.
• You will integrate the developed prototypes into our mission planning and situational awareness system and support their further development.
• You will test the developed prototypes in the laboratory and in the field, including as part of joint testing campaigns with our partners.

What you bring to the role:

• A completed scientific university degree (Master’s / University Diploma) in Computer Science or another relevant field of study
• Good knowledge of software development, i.e. various programming languages (imperative, object-oriented, functional; at least C++ as well as Java or Python), of data structures, algorithms, software architectures, software development processes and software development tools, in particular build tools (e.g. CMake, Gradle, Cargo), version control (Git), test environments, virtualisation (e.g. KVM, Docker), collaboration and CI/CD (e.g. GitLab)
• Experience in setting up and configuring embedded systems, as well as in the design and implementation of software for safety-critical embedded systems, for example for UUVs or other UxVs, and in the administration of Linux systems
• Initial experience in the design and optimisation of databases for the processing of geodata
• Knowledge of the technical and conceptual fundamentals of computer networks, as well as the development of networked systems for the processing of real-time data
• Knowledge of the mathematical and conceptual fundamentals of probabilistic, logic-based and data-driven methods for decision-making under uncertainty, as well as the technical and conceptual fundamentals of multi-agent systems
• Good written and spoken English, as well as the ability to communicate complex research findings clearly and precisely

Remuneration is based on qualifications and assigned duties, up to pay grade 13 of the TVöD.

We look forward to getting to know you!

If you have any questions about this position (Vacancy-ID 5187) please contact:

Dr. Jannis Stoppe
Tel.: +49 471 924199 43

Dr. Maurice Stephan
Tel.: +49 471 924199 42