Mission & Focus

The Cyber-Physical Systems research group develops user-friendly, reliable automation systems while exploring innovative applied research that integrates state-of-the-art research in privacy and cybersecurity. Our mission is to leverage distributed energy flexibility for efficient urban energy transitions with a focus on industry applications.

Key Research Topics

Our main areas of research include:

• Energy flexibility from EV and buildings
• User-friendly and data-driven automation
• Applied research in privacy and cybersecurity

Selected research projects

Our group is actively involved in the following projects:

• HEATWISE- HEATWISE is a Horizon Europe project. We are working together with the Buildings & Cities Group on this project. The project aims to develop and validate a comprehensive solution to optimize significant amounts of consumed energy and exploit some untapped potential for waste heat recovery in data centres and tertiary buildings. HEATWISE will deliver impacts towards key principles of the EU decarbonisation plan: ensuring a secure, clean, and affordable EU energy supply by promoting a currently unutilised heat source and setting a price to deliver benefits. We focus on developing integrated, multi-objective energy management systems, merging energy requirements of IT equipment thermal management with building-scale HVAC needs.
• nanoverbund - The conceptual idea behind a nanoverbund is to connect close-by buildings thermally. This thermal connection allows for an energy exchange between the already existing heating system of the participating buildings, similar to "prosumer communities" (ger. ZEV ZusammenschlusszumEigenverbrauch), which exchanges electrical energy behind a common metering point. Especially in cases where the connected buildings possess different heating systems and/or renewable energy sources and storage or differing energy demand profiles, interconnecting individual systems leads to synergies between the buildings and may benefit the distribution grid operators.
• MSCA DN CoDeF - The CoDeF project is an EU Marie Sklodowska-Curie PhD training network focused on the topic of consumer energy demand flexibility. This research project provides a fantastic opportunity for researchers interested in the energy transition.  We are working together with the Buildings & Cities Group on this project.
• Kuafu - Kuafu is an Empa spin-off providing a platform that acts as a customized intermediary between energy management providers and electrical grid operators to unlock the local flexibility from e-mobility and smart buildings at the grid level. The spin-off builds on over 5 years of research projects within the lab, with funding sourced from SNF, SFOE, FOGA, Empa, and EU.