Science Magazine of the Max Planck Society

Sailing the Rhine in the dead of night challenges even an experienced helmsman.
Ernst Dieter Gilles and his team at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems in Magdeburg have developed a navigation system to give boatmen a better view in situations like this. more

The title “Frau Dr.-Ing.,” which is used to address female engineers in German,is not as rare today as it was two decades ago. Today, it is even possible to find women engineers whose careers take a more unusual path than those of their male  colleagues – like the career of Ulrike Krewer, for example. The 32-year-old process engineer researches fuel cells at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems in Magdeburg.

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Some chemical processes behave like good-natured monsters: they can be controlled, but they remain fairly unpredictable – and that’s why they cost the chemical industry millions. Kau Sundmacher and his team at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems are radically simplifying just such unruly processes. Sometimes they are able to do this in a single step where the industry previously needed two. more

Navigating the Rhine on a dark and foggy night requires an experienced hand at the helm. If there is any visibility at all, distinguishing the navigation lights from the barrage of other ship and shore lights can be a formidable task. Ernst Dieter Gilles and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems in Magdeburg have developed an integrated navigation system that gives barge skippers a much clearer perspective in such situations. In fact, in the future, the system is intended to steer the vessel automatically more