The mission of the Institute for Software Technology is research and development in software engineering technologies, and the incorporation of these technologies into DLR software projects. Current activities focus on software for distributed systems and intelligent systems, artificial intelligence, software technologies for embedded systems, visualization, data science, and high-performance computing.
Software development costs account for an increasing fraction of the overall labor cost in R&D projects. For DLR, this fraction amounts to about a quarter of its personnel. As compared to manual techniques which still prevail in software development, the use of state-of-the-art software engineering technologies leads to better project results and more efficient development processes. In cooperation with DLR’s engineering institutes, the DLR Institute for Software Technology takes part in demanding software development projects where it complements the application know-how of the other project partners.
Through its cooperation with world-wide leading partners as well as its collaboration in international forums and standardization bodies, the Institute for Software Technology takes an active role in the development of new software technologies and builds up corresponding expertise at DLR for future projects.
The DLR Institute for Software Technology has branches in Cologne, in Braunschweig and in Oberpfaffenhofen. Furthermore, the institute is represented at the DLR locations Berlin, Bremen, Cochstedt and Hamburg. It is divided into the departments "Intelligent and Distributed Systems", "Software for Space Systems and Interactive Visualization" and "High-Performance Computing".