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In­sti­tute of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Nav­i­ga­tion

Optical Ground Station Oberpaffenhofen
Op­ti­cal Ground Sta­tion Oberp­faf­fen­hofen
Image 1/8, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Optical Ground Station Oberpfaffenhofen

The Op­ti­cal Ground Sta­tion Oberp­faf­fen­hofen (OGS-OP) was de­vel­oped for the ac­qui­si­tion of sci­en­tif­ic mea­sure­ment da­ta in var­i­ous sce­nar­ios of op­ti­cal free-space com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Air­craft and satel­lite ex­per­i­ments can be car­ried out with it.
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A quadrocopter is an aircraft that uses four vertically downward acting rotors and propellers arranged in a plane to generate lift and propulsion.
Quadro­copter
Image 2/8, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Quadrocopter

In our out­door ex­per­i­ments, quadro­copters act com­plete­ly au­tonomous­ly in the swarm. They ex­change in­for­ma­tion with each oth­er and de­cide where they fly on their own.
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Large antenna in Weilheim, used for the verification of GNSS signals above the noise floor.
Large an­ten­na in Weil­heim
Image 3/8, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Large antenna in Weilheim

An­ten­na sys­tems are re­quiredIn or­der to com­mu­ni­cate with space­craft. DLR's ground sta­tion in Weil­heim, 60 kilo­me­tres south-west of Mu­nich, which was com­mis­sioned in 1969, is the link be­tween Earth and satel­lites. The large an­ten­na is used to ver­i­fy GNSS sig­nals.
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Flight model of the OSIRIS4CubeSat laser terminal
Flight mod­el of the OSIRIS4Cube­Sat laser ter­mi­nal
Image 4/8, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Flight model of the OSIRIS4CubeSat laser terminal

The high­ly com­pact com­mu­ni­ca­tions ter­mi­nal CubeLCT was de­vel­oped by re­searchers at the DLR In­sti­tute of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Nav­i­ga­tion in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ger­man telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny Tesat-Space­com (TESAT). The laser ter­mi­nal has been de­signed for mass pro­duc­tion and can be in­te­grat­ed and set up with on­ly a few ad­just­ments.
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Measurement run with the 'advanced TrainLab' high-speed laboratory
Mea­sure­ment run with the 'ad­vanced Train­Lab' high-speed lab­o­ra­to­ry
Image 5/8, Credit: © DLR. All rights reserved

Measurement run with the 'advanced TrainLab' high-speed laboratory

The 'ad­vanced Train­Lab', a lab­o­ra­to­ry de­vel­oped by Deutsche Bahn for test­ing new train tech­nolo­gies, was used for the IM­PACT and V2X-Du­Rail mea­sur­ing runs car­ried out by the DLR In­sti­tute of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Nav­i­ga­tion. The lab­o­ra­to­ry train is based on a 605-se­ries ICE-TD and was spe­cial­ly fit­ted with high­fre­quen­cy tech­nolo­gies, spe­cial an­ten­nas and sen­sors by the re­searchers.
Swarm exploration
Swarm ex­plo­ration
Image 6/8, Credit: © DLR. All rights reserved

Swarm exploration

A swarm of rovers work to­geth­er and com­plete­ly au­tonomous­ly to cre­ate a mag­net­ic field map in the holodeck, a spe­cial lab­o­ra­to­ry at the In­sti­tute of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Nav­i­ga­tion. For swarm ex­plo­ration, the holodeck is used to test and val­i­date the ex­plo­ration al­go­rithms and to pre­pare the out­door ex­per­i­ments. Fur­ther­more, hard­ware-in-the-loop sim­u­la­tions are car­ried out in the holodeck. Up to five rovers or three drones are driv­en or flown si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly in the holodeck.
Quantum key transmission from the air to the ground
Quan­tum key trans­mis­sion from the air to the ground
Image 7/8, Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Quantum key transmission from the air to the ground

Us­ing the ex­ter­nal part of the laser ter­mi­nal on the DLR Dornier 228-212 re­search air­craft, re­searchers suc­ceed­ed for the first time in 2011 to trans­mit a quan­tum key from a fast-mov­ing ob­ject. In the suc­cess­ful ex­per­i­ment con­duct­ed by the DLR In­sti­tute of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Nav­i­ga­tion in co­op­er­a­tion with the Lud­wig-Max­i­m­il­ians-Uni­ver­sität (LMU) in Mu­nich, the quan­tum da­ta was sent from an air­craft to a ground sta­tion via a laser beam.
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Cooperative systems for safe and efficient maritime transport
Co­op­er­a­tive sys­tems for safe and ef­fi­cient mar­itime trans­port
Image 8/8, Credit: © DLR. All rights reserved

Cooperative systems for safe and efficient maritime transport

With our work on sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness, we en­able new meth­ods of col­li­sion avoid­ance and route op­ti­mi­sa­tion at sea and en­sure the safe dock­ing of ships even un­der dif­fi­cult en­vi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions.

DLR's Institute of Communications and Navigation is dedicated to mission-oriented research in selected areas of communications and navigation. Its work ranges from the theoretical foundations to the demonstration of new technologies and systems in real-world environments and is embedded in DLR's space, aviation, transport, security and digitalisation programmes.

Direct benefits for society and industry

The Institute's current work is focused on four missions that have a direct benefit for society and industry. They form the framework for tasks on global networking of people and machines with system concepts and new communication standards, on next-generation global navigation systems, on autonomous and cooperative systems and assistance systems in traffic and exploration, and on technologies for secure communications of the future.

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Contact
  • Prof. Dr. Christoph Günther
    Head of the In­sti­tute
    Ger­man Aerospace Cen­ter (DLR)
    In­sti­tute of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Nav­i­ga­tion
    Telephone: +49 8153 28-2811
    Fax: +49 8153 28-1442
    Münchener Straße 20
    82234 Oberpfaffenhofen-Wessling
    Contact
  • Of­fice of the In­sti­tute
    Ger­man Aerospace Cen­ter (DLR)
    In­sti­tute of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Nav­i­ga­tion
    Telephone: +49 8153 28-2810
    Fax: +49 8153 28-1442
    Münchener Straße 20
    82234 Oberpfaffenhofen-Wessling
    Contact
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Infrastructure
  • 41,164
    205

    In­sti­tute of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Nav­i­ga­tion: num­ber of em­ploy­ees (2020)

  • 41,164
    41
    Female
  • 41,164
    164
    Male
  • 147,124
    271

    In­sti­tute of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Nav­i­ga­tion: num­ber of peer-re­viewed jour­nal con­tri­bu­tions (2016-2020)

  • 147,124
    147
    peer-reviewed articles (open access)
  • 147,124
    124
    peer-reviewed articles (restricted)
  • Icon Promoting Young Scientists
    32

    In­sti­tute of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Nav­i­ga­tion: num­ber of PhD stu­dents (2020)

  • Icon Promoting Young Scientists
    32
    2020
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