The Internet is an essential enabler of our daily lives. 
We aim to understand how it works in practice and we develop new concepts that ensure its robustness for the future.

In our studies, we frequently find aspects of the Internet that work not as well as they could. Thus, relying on our understanding of the current state of the Internet, we aim to optimize existing methods and develop novel concepts that help in ensuring the robustness of the Internet in the future. Additionally, we study how new paradigms, such as In-Network Computing, can be conceptually harmonized with the Internet architecture.

Topics that we frequently tackle include but are not limited to the following:

• Protocol innovation and optimization
• Congestion management
• Internet-scale In-Network Computing (Transport Issues, COIN, SDN, P4)

The Internet is system with a very fast development pace. Hence, to keep up with latest Internet innovation and to ensure that our results get traction, we actively participate in the IETF and IRTF. For example, we consider latest trends in congestion management (CCWG, ICCRG), experiment with latest measurement mechanisms (IPPMWG), contribute to making the Internet more sustainable (GREENWG, SUSTAINRG), and have helped shaping future architectures that support in-network computing (COINRG). For this purpose, our members regularly attend IETF meetings.

The technologies and concepts that form the basis of our research are prominently featured in our Bachelor-level “Datenkommunikation” lecture.
Some extended concepts are also covered in our “Advanced Internet Technology” lecture as well as in “Communication Systems Engineering”.

Our group additionally actively supports our chair’s flagship Bachelor and Master lab 'Practical Internet eXperience' to help spread knowledge about the Internet architecture and the operation of CDNs.

Our group regularly advises a number of theses and we typically have several thesis topics available for motivated and talented students; you can see an excerpt of currently available theses from within the RWTH University network.
As we have limited advising capacities, it might be that you do not find any topics published by us.
In that case, or if you have specific interests, we encourage you to contact us directly, ideally following the guidelines provided here.