Automation Technology

This degree course teaches advanced technical and scientific competencies in the planning, management and optimisation of complex automation processes. Graduates leave us ideally equipped for high-level technical and management roles in system design, planning, development and implementation and in technical product management and sales, in Germany and across the globe.

Our graduates have what it takes to succeed in fields including industrial automation and production technology, sustainable generation and distribution of electrical energy, and autonomous systems in transport and automotive settings. Many of these jobs are located in the dynamic industrial landscape of the key port of Hamburg and its environs – home to leading producers of wind turbines and major players in aviation.

If you’ve caught the science bug, we also offer the opportunity to continue your academic studies with doctoral work after you have completed this degree course.

This Master’s degree course is designed primarily for those with Bachelor’s (or equivalent) degrees in electrical engineering or mechatronics who specialised in automation during their first degree and intend to continue their studies. We also, however, welcome applicants with first degrees in other, comparable subjects or those who have completed a first degree and subsequently acquired initial professional experience in the field of automation technology.

Automated electronic systems are increaasingly on the advance in our societal life due to their capacity to boost efficiency and sustainability while doing justice to environmental considerations. Expertise in these cutting-edge tools and technologies requires broad-based knowledge of control, energy and information engineering. Real-time algorithms carrying out measurement and control functions are at the heart of automated solutions. This Master’s degree course provides students with a solid theoretical grounding alongside practical training in the design and implementation of these algorithms using highly sophisticated and powerful tools such as Matlab/Simulink/Stateflow. Students are also able to familiarise themselves with a range of methods for implementation and testing, including efficient simulation, rapid prototyping, hardware-in-the-loop and embedded targets, and gain hands-on experience in lab set-ups and autonomous vehicles, alongside encountering applications in decentralised and renewable energy generation and supply.

In the first year of the degree course, students explore the course’s focal areas, control, energy, and information engineering, in depth via two modules for each area, each with a complementary lab practical.

Information engineering
- Embedded control systems

- Operating systems and real-time programming

Control engineering

- Multi-dimensional control systems

- Nonlinear control systems

Energy engineering

- Decentralised energy supply systems

- Drive technology for mobile systems

The focus of the course’s second semester is the ‘team project’ (Verbundprojekt), in which teams of students synthesise and apply their knowledge in the context of a realistic ‘smart factory’; the challenge is to develop control algorithms and drives for autonomous vehicles. Students additionally choose elective modules closely related to the specific content of this project.

The degree course concludes with the Master thesis, in which students explore a current issue or problem in research and demonstrate their capacity for independent scientific work in the field.

Essential:

• A completed Bachelor’s, Diplom or equivalent degree in electrical or information engineering, IT and/or computer science, worth at least 210 credit points and with a minimum overall grade of ‘good’ (in the German system)
• Diploma Supplement/Transcript of Records
• If your first degree was worth fewer than 210 credit points, you will need to submit proof of having completed a semester (or at least 22 weeks) of relevant practical or professional experience.
• International applicants are required to demonstrate proficiency in the German language at level C1 (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) or above via a recognised language test, which should be one of the following: Goethe Institute C1, TestDaF 4, telc C1 Hochschule, DSH2, Deutsches Sprachdiplom issued by the KMK (Kultusministerkonferenz), or Kleines or Großes Sprachdiplom issued by the Goethe Institute.

Submitting additional documents increases your chances of being selected:

• Letter of motivation
• CV
• Documentation of any previous relevant professional/work experience (e.g. written reference from your employer)
• A letter of recommendation

N.B.: Applicants whose Bachelor’s degrees are equivalent to 180 credit points are required to attain a further 30 credit points in order to enrol fully in this Master’s degree course. The department will tell you which courses and examinations you will be required to undertake. If this applies to you and your application is successful, you will be enrolled for an initial fixed period of one semester in order to attain the required credit points. Your application for full enrolment will be considered at the end of this semester. You must prove you have completed the required credit points before you will be permitted to register your topic for your Master's thesis.