Profile: Master of Autonomous Systems

In this context, autonomous mobile and biomimetic robots form the forefront of development. The international program 'Autonomous Systems' offers multi-faceted training in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics, spanning a whole range of issues involved in the field. The four-semester program aims to challenge talented, motivated and dedicated students, and involves course work as well as project work.

A large portion of the program, including the preparation of the master's thesis, involves research and development projects. The project work portion takes the form of a 9-month R&D project and a final thesis project. The program's affiliation with the Fraunhofer Institute, one of the leading research institutes in Germany and the largest organization for applied sciences in Europe, provides an unparalleled opportunity for students to pursue extensive practical training in projects at the cutting edge of the field. These projects may also be carried out in a number of other broader research efforts at the university. This helps to ensure a high-quality education in the field, and also offers problem-oriented training in soft skills such as project management and presentation.

Presentations by leading international guest speakers are scheduled regularly and help to further expose the students to the state of the art in a wide variety of robotics-related fields. The number of seats per semester is limited to only 25 candidates, thus ensuring the admitted students a high quality education. An extraordinary level of commitment, pro-activeness, self-discipline and the ability to work well under pressure is expected of candidates.

The program is fully accredited by ASIIN, the German accreditation agency for study programs in engineering, informatics, and natural sciences. ASIIN is a member of the Washington Accord for the international recognition of accredited degree programs and, as such, the program's accreditation is recognized worldwide. The Master's program in Autonomous Systems is offered by the Applied Sciences Institute at the Bonn-Aachen International Centre for Information Technology (B-IT) which is based on cooperation between two renowned German centers of excellence: the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems (IAIS) and the Department of Computer Science of the Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg (H-BRS).

Programme goals

The goal of this course of studies is to provide students who have an initial university degree the opportunity to learn scientifically founded concepts, methods, and techniques to enable them to both develop these further and to apply them towards the solution of practical problems. The focus of the course of studies is on questions and the principles of the design of distributed, interacting autonomous systems.

Course features

• The course of study is conducted in English
• Multidisciplinary study enhances existing skills and knowledge of students
• Internationally accredited Master of Science degree
• Preparation for PhD
• Special mentoring programme by faculty members
• One on one support (study buddies) for incoming international students
• Free German language classes offered to international students
• Opportunities in high-profile research projects
• Opportunity to become involved in the programme's award-winning RoboCup team
• Opportunity to spend a semester at one of the programme's partner universities
• Opportunity to live and study in Bonn, Germany, and to learn a new foreign language