5 June 2026, by Kai Brüssau/ Julia Bachale

Photo: UHH/Voß

The IRES teaching project has entered its next phase with seven US-students coming to UHH.

The IRES project has entered its next phase. On Monday, June 1, 2026, we welcomed seven students from the United States along with their professor, Dr. Monica Gentili. Over the next six weeks (through July 9, 2026), the Institute of Information Systems will be working with the students on various projects related to digital twins in port logistics and public transportation.

In addition to the research work, which is primarily supervised by Dr. Kai Brüssau, Dr. Robert Stahlbock, and Prof. Dr. Stefan Voß, many cultural activities and visits to renowned Hamburg-based companies will take place. During the first week the students already visited the Eurogate terminal Waltershof and gained exciting insights regarding the processes at a container terminal.

As part of the IRES project, the attendees will model a certain problem domain (terminal or public transit) in a virtual environment. All physical devices and other relevant entities are virtually simulated and the associated data is stored in real time. With the help of AI (optimization/heuristics/machine learning), the students solve planning problems and, subsequently, obtain data for solutions. These data are fed into the real-world devices and entities in order to operate them. This procedure allows for a more efficient response to changes caused by disruptions at any time and enhances process flows. The goals of this approach are to reduce costs and emissions. As devices can increasingly be operated autonomously, digital twins gain a much stronger influence in the future to come.

Follow the student experience on Instagram: