Dr.-Ing. Rolf Meyer

Research interests

Rolf Meyer works on designing embedded hardware and its software together, so that it is clear early on whether a system will meet its requirements for timing, energy and dependability. At the ITI he leads the research field Embedded System Design with the research groups Embedded Systems and HW/SW Co-Design.

• Virtual platforms in SystemC/TLM: simulating systems before the chip or the FPGA bitstream exists
• HW/SW co-design and design space exploration: finding the split between hardware and software with tools
• Digital twins calibrated by measurement: real timing and energy profiles are fed back into the model
• AI on embedded hardware: neural networks on RISC-V processors and microcontrollers
• Security and dependability: side-channel analysis at register-transfer and netlist level, mixed criticality

Applications come from space, automotive, industrial automation and robotics.

Current projects

As principal investigator at the University of Lübeck, Rolf Meyer is currently responsible for three projects:

• Shift2SDV (EU, Chips Joint Undertaking, 2025 to 2028): detecting attacks on over-the-air updates in the software-defined vehicle. A digital twin compares a new software version with the old one before it reaches the vehicle.
• SSVEKI (ZIM, 2025 to 2026): embedded AI that detects collisions between vehicles and vulnerable road users in real time, together with consider it GmbH.
• TwinSpace (BMWE, GreenTech, 2022 to 2026): load profiles from simulation, to make safety-relevant software for embedded systems use fewer resources.

Before that he worked in EMDrive, EEmotion, EMPHASE, Arrowhead Tools, EMC2 and SoCRocket, among others.

Career

• since 2024: postdoc and leader of a research group at the Institute of Computer Engineering, University of Lübeck
• 2024: Dr.-Ing. from TU Braunschweig (magna cum laude), supervised by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Mladen Berekovic. Thesis: Universal Scripting Interface: a universal scripting interface for SystemC, using SoCRocket as an example (in German)
• 2018 to 2024: research associate at the Institute of Computer Engineering, University of Lübeck
• 2012 to 2018: research associate at the Institute of Computer and Network Engineering, TU Braunschweig: SoCRocket for the European Space Agency (ESA), EU project EMC2
• since 2012: managing director of embeddedfactor GmbH, a spin-off of TU Braunschweig, today also its technical lead: industrial projects in embedded systems, automotive and edge AI
• 2010 to 2012: research associate at the Chair of Computer Architecture and Communication, Friedrich Schiller University Jena
• 2010: Diplom (master's level) in Information Systems Engineering, TU Braunschweig, focus on HW/SW co-design and distributed systems
• 2009: industrial placement in the mbed team at Arm, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Teaching

Summer semester

• Real-Time Systems (CS4160, Master's), lecture and exercise, in English: foundations and applications of real-time systems, for Computer Science, Medical Informatics, IT Security and Robotics and Autonomous Systems, among others
• Energy Efficiency in Embedded Systems (CS4720, Master's), lecture and exercise, in English: where power dissipation comes from and how to use the available hardware efficiently at system level
• Embedded Systems (CS2101, Bachelor's), lecture and exercise, in German: foundations and applications of embedded systems for six Bachelor's programmes

Winter semester

• Hardware/Software Co-Design (CS5170, Master's), lecture and exercise, in German: system modelling, synthesis, scheduling, binding and HW/SW partitioning, with SystemC as the description language
• Tools for Scientific Work (CS2450, Bachelor's), seminar, in German: Python for machine learning and data science, LaTeX, Markdown, Jupyter and git

Theses

Rolf Meyer supervises Bachelor's and Master's theses on virtual platforms (SystemC/TLM, RISC-V), HW/SW co-design, AI on embedded hardware and digital twins. Since 2024 he has supervised nine Bachelor's and seven Master's theses. If you are interested, send a short email with your programme, your background and the topic that appeals to you.

Send an email

Research software

• SoCRocket (GPL): a virtual platform in SystemC/TLM-2.0 for LEON3-based multicore systems, built for ESA, with Thomas Schuster
• BuddelChip (MIT): a RISC-V platform in SystemC/TLM-2.0 for research and teaching, with Celine Thermann and Ahmed Mahmoudi
• SCA-WAL (open source): assessing power side channels at register-transfer and netlist level, presented in IEEE Embedded Systems Letters 2025

Online

• Rolf Meyer on LinkedIn