The collaborative research center CRC 876 (SFB 876) brings together the research areas of data analysis (data mining, machine learning, statistics) and embedded systems (cyber-physical systems,embedded systems) and expands them such that information from distributed, dynamic data masses becomes available for decision processes in real-time, on site. The acquisition and storage of high-throughput experiments in biomedicine, astrophysical telescopes or particle-physical experiments exceeds the capacity of today’s computers, so that the analysis must be pushed to the edge, i.e., to the sensor. Also, the analysis of production processes that leads to direct interventions or  the prediction of traffic for a better mobility management would benefit from at least a partial analysis directly at the data sources. The analysis of distributed, streaming data requires novel algorithms and models, that take into account the resource restrictions. Already at the start of our CRC 876, we pointed out that data analysis should inspect more closely its execution on diverse platforms. We defined resource constraints as the relation between the demands of analysing big data and the technical capabilities of a platform or device.

Since 2011, the DFG has been funding the major research project. In 2019 the CRC 876 funding has been guaranteed for a further four years. Involved are five faculties of the TU Dortmund: Computer Science, Statistics, Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Mechanical engineering and Physics. The TU Dortmund is working together with the University of Duisburg-Essen, the University Hospital Essen, as well as with the Leibniz- Institute for Analytical Sciences -ISAS e.V.