Institute for Digital Communications

The Institute for Digital Communications (IDC) is part of the Department of Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Communications of the Faculty of Engineering at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and headed by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Robert Schober. IDC is complemented by Prof. Dr. Laura Cottatellucci, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ralf Müller, and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Gerstacker.

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We Are Hiring

We are hiring — Join the SyMoCADS team as a doctoral student or postdoctoral researcher!

We are looking for nine dedicated doctoral students and one postdoctoral researcher to join the Research Training Group (RTG) on Synthetic Molecular Communications Across Different Scales: From Theory to Experiments (SyMoCADS) starting December 1, 2026!  

Extended application deadline: 30.06.2026

Application details: Click here or view this pdf

News

Maximilian Schäfer has been elected to the Board of Die Junge Akademie for the 2026/2027 term. The new Board began its one-year term of office on 28 June 2026, with the handover taking place during the academy’s annual celebration in Berlin. Die Junge Akademie, founded in 2000 as the world’s first academy for outstanding young…

We are delighted to welcome Dr. Chenguang Liu for a secondment visit supported by Horizon Europe through a UNITE project. He is currently a Research Associate with Durham University, working on artificial intelligence/machine learning for wireless, semantic communication, and distributed intelligence under wireless uncertainty. During his stay, he will be hosted by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang…

From January to June 2026, Dr.-Ing. Lukas Brand and doctoral researcher Timo Jakumeit from IDC joined the Ultrabroadband Nanonetworking Laboratory at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, as visiting researchers. The laboratory is led by Prof. Josep M. Jornet, a leading expert in terahertz (THz) communications and nano-networking and the research stay was funded by…
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IDC’s Lighthouse Projects

SyMoCADS

The Research Training Group (RTG) SyMoCADS is a research training program funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) to train scientists and engineers in the emerging interdisciplinary field of molecular communication.

EmpkinS

EmpkinS is a Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) with a the focus on capturing human motion parameters remotely in a minimally disturbing and non-invasive manner and with very high resolution.

KoRaTo

The Research Training Group (RTG) KoRaTo is a joint project between the Ulm University (UUlm) and the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (FAU) Erlangen-Nürnberg with the aim to develop a new UAV- and radar-based geophysical monitoring system to measure for instance earth mass movements, vegetation heights, or the cryosphere.

xG-RIC

xG-RIC is part of the 6G Platform Germany and serves as a technology transfer hub with the goal of advancing key 6G technologies and systematically accelerating their transfer into industry and society. 

IDC’s Fields of Research

Next Generation Wireless Communication

Molecular and Biological Communication Systems

Machine Learning, Signal Processing and Information Theory