The Institute for Digital Communication (IDC) is part of the Department of Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Information Technology within the Faculty of Engineering at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU). It is headed by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Robert Schober and has around 35 employees, about 25 of whom are researchers. The IDC regularly hosts international visiting researchers. In addition, it employs several students as research assistants and tutors.
The IDC offices are located on FAU’s South Campus in one of the two electrical engineering towers. Most offices are situated on the 4th and 5th floors of Cauerstraße 7 in Erlangen.
History
The Institute for Digital Communication (IDC) comprises one chair and two professorships.
The Chair of Digital Communication was established in 2011 by Prof. Robert Schober, who currently heads the IDC. It succeeded the Chair of Mobile Communication, held by Prof. Wolfgang Koch, which had been founded in 2001 as the Ericsson Endowed Chair of Mobile Communication.
The Professorship of Information Transmission, currently held by Prof. Ralf Müller, traces its origins to the Chair of Information Transmission established by Prof. Johannes Huber, which emerged from the former Chair of Communications Engineering at FAU. That chair was headed by Prof. Wilhelm Schüßler and later by Prof. Bernhard Girod, and today continues as the Chair of Multimedia Communications and Signal Processing (LMS), headed by Prof. André Kaup.
The Professorship of Digital Transmission, held by Prof. Laura Cottatellucci, was established within the framework of the Elite Master’s Programme Advanced Communication Systems (ASC) and was later made permanent by FAU.