Johanna Nellen

Research

I am a Postdoc at the research group Theory of Hybrid Systems headed by Prof. Dr. Erika Ábrahám. My research interests include the synthesis and verification of hybrid systems and their application in control engineering.

During my PhD I was granted a scholarship in the DFG research training group AlgoSyn. I worked on the analysis of hybrid systems in the application area of plant control and on the synthesis of control strategies for hybrid electric vehicles.

Since June 2016, I work for a Ford – RWTH Aachen Alliance project on the verification of automotive Simulink models.

Research Projects

Ford – RWTH Aachen Alliance: Simulink Formal Verification, Ford Motor Company Project partners: Ford Motor Company (Germany/USA)
OASys (Online Algorithms for Optimal Control of Hybrid Propulsion Systems), DFG (German Research Foundation), Project-Id: AB 461/2-1 Project partners: Chair of Computer Science 1, RWTH Aachen University, Institute of Automated Control, RWTH Aachen University

Teaching Assistance

I supervised students in seminars on “Satisfiability Checking”, “Hybrid Systems Verification”, “Algorithms and Tools for Verification” and “Real-Time Systems”. Moreover, I organized practical labs on “Control Strategies for Hybrid Vehicles” and “Explorative Search with Lego Mindstorms Robots”.

The following students finished their Bachelor/Master theses under my supervision:

Rebecca Haehn, “Learning control strategies for hybrid vehicles using neural networks”
Patricia Wessel**,** “Grid-based control strategy for hybrid vehicles”
Kai Driessen, “Modular verification for PLC controlled hybrid systems”
Kim Maren Haps, “Datatypes and tools for the analysis of hybrid systems”
Thomas Osterland, “Memory- and time-related action qualifiers in HSFCs”
Alin Ionascu, “Modeling and controler synthesis of hybrid propulsion systems using artificial intelligence”
Kai Driessen, “Counterexample-guided abstraction refinement for hybrid SFC verification”

Activities

Member of the AlgoSyn Steering Committee October 2011 – September 2013
Co-organization of Promotions-CAFÉ June 2012 – December 2016
Mentee in the TANDEM Mentoring Program October 2011 – October 2012
Co-organization of Aachener Informatiktage March 2011 – March 2015
Co-organization of Schüleruniversität August 2011 – August 2013

Publications

2019
DOI Details	Philipp Berger, Johanna Nellen, Joost-Pieter Katoen, Erika Ábrahám, Md Tawhid Bin Waez, and Thomas Rambow. 2019. Multiple Analyses, Requirements Once : Simplifying Testing and Verification in Automotive Model-Based Development. In Formal methods for industrial critical systems ; 24th international conference, FMICS 2019, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, August 30-31, 2019 : proceedings (Lecture notes in computer science, Vol. 11687). Springer, Cham, 59–75.
2018
DOI Details	Johanna Nellen, Thomas Rambow, Md Tawhid Bin Waez, Erika Ábrahám, and Joost-Pieter Katoen. 2018. Formal Verification of Automotive Simulink Controller Models: Empirical Technical Challenges, Evaluation and Recommendations. In Formal Methods : 22nd International Symposium, FM 2018, Held as Part of the Federated Logic Conference, FloC 2018, Oxford, UK, July 15-17, 2018, Proceedings (Lecture notes in computer science, Vol. 10951). Springer, Cham.
2017
DOI Details	Stefan Schupp, Johanna Nellen, and Erika Ábrahám. 2017. Divide and Conquer : Variable Set Separation in Hybrid Systems Reachability Analysis. In Proceedings 15th Workshop on Quantitative Aspects of Programming Languages and Systems : Uppsala, Sweden, 23rd April 2017 (Electronic proceedings in theoretical computer science : EPTCS, Vol. 250). [Open Publishing Association], [Waterloo, NSW], 1–14.
2016
DOI Details	Johanna Nellen, Kai Driessen, Martin Neuhäußer, Erika Ábrahám, and Benedikt Wolters. 2016. Two CEGAR-based approaches for the safety verification of PLC-controlled plants. Information systems frontiers : ISF 18, 5 (2016), 927–952.
Details	Johanna Nellen. 2016. Analysis and synthesis of hybrid systems in engineering applications. Ph.D. Dissertation. RWTH Aachen University, Aachen.
2015
DOI Details	Johanna Nellen, Erika Ábrahám, and Benedikt Wolters. 2015. A CEGAR Tool for the Reachability Analysis of PLC-Controlled Plants Using Hybrid Automata. In Formalisms for Reuse and Systems Integration. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, Vol. 346. Springer International Publishing, Cham, 55–78.
Details	Johanna Nellen, Benedikt Wolters, Lukas Stephan Michael Netz, Sascha Geulen, and Erika Ábrahám. 2015. A Genetic Algorithm based Control Strategy for the Energy Management Problem in PHEVs. In GCAI 2015 : Global Conference on Artificial Intelligence (EPiC series in computing, Vol. 36). EasyChair, [Manchester], 196–214.
Details	Sascha Geulen, Martina Joševski, Johanna Nellen, Janosch Fuchs, Lukas Stephan Michael Netz, Benedikt Wolters, Erika Ábrahám, Walter Unger, and Dirk Abel. 2015. Online Lernen als Kontrollstrategie in Hybridfahrzeugen; Nichtred. Ms.-Dr. In Autoreg 2015 : Auf dem Weg zum automatisierten Fahren ; 7. Fachtagung in Baden-Baden, 09. und 10. Juni 2015 (VDI-Berichte, Vol. 2233). VDI-Verl., Düsseldorf, 101–112.
DOI Details	Sascha Geulen, Martina Josevski, Johanna Nellen, Janosch Fuchs, Lukas Stephan Michael Netz, Benedikt Wolters, Dirk Abel, Erika Ábrahám, and Walter Unger. 2015. Learning-based Control Strategies for Hybrid Electric Vehicles. In 2015 IEEE Conference on Control Applications (CCA 2015) : Sydney, Australia, 21 - 23 September 2015 : [part of IEEE Multi-Conference on Systems and Control (MSC 2015)]. IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, 1722–1728.
2014
DOI Details	Johanna Nellen and Erika Ábrahám. 2014. A CEGAR Approach for the Reachability Analysis of PLC-controlled Chemical Plants. In 2014 IEEE 15th International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration (IRI) : 13 - 15 Aug. 2014, [Redwood City, California] ; [including workshops]. IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, 500–507.
DOI Details	Johanna Nellen, Erika Ábrahám, Xin Chen, and Pieter Collins. 2014. Counterexample Generation for Hybrid Automata. In Formal techniques for safety-critical systems : second international workshop, FTSCS 2013, Queenstown, New Zealand, October 29-30, 2013 ; revised selected papers (Communications in Computer and Information Science, Vol. 419). Springer International Publishing, Cham, 88–106.
2012
Details	Johanna Nellen and Erika Ábrahám. 2012. Hybrid Sequential Function Charts. In Methoden und Beschreibungssprachen zur Modellierung und Verifikation von Schaltungen und Systemen : MBMV 2012 ; [15. Workshop Methoden und Beschreibungssprachen zur Modellierung und Verifikation von Schaltungen und Systemen ... im März 2012 an der Technischen Universität Kaiserslautern] (Schriftenreihe Forschungsergebnisse zur Informatik, Vol. 68). Kovač, Hamburg, 109–120.
2011
Details	Nadine Bergner, Philipp Brauner, Florian Corzilius, Nils Jansen, Thiemo Leonhardt, Ulrich Loup, Johanna Nellen, and Ulrik Schroeder. 2011. On collaboratively conveying computer science to pupils. In Proceedings of the 11th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research. ACM, Koli and Finland, 132–137.
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