The Jorg Henkel Lab

Jörg Henkel’s lab is an embedded-systems and computer-architecture group focused on energy-efficient, reliable, and secure computing across IoT, edge, and cloud-scale platforms. The group designs hardware–software co-design strategies that optimize resource management, task scheduling, and accelerator architectures for multicore and many-core systems, including FPGA-based and TinyML-enabled devices. Research topics include low-energy and thermally aware mapping of IoT workloads, co-design of CNN and TinyML accelerators, homomorphic-encryption-assisted federated learning, polymorphic encryption for distributed learning, and hardware-software co-optimization for AI systems; the lab also develops unified frameworks for resource management and profiling tools to evaluate power and time efficiency on edge devices. A distinctive feature of the lab is its cross-layer view—from circuit and architecture to system and security—using machine learning, formal methods, and hardware-aware optimization to balance performance, energy, and trust in real-world platforms. Students joining the group can expect hands-on projects in embedded systems, FPGA accelerators, machine-learning deployment, security for IoT and cloud FPGAs, and tools for cross-layer optimization, preparing them for careers in computer architecture, embedded systems, and AI-driven hardware design.