EWSN 2026 Best Paper Runner-up
TIMAEUS — time synchronization and multi-hop communication for batteryless sensor networks with wake-up receivers — received the Best Paper Runner-up Award at EWSN 2026.
EWSN awards ↗Professor of Computer Engineering · Hochschule Niederrhein
I build connected systems that are meant to work outside the lab.
My work sits at the intersection of embedded systems, batteryless IoT, low-power wireless communication and mobile robotics — with a strong focus on turning ideas into field-ready systems and on teaching engineering through real products and projects.
BATTERYLESS IOTEMBEDDED SYSTEMSLOW-POWER WIRELESSMOBILE ROBOTSFIELD-READY SYSTEMSPROJECT-BASED TEACHING
BATTERYLESS IOTEMBEDDED SYSTEMSLOW-POWER WIRELESSMOBILE ROBOTSFIELD-READY SYSTEMSPROJECT-BASED TEACHING
What is happening now
Current work & recent highlights
Selected updates from research, transfer, teaching and the community. Updated October 2026.
LEAF: sensing plant health in the field
In the Interreg Deutschland-Nederland project LEAF, an international consortium is developing smart sensors for crop-health monitoring. My work at HSNR focuses on system integration, wireless connectivity and pilots.
Project page ↗VDE Vertrauensdozent at HSNR
Supporting students as a link between Hochschule Niederrhein and the VDE network — from professional development and technical engagement to student-led activities and competitions.
Announcement ↗SenSys 2026: research + service
At CPS-IoT Week in Saint-Malo, we demonstrated multi-hop batteryless networking with wake-up receivers. I also served as Publication Chair for SenSys 2026.
Research
From tiny devices to complete systems
I am interested in the full chain: sensing, computing, communication, understanding and action — under the constraints of the real world.
Batteryless & intermittent IoT
Energy harvesting, wake-up receivers, intermittent execution, synchronization and multi-hop communication for sustainable, low-maintenance sensing.
Connected embedded systems
Reliable low-power wireless systems, LoRaWAN and edge-to-cloud architectures that can be deployed, operated and understood beyond a lab prototype.
Mobile & social robotics
Perception, navigation and interaction in human environments, with an emphasis on systems that combine sensors, software and physical behavior.
Field-ready systems
My recurring question: what does it take to move from a promising component to a system that is dependable, maintainable and genuinely useful in practice?
Sense→Process→Connect→Understand→Control→Act
Interreg Deutschland-Nederland
LEAF
Smart plant-health sensing combining novel sensor materials, wireless communication, cloud services and real-world validation.
2026–2029DFG · completed 2026
DI2T
Dependable yet Intermittent Interconnected Things: making energy-harvesting devices communicate reliably despite intermittent power.
Project ↗Regional transfer
Smart City & LoRaWAN
Urban sensing and connected infrastructure in and around Krefeld — with a focus on robust integration, deployment and operation.
OngoingTeaching
Less “learn the syntax”. More “design the system”.
AI is changing software development. That makes architecture, requirements, engineering judgement, product thinking, verification and the ability to integrate hardware and software even more important. My courses therefore revolve around realistic challenges, prototypes and teams — not isolated programming exercises.
“Students should not only be able to program a microcontroller. They should be able to build a system around it, explain their decisions and make it work.”Embedded Systems group at HSNR ↗
First-Semester Project
Interdisciplinary engineering from day one: build, test, document, compete.
Microcontrollers
Product-oriented projects, real clients and engineering decisions around an embedded core.
Advanced Embedded Software
From prototype to product: architecture, quality, testing, CI/CD and change requests.
Mobile Robots
ROS 2, simulation, sensing and autonomous behavior on real robotic platforms.
Embedded Systems Forensics
Hands-on analysis of devices, interfaces, communications, firmware and physical memory.
Students & collaborators
Looking for a thesis topic or a research collaboration?
I regularly supervise work on batteryless IoT, embedded systems, wireless networking, robotics, sensing, edge/cloud integration and applied AI for physical systems. Strong topics usually start with a concrete problem and end with something we can demonstrate, measure and learn from.
Selected publications
Recent & representative work
A small selection rather than a complete publication dump.
2026
Best Paper Runner-up · EWSN 2026
TIMAEUS: Time Synchronization and Multi-hop Communication in Batteryless Sensor Networks with Wake-up Receivers
Sayedsepehr Mosavat · Pedro José Marrón · Matteo Zella
Award & conference ↗2026
SenSys 2026 Demo
Enabling Multi-Hop Batteryless Networks with Wake-Up Receivers
Sayedsepehr Mosavat · Pedro José Marrón · Matteo Zella
Demo listing ↗2025
Sensors
CATO: Wake-Up reCeiver-bAsed communicaTiOn for Batteryless Devices
Sayedsepehr Mosavat · Johannes Göpfert · Bernd-Christian Renner · Pedro José Marrón · Matteo Zella
DOI ↗2023
IROS
Human-Aware Navigation in Crowded Environments Using Adaptive Proxemic Area and Group Detection
Carlos Medina-Sánchez · Simon Janzon · Matteo Zella · Jesús Capitán · Pedro José Marrón
DOI ↗About
Engineering, research and teaching as one continuous activity.
I am Professor of Computer Engineering at Hochschule Niederrhein. Before joining HSNR in 2022, I worked at the University of Duisburg-Essen, RWTH Aachen University and Fondazione Bruno Kessler / University of Trento.
Across those roles, the common thread has been networked embedded systems: how to build systems with limited resources, make wireless communication dependable and use those systems in environments where deployment conditions matter as much as algorithms.
Contact
Let’s talk about systems that should actually work.
matteo.zella@hs-niederrhein.de
Hochschule Niederrhein · Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science
Reinarzstraße 49 · 47805 Krefeld · Germany
Office F 306 · +49 2151 822-4692 · Consultation by arrangement