Cognitive architectures
How AI remembers, reasons, and learns over time — seven-layer memory architecture (ZenBrain), sleep consolidation, neuromodulator-driven consolidation, FSRS-driven review.
Principal Investigator
Independent Researcher · ZenSation Research · Kiel, Germany
Research on cognitive architectures, AI safety in public spaces, and applied AI for knowledge work. Self-funded without external third-party funding. Open access on arXiv and with DOI on Zenodo; code under Apache 2.0. Alongside the research, he partners with organisations on methodologically grounded AI adoption — as a research partner, not a vendor.
Research focus
How AI remembers, reasons, and learns over time — seven-layer memory architecture (ZenBrain), sleep consolidation, neuromodulator-driven consolidation, FSRS-driven review.
Predictive early warning in public spaces under a civil-liberties architecture (CrowdGuard) — explicitly without biometric identification, helper protection as a structural element of the objective function.
Research on human–AI collaboration in organisations — meetings, project management, knowledge work, and process mapping, including a methodology for structured AI adoption. At its centre is ZenAI as a productive research application — a vendor-neutral AI operating system on the open core ZenBrain, where we test whether the memory research holds up in daily use.
Identifiers
Background
Early work on algorithmic decision systems. Methodological foundation in statistical modelling, deterministic strategies, and real-time processing — the groundwork for the later memory research.
Work on digitalisation projects at scientific institutions — among others at the Leibniz Institute Berlin and at IQSH (Institute for Quality Development in Schools Schleswig-Holstein), on the digitalisation of learning and educational materials.
Digitalisation and transformation projects at the corporate and stock-corporation level. Conception and delivery of process atlases, AI strategies, and AI-supported decision systems across industry contexts.
Active volunteer service in civil protection and disaster response (German "BOS" — public-safety authorities and organisations) — with operational experience in incident coordination at large-scale emergencies, in CBRN response, technical rescue, and respiratory-protection operations, as well as committee work. This operational reality shapes the applied orientation of the public-safety track.
Reorientation toward fundamental and applied research. The idea for a cognitive architecture with reliable long-term memory takes its first form; in parallel, the question of fundamental-rights-preserving safety mechanisms for public spaces takes shape.
Conception and first implementation. Establishment of the three research tracks (cognitive architectures, safety in public spaces, applied AI for knowledge work). Build-out of the research documentation, pre-registration of central documents via OpenTimestamps.
Start of the production implementation phase in the internal development repository. Build-out of the 7-layer memory architecture, the test suite, and the first application (ZenAI). Architectural consolidation across multiple phases. Late March: open-source release of the ZenBrain packages on npm under Apache 2.0.
Publication of the ZenBrain paper as an open-access preprint on arXiv (2604.23878) and with a permanent DOI on Zenodo (10.5281/zenodo.19353663) — publicly accessible, with replication material.
Follow-up publications for peer-reviewed venues. Exploratory exchanges with universities and research consortia across the European research area on consortium proposals along BMBF SIFO, Horizon Europe Cluster 3, and national funding lines.
Research collaborations
Research in an independent lab does not occur in a vacuum. Outreach to potential co-authors is consistently kept in conditional terms — names appear on this page only after written consent. This discipline protects potential partners and distinguishes exploration from established collaboration.
Outreach in progress
Outreach to research institutions across the German and European space is ongoing in waves 2026–2027. Cooperation partners are named publicly only after receipt of written consent.
Contact
Inquiries are typically answered within ten working days.
More from this research
Core and application fields, on a shared ethics foundation.