Between 1983 and 1989, he attended Hannover University to study Geodesy. In 1989, he received his Dipl.-Ing. Geodesy from Hannover University. At the University of Hannover, he received his Dr.-Ing. in geodesy in 1998. In 2004, he receobed his Habilitation from the University of Stuttgart. In 2010, he became a professor at the University of Stuttgart and the head of the Institute of Engineering Geodesy. He was the Chair of FIG Commission 5 "Positioning and Measurement" from 2015 to 2018. He was given a new job as Dean of the University of Stuttgart's Faculty of Aerospace Engineering and Geodesy from 2016 to 2021. The Technical University of Civil Engineering in Bucharest, Romania gave him the title of Dr. h.c. in 2019.