“The pace of technology development in electronics and sensor technology is accelerating,” said Ryszard Bil, Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at HENSOLDT. “It is therefore extremely important for a sensor house like HENSOLDT to remain in close contact with research and to incorporate new findings into product developments.
The prize, worth 1,500 euros each, has been awarded for 16 years. The award ceremony took place during the annual Professors’ Day at HENSOLDT’s Ulm site. Professors from renowned universities and colleges as well as experts from the company regularly use this platform to exchange knowledge. A jury of university professors and company experts selected six outstanding theses from numerous submissions, one from the University of Ulm and another from the Ulm University of Applied Sciences.
Denis Schlotthauer studied at the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Ulm. The prize was awarded for his master thesis supervised by Professor Christian Waldschmidt on the development of a radar-based vibration sensor for use in medical technology. The award also went to the bachelor thesis supervised by Professor Roland Münzner of Dennis Böhm, who studied at the Institute of Communication Technology at Ulm University of Applied Sciences. He impressed the jury with the development of a calibration method for computer chips in radar systems that only takes one percent of the time previously spent.
Hans Schily developed a mathematical method for the detection of a large number of small objects that are difficult to distinguish in his master thesis supervised by Professor Wolfgang Koch at the Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics (FKIE) in Bonn. These findings can be used to improve driver assistance systems.
Katharina Klein also studied at the FKIE and earned her “Argus” prize with her bachelor thesis on the use of artificial neural networks to predict radar signals, for example in car traffic. Her work at FKIE was supervised by Sabine Apfeld.
At the Institute of Technical Electronics of the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (Professor Robert Weigel), Jonas Fuchs wrote his master thesis on the improvement of the accuracy of radar sensors by artificial intelligence methods. The jury also considered the master’s thesis submitted by Maurice Hott under the guidance of Professor Peter Höher at the Institute for Information and Coding Theory at the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel to be worthy of an award. The prizewinner developed novel signal processing methods for radar systems that use several antennas simultaneously and therefore work faster and more accurately.
In his laudation, HENSOLDT Technology Manager Dr. Guy Kouemou emphasized: “New products that help our customers to make means of transport safer and more efficient, for example, require a great deal of detailed research. The outstanding graduates of our partner universities make a valuable contribution to this.
HENSOLDT’s Ulm site employs around 2,000 people who develop and manufacture complex safety electronics, including radars, electronic protection systems and high-frequency electronic components. The majority of the employees are engineers and technicians, about 180 young people are in training.