The OPTICA Advanced Photonics Congress, held this year in Busan, South Korea, from 9.7.-13.7.23, comprises five topical meetings that focus on innovations in optical materials, optical signal processing, optical communications, and integrated optics.

At the Signal Processing in Photonic Communications (SPPCom) subconference, Mr. Olaf Schulz, a Ph.D. student at the Chair of Communications, qualified as one of three finalists for the prestigious Best Paper Awards with his paper "Full Spectrum WDM Nonlinear Frequency Division Multiplexed Transmission System using Spectral Overlap" and was awarded the Best Student Paper Award. In his research, Mr. Schulz investigated the transmission of optical signals using the so-called nonlinear Fourier transform. Novel photonic integrated circuits (PIC) are used on the transmit and receive side. The results originate from a research cooperation between RWTH Aachen University (Prof. Jeremy Witzens) and the Chair of Communications (Prof. Stephan Pachnicke) at CAU Kiel, which is funded by the DFG Priority Program SPP2111 (Integrated Electronic-Photonic Systems for Ultrawideband Signal Processing). Such integrated photonic systems should make it possible in the future to break the nonlinear Shannon limit and realize optical transmission systems with very high bandwidth and energy efficiency.

The Chair of Microwave Engineering has been awarded 1st place in the student paper competition at the conference “IEEE MTT-S Radio & Wireless Week”, which took place 22 - 25 January 2023 in Las Vegas, for the paper entitled 'The Anglet: An E/H-plane Bent, 90-Degree Twisted, TE101/TM110-Mode Singlet Building Block'. The authors, Chad Bartlett and Michael Höft, have demonstrated a dramatic innovation in passive waveguide component design by integrating a twist, bend, and singlet into an ultra-compact structure that is suitable for both additive and subtractive manufacture. This type of innovation adds not only a new class of filter structures to the literature but allows for avionic applications to become much lighter and less expensive.

The picture on the right shows Chad Bartlett’s receipt of the award in Las Vegas (from left: Changzhi Li - Texas Tech University, Nuno Borges Carvalho - Universidade de Aveiro, Fabian Lurz - Hamburg University of Technology, Chad Bartlett – Kiel University, Alexander Kölpin - Hamburg University of Technology, Kenneth Kolodziej - MIT Lincoln Laboratory)

Karolin Krüger was one of the four winners of the EmpowerMINT awards this year. With this price our university aims to honour particular achievements by female students and female graduates in Mathematics, IT, Natural Sciences and Technology, known as the MINT subjects. Congratulations from the whole department.

Karolin Krüger obtained the award for her master thesis on automatic evaluation of speech parameters which is very useful if one wants to monitor the impact on different speech therapies (e.g. for Parkinson patients) in a robust, reliable, and objective manner. She will continue with this topic (and extensions of it) as a PhD project at the DSS chair.

Her statement: "The MINT sector - especially the technical area - still has so much potential and offers the opportunity to actively participate in research and progress. Already during my school days I was interested in the STEM subjects and therefore decided to study engineering. In electrical engineering and information technology, the knowledge learned can be put directly into practice and used in various areas of life for innovative solutions. I personally find applications in the medical context and interdisciplinary work very interesting and motivating."

From 3D printers and underwater sound transmission to the next-generation Internet and nanotechnology – the open day on 28 June provided a wide range of insights into studying at our faculty.

The concept of laboratory tours, short lectures and discussions with students worked. "The day was very helpful, now I have a picture of the university in mind. I particularly liked the fact that we could ask questions everywhere," says 17-year-old Tim from Heikendorf. Student Liv from Kiel, also 17, feels confirmed in her desire to study something technical. Her classmate Lilli, on the other hand, is still unsure. "I was at a talk about student financing and scholarships – that's definitely good to know, no matter what I'm studying."

"As teachers, we depend on such days. This is a worthwhile event here, very exciting. With the many courses of study today, we as teachers are dependent on universities making offers like these," says a teacher from Kiel, who came to the Faculty of Engineering with her chemistry profile class. "The timing just before the summer holidays suits us very well. With the many program information on the Internet, we were able to plan our visit well," says a physics teacher from Heikendorf.

(Text and pictures from Julia Siekmann)

Dr. Gitanjali Kolhatkar from the Chair of Nanoelectronics of the Faculty of Engineering (Kiel University) has been appointed for an assistant professorship in “Engineering Physics” at McMaster University (Toronto, Canada). Dr. Gitanjali Kolhatkar recently accepted the offered professorship and will start her new position on July 1st 2022. Dr Kolhatkar was between 09/2019 and 02/2022 a scholarship holder of the renowned Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation (AvH) at the Chair of Nanoelectronics (Prof. Kohlstedt) at the Faculty of Engineering. Her colleagues at the Chair of Nanoelectronics and the Institute for Experimental and Applied Physics (IEAP) congratulate Dr. Kolhatkar for this remarkable achievement. Although Dr. Kolhatkar will leave Kiel University, her fruitful, scientific contribution on the subject of novel materials will be continued with the Chair of Nanoelectronics.

Osteoporosis is one of the most common diseases worldwide: With increasing age, bone density decreases, the bone becomes porous and the risk of a bone fracture increases. On the left, a cross-section through an osteoporotic tibia (30% porosity); on the right, a healthy bone (5% porosity) in comparison.

Osteoporosis is one of the most common and expensive widespread diseases worldwide and increases the risk of suffering a bone fracture. Often the disease is detected late or not at all and remains untreated.

The research team consist of researchers from the Kiel University (CAU), namely: Professor Andreas Bahr the head of sensor system slectronics department at the institute of electrical engineering and information technology, Professor of Medical Physics Claus-Christian Glüer at the medical faculty of the CAU and head of the biomedical imaging section of the clinic for radiology and neuroradiology at the university medical center Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH), and software company sonoware GmbH. In the framework of the cooperation project it is planned to develop an ultrasound device that can be used to determine bone density and structure more accurately and more gently than the X-ray methods used to date. The new diagnostic device could thus be used in a more versatile way and help to identify osteoporosis diseases more quickly and comprehensively, according to the research team's goal.

The next step is to turn this patent-pending method into a fully functional prototype for medical use in general, internal medical or gynecology practices.

The project, which has now been launched, is being funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy as a part of the Central Innovation Program for small and medium -sized enterprises (SMEs).

The full press report on the launch of the project can be found on the CAU's central website.

The Schleswig-Holstein-Magazin reported on 23.05.2022 about the AMBIT project.

The chair of microwave engineering received the best student paper award at the International Microwave Filter Workshop (IMFW2021) in Perugia. In the paper „T-shaped Dual-Mode Waveguide Filters with Low Manufacturing Complexity for mm-Wave Applications", the authors Daniel Miek, Fynn Kamrath, Patrick Boe and Michael Höft showed that waveguide filters in the sub-terahertz frequency range can be realized by conventional milling techniques. These filters become increasingly important for future communication systems and sensors.

The following picture shows a photo of the related awarding ceremony during the gala dinner. Prof. Cristiano Tomassoni (right, Conference General Chair), Prof. Luca Perregrini (left, Member of Board of the European Microwave Association), and Dr. Elisa Fratticcioli (second from left, Vice President of RF Microtech) handed over the price to Daniel Miek (second from right). The Institute congratulates the authors on this great achievement.

The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research is funding four German-wide research hubs looking into the next generation of mobile radio „6G“. The consortia consist of multiple universities and research institutes and combine unique knowledge for the development of new hard- and software, which will be also transferred to real applications in a later project phase. Stephan Pachnicke, Head of the Chair of Communications at the Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, is participating in the „6G Research and Innovation Cluster“ (6G-RIC), which is led by the Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz-Institute (HHI). The goal of the cluster is to develop the next generation of mobile radio systems with open interfaces and breaking existing technological barriers. Also, an extensive test infrastructure will be created during the project. The total funding of the 6G-RIC project is 70 Million Euros over a period of 6 years.

The Research Minister, Mrs. Karliczek, commented:

„6G will be the mobile broadband technology of the future and will revolutionize the next century. 6G will be the central nervous system of our networked lives starting around 2030 and allow more than 100 times higher data rates than 5G combined with much higher energy efficiency and reliability. I am sure that the 6G research hubs will drive innovations in the communications fields of the future and will qualify future experts. They give us the unique opportunity to play as world-leaders for the future 6G mobile radio generation.“

Every year, the Gesellschaft für angewandte Signalverarbeitung (GaS) e.V. (Society for Applied Signal Processing) awards students in the field of digital signal processing and system theory who have completed outstanding theses. Particular attention is paid to the scientific and technical standards as well as the practical relevance of the work. In addition, the student's commitment and ability to work interdisciplinary and in a team are evaluated.

As part of this year's GaS Online General Assembly, Moritz Boueke, B.Sc., was awarded the title "Human Movement Classification using IMUs in Real-time" for his bachelor thesis. Mr. Boueke's work focused on the detection and differentiation of various everyday activities based on sensor data collected with inertial measurement units (IMUs). In our ageing society, neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's are of high clinical relevance. In this context, the recording of movement patterns is an important tool in diagnosis and therapy. The trend is shifting from measurements in the clinical movement laboratory to measurements in the home environment, in which wearable sensors (so-called wearables) are used.

The identification of activities in the comparatively large amount of data is an important step in order to subsequently carry out targeted medical analyses, in which e.g. only stand-up processes are to be considered. As part of his work, Mr. Boueke has created extensive signal processing structures in the real-time framework KiRAT (Kiel Real-Time Application Toolkit), which lay a foundational foundation for this. This includes pre-processing of the sensor data, feature extraction, a decision tree for the actual classification and the preparation of intermediate results for visualization. As a result, activities such as "walking", "brushing" or "sitting down" can now be classified in real time with a state-of-the-art IMU system.

Neurogeriatrics, Department of Neurology, UKSH Campus Kiel, under the direction of Professor Walter Maetzler, acted as a medical project partner: "The award-winning work here is extremely innovative and user-oriented in an area that we physicians have paid too little attention to date: the natural home environment of our patients. With the presented work, Mr. Boueke succeeds in classifying relevant activities of daily life. This can be built on in many ways, with the ultimate goal of better diagnosis and treatment, especially of movement disorders. I would therefore like to congratulate Mr. Boueke and the supervisors on their work!" said Maetzler.

Congratulations from the institute.

In August, the Welt am Sonntag reported very positively about the E-PiCo master's degree program, which has meanwhile got off to a positive start, in its section on all aspects of training and studies. For example, the article begins with the words "The first European master's degree program in electromobility is jointly supported by four universities. The interest is enormous!"

In addition to the organizers of the study program, many of the first students naturally also have their say. If you are interested in reading the article, you can either have a look at the online version of the Welt am Sonntag or read the text here (in German).

Our university awards excellent achievements of female students in mathematics, IT, natural sciences and technology (known as the MINT subjects). This year Patricia Fuchs was awarded for her Bachelor thesis on the development and implementation of a magnetic heart axis estimation. We congratulate Patricia Fuchs to the EmpowerMINT award.

The thesis was supported with technical and medical expertise. In order to be able to compare the magnetically achieved results with conventional examinations (based on ECG), test persons were examined by Dr. Daniel Körbächer in his practice in Mönkeberg. The same persons were then magnetically measured at the Faculty of Engineering. Through this new method, the heart position of patients can be estimated more accurately and also in 3D (so far, this analysis is carried out only in the body level, i.e. in 2D). Ms. Fuchs was also supported by Prof. Frey, Head of Cardiology at the Heidelberg Hospital (and also a member of the SFB 1261). Erik Engelhardt and Gerhard Schmidt supervised the work on behalf of the Faculty of Engineering.

The picture shows Patrica Fuchs (center) and all supervisors (Daniel Körbächer, Erik Engelhardt, Gerhard Schmidt, Norbert Frey, from left).

At the beginning of the semester, the teaching program for the students of the master program E-PiCo in Kiel has started. This is already the second semester for the master students. We warmly welcome all newcomers here in Kiel.

The four-semester, English-language master's program E-PiCo is offered jointly by a consortium of partner universities: École Centrale de Nantes (France), Università degli Studi dell'Aquila (Italy), University Politehnica of Bucharest (Romania) and CAU. It is aimed at bachelor's graduates in electrical engineering or a similar field and includes charging and power optimization, energy management, battery life cycle, power electronics, mathematical system modeling and simulation, control and automation technology, optimization, among others. Various technological specializations of the partner universities and international industrial partners from the automotive, aerospace, logistics or transportation sectors complement the program.

The Research Minister is pleased that the European AI-NET project (AI-NET is abbreviating the English term "Accelerating Digital Transformation in Europe by Intelligent NETwork Automation") is now beginning. Prof. Pachnicke and his chair are involved in the large-scale project as part of the research of so-called resilient optical network structures (details).

Minister Karliczek commented: "I am pleased that the European AI-NET project is now beginning to explore the potential of artificial intelligence for automating the control of high-performance networks in order to guarantee network operation, optimize resource consumption and flexibly configure services. The three German project pillars will make an important contribution to this. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research is funding them with around 36 million euros for three years each." (traslated from German)

A new lecture hall building is currently under construction at the faculty, as is the Center for Networked Sensor Systems. Since there are only a few people at the faculty at the moment due to the pandemic, we show a short video of the current state of construction here. In the area behind building D, a so-called construction road is currently being built, so that the corresponding construction materials can be easily brought to the faculty. Behind it the new lecture hall building will be built. The Center for Networked Sensor Systems will find its new home near Building B. It is good to see that construction is progressing well so far.

Photo: FH Kiel / Matthias Pilch

Prof. Dr. Sabah Badri-Hoeher, associate member of the Faculty of Engineering of CAU Kiel, receives the prestigious Innovation Award 2021 of the state capital Kiel. This prize is awarded every second year.

Professor Dr. Sabah Badri-Hoeher is a physicist and engineer specializing in electrical engineering and information technology. For twelve years, she has headed the Digital Signal Processing group at Kiel University of Applied Sciences (FH Kiel) in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. Her studies in Casablanca and Paderborn led her first to the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in Erlangen as well as to the universities in Bremen and Oldenburg, before she accepted the professorship at FH Kiel in 2009. At the Faculty of Engineering of CAU Kiel, she regularly gives lectures on the topic of underwater techniques. With numerous projects, she succeeded in building up underwater information technology in Kiel and giving it international visibility. The Autonomous Underwater Robots (AUV) that Badri-Hoeher is developing with her team can be used in the future, for example, to inspect and maintain offshore wind farms or as an AUV swarm in shallow and deep waters.

On February 26, the 71st meeting of the ITG group " signal processing and machine learning" was organized by Dr. Uwe Kretschmer and Dr. Jan Abshagen of the German Military Technical Service for Ships and Naval Weapons, Maritime Technology and Research (WTD 71) together with the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (Prof. Schmidt). The meeting focused on applications in the maritime field of signal processing, measurement technology and machine learning, with a total of six lectures on new developments in the field of SONAR systems. The pandemic was the result of the meeting online. All in all, everything worked well and students were admitted for the 71st session for the first time. One of the student participants, Karoline Seidel, said after the meeting: "I attended the ITG expert group meeting because I am currently writing my thesis in the field of underwater signal processing and am very interested in the topics. Above all, I found the diversity of the topics covered in the lectures and how they are theoretically and practically researched really exciting." The next meeting will take place on 15 October in Stuttgart, hosted by Prof. Bin Yang. In addition to the members of the group, interested doctoral students and students are also welcome here.