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Friday, January 26, 2018

Alumnus Nils Gessert receives SICK Award

Sustainable benefits for people and society: NIT alumnus Nils Gessert has been selected for the SICK award for his outstanding master thesis. This is the fourth time that the Gisela and Erwin Sick Foundation has awarded this prize to outstanding scientists at the Technical University of Hamburg (TUHH). The award recognizes the development of innovative sensor technology for positive changes within the working world in the areas of process, factory and logistics automation as well as environmental protection.

SICK pays tribute to outstanding research into sensor technology

"With the SICK award, we would like to support young scientists and encourage them to make a contribution to securing Germany's position as a technology and future location with its outstanding achievements, "explained Renate Sick-Glaser, Chairman of the Executive Board of the Gisela and Erwin Sick Foundation, as well as a member of the owner family of SICK AG at the award ceremony.

Gessert researches new methods for deep learning

For his master's thesis "Investigation of Features and Learning Algorithms for Pose Estimation in OCT Volumes", Class 16 student Nils Gessert received the SICK award worth 2,000 euros. In his work, he devoted himself to Deep Learning and the question of how the position of an object in space can be estimated as precisely as possible on the basis of measured values. For this purpose, he chose the optical coherence method as a basis, a comparatively new imaging method. The aim was to derive the position and orientation of objects from image data. He has impressively demonstrated that this approach delivers better results than classical methods. The work is fundamental and varied in terms of practical application. For example, accurate position determination is just as important for minimally invasive surgery as it is for applications in industrial scenarios.

About Nils Gessert

Nils Gessert holds an MSc in Mechatronics from Hamburg University of Technology and an MA in Technology Management from the NIT Northern Institute of Technology Management. Since April 2017, he has been working as a research assistant at the Institute of Medical Technology at the TUHH. There, Nils will continue his research based on the results of his Master's thesis.

The Gisela and Erwin Sick Foundation

The Gisela and Erwin Sick Foundation was established in 2002 by Gisela Sick, the widow of Dr. -Ing. h. c. Erwin Sick, the founder of SICK AG. The purpose of the legally competent, non-profit foundation with its registered office in Freiburg is to promote science and research, young people, education, adult education and vocational training, including student assistance. The foundation places particular emphasis on the STEM subjects with the aim of making a contribution to securing Germany's position as a location for technology and the future.

Text: Sabrina Knoll

Further information: www.tuhh.de (in German)



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