The Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft für Kraftfahrzeug- und Motorentechnik (WKM) aims to promote science and research, scientific teaching, study and training of young scientists in the field of automotive and engine technology. Every two years, the WKM awards the Kamm-Jante Medal, which honours outstanding achievements by students, young scientists and engineers from German-speaking scientific universities or from the industry and supplier industry.
Software Campus graduate Andreas Vogelsang, who received his doctorate in “Model-based Requirements Engineering for Multifunctional Systems” at TU Munich, was one of this year’s two award winners. During the Aachen Colloquium on October 10, 2016, he received the medal from the Chairman of the WKM, Prof. Hermann Winner (TU Darmstadt), and the two organizers of the Aachen Colloquium, Prof. Lutz Eckstein and Prof. Stefan Pischinger as well as Prof. Franz Pischinger.
The prize-winning dissertation deals with the description of so-called multifunctional systems: Systems in which many supposedly independent functions are integrated into one system. A car, for example, fulfils many functions from the parking assistant to the air conditioning system to the window regulator, which usually function independently of each other. Nevertheless, situations arise in which the interaction of different functions leads to unforeseen behavior. In his dissertation, Andreas showed that functions in a vehicle today are highly interconnected, but that developers are largely unaware of the concrete connections. “As a result, I developed a methodology with which dependencies between functions can be described explicitly and at an early stage. I then demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of this methodology in four case studies, amongst others at Siemens, MAN and my software campus cooperation partner Robert Bosch GmbH,” says Andreas.
To be considered for the Kamm-Jante medal, one needs to be recommended by the supervising professor, in this case by Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Manfred Broy, the meanwhile emeritus head of the chair for Software & Systems Engineering at the TU Munich. The WKM jury selects one automotive and one engine research project for the science award. When selecting the prizewinners, the focus is on the degree of innovation and practical relevance of their work as well as the proportion of basic research. Andreas thinks it is “courageous of the WKM to award the science prize this year to work from the field of software engineering. Furthermore, it underlines once again the importance of software and software engineering for automotive engineering, which is traditionally associated with mechanical engineering”.
As of this summer, Andreas holds a junior professorship at the Daimler Center for Automotive Information Technology Innovations (DCAITI) at the Technical University of Berlin and conducts research in the field of “IT-based vehicle innovations”.