Winners Young Researcher Award 2022
In 2022, the "ICT Young Researcher Award" will again be presented to outstanding students for their scientific motivation and effort in the profile area of information and communication technology. This year, for the first time, awards were presented in two categories: Bachelor's and Master's level as well as doctoral level. As many as five students could be honored with the Young Researcher Award.
Till Hofmann
One of the renowned researchers is Till Hofmann. His research focuses on bridging the gap between high-level reasoning and plan execution in robots. When developing versatile robotic systems that deal with open-ended tasks, the robot has to reason about its capabilities at an abstract level. For example, when executing plans, the robot must respond to unexpected events and adjust its goals as necessary. Although reasoning and planning approaches have been explored, the use of such robots has been neglected. To fill this gap, Hofmann's research focuses on continuous planning, where planning and execution are intertwined, as well as macro planning and a self-model.
Till Hofmann completed his computer science studies at RWTH and is now pursuing his PhD in the Knowledge-Based System Group, at the Department of Information Systems.
For his research, Till Hofmann receives 2000 Euro as part of the Young Researcher Award. We congratulate him on his success!
Dominik Kus
The next renowned researchers is Dominik Kus. His research focuses on the potential and challenges of Industrial Intrusion Detection Systems (IIDS for short) as a means of securing industrial control systems. Due to the rapid digitization of industrial processes, information technology has penetrated much of the critical infrastructure. Systems that our society relies on are becoming vulnerable to cyberattacks. Initially, Kus's work related to evaluating the capability of IIDS against new attacks and developing a methodology. The focus of his broad research is to fill the research gap related to the combinatorics of different IIDS concepts.
Dominik Kus is studying computer science at RWTH and graduated with a bachelor's degree from RWTH in 2019.
For his further research, Dominik Kus will receive 1000 Euro within the YRA. We warmly congratulate him on his success!
Mahsa Pourbafrani
Another renowned researcher is Mahsa Pourbafrani. The focus of her research is on data-driven analysis and improvement of real-world processes in companies and organizations. Digitalization is bringing intelligent decision making and response to new scenarios more and more to the fore. The goal of her research is to develop approaches and frameworks for process improvement related to various aspects in industry. As a result, simulation and prediction models are provided in the form of digital shadows. Various data science and process mining techniques are used to achieve fast and accurate responses to changes.
Mahsa Pourbafrani completed her computer science degree at Amirkabir University of Technology in Iran. She is currently pursuing her PhD at the Department of Process and Data Science.
As part of the Young Researcher Award, Mahsa Pourbafrani will receive 1000 euros for her further research. We congratulate her on her success!
Antoine Saillard
Another renowned researcher is Antoine Saillard. Saillard's work focuses on the Industrial Intrusion Detection System and Maritime Cybersecurity. Due to the current trend of connecting vehicles, distribution networks and industrial plants to the Internet through digitalization, the risk of a cyber attack with catastrophic effects is increasing. To this end, Antoine Saillard is investigating the generalization of process-based industrial intrusion detection systems. However, the focus of his research is on maritime cybersecurity. Here, he is developing a simulation environment to demonstrate the impact of network attacks on maritime RADAR systems.
Antoine Saillard is also studying computer science at RWTH and graduated with a bachelor's degree from RWTH in 2021.
As part of the YRA, Antoine Saillard will receive 2000 Euros for his further research. We warmly congratulate him on his success!
Xiaopeng Yuan
The last renowned researcher is Xiaopeng Yuan. His research focuses on the trajectory and network of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs for short) and ultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC for short). UAVs, for example in the form of drones, are a promising and versatile service technology. However, continuous trajectories for UAVs suffer from the high number of variables and significant unavoidable approximation errors. To prevent this, Yuan developed highly efficient approaches for continuous UAV trajectory design and resource allocation optimization. Furthermore, he has implemented efficient system designs in various network types, such as resource allocation for multi-carrier full-duplex URLLC networks.
Xiaopeng Yuan graduated from Beijing Univerity of Aeronautics & Astronautics in China with a bachelor's degree in 2016 and completed his master's degree at RWTH in 2019. He has been pursuing his PhD at the Department of Information Theory and Data Analytics since 2019.
For his research, Xiaopeng Yuan will receive 1000 euros as part of the Young Researcher Award. We congratulate him on his success!