Award

IfKom Award 2025 for M. Eng. Johannes Kiener

M. Eng. Johannes Kiener was awarded the IfKom Prize 2025 at OTH Regensburg for his outstanding master's thesis. The Engineers for Communication (IfKom e. V.) presented him with the award on 17 October during the graduation ceremony of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology.

In his master's thesis entitled ‘Porting and Evaluation of a Python Machine Learning System for a Linux-based Microcontroller,’ Johannes Kiener further developed a predictive maintenance system. This is a process that enables machine damage to be detected at an early stage and maintenance work to be planned in a targeted manner. This reduces downtime and saves costs.

Most of the work was carried out at Tokyo University of Science in Japan as part of a joint research project between Prof. Dr. Takahiro Yoshida and Prof. Dr. Thomas Sehr from OTH Regensburg. Kiener ported an existing system to a more powerful microcontroller (Raspberry Pi) and investigated its performance. The new system enabled significantly faster calculations and easier further development thanks to the use of modern software tools. Kiener thus laid the foundation for future applications in the field of edge AI.

Prof. Sehr congratulated Johannes Kiener on his excellent work, together with the regional representatives of the professional association, Dipl.-Ing. Helmut Steinberger (district chairman) and Dipl.-Ing. Peter Stöberl (member of the federal executive committee). ‘This master's thesis demonstrates the high quality and international networking of research at OTH Regensburg,’ emphasised Prof. Sehr.

 

Promoting young talent with the IfKom Award

For many years, the Association of Engineers for Communication (IfKom e. V.) has been awarding its sponsorship prize at OTH Regensburg to recognise outstanding theses in the field of engineering. The association's goal is to inspire young people to pursue technical degrees and thus promote the urgently needed next generation of engineers.

 

About IfKom

Ingenieure für Kommunikation e. V. (IfKom) is the professional association for technical specialists and managers in the communications industry. It represents the interests of its members from the telecommunications and information technology sectors in business, politics and the public sphere. Further information can be found here.

Dipl.-Ing. Peter Stöberl (IfKom Federal Executive Committee), Dipl.-Ing. Helmut Steinberger (IfKom District Chairman), award winner M.Eng. Johannes Kiener, Prof. Dr. Armin Sehr, Dean Prof. Dr. Rainer Holmer. Photo: Maximilian Kleinschmidt