FUSE now also nominated for the international "AMA Innovation Award 2022"!
Particularly innovative research results with recognizable market relevance - this is what the AMA (Association for Sensors and Measurement) is looking for every year among international researchers. The renowned AMA Innovation Award will be presented at the start of the "SENSOR+TEST" measurement technology trade fair in Nuremberg on May 10. The Hanover-based start-up ACKISION GmbH has a real chance of winning with its FUSE current measuring device, which also won the "University Start-up" category in the Startup-Impuls start-up competition organized by hannoverimpuls and Sparkasse Hannover just a few days ago.
"Just being nominated for the prestigious award from the German industry association for technical measurement systems is an accolade for our research - and an important reward for years of work on FUSE," says team leader Dr. Ansgar T. Kirk, describing the jubilation among his founding partners. They have all been working together for seven years at the Institute for Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering and Metrology at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Leibniz Universität Hannover and founded ACKISION GmbH for their FUSE measuring device.
This year, the industry association received 30 international applications for the AMA Innovation Award 2022, five teams were nominated for the coveted industry prize by the jury of representatives from industrial companies and research - one of them ACKISION GmbH with FUSE.
ACKISION is already one of the two winners of the special category "Young Company", for which companies that have been on the market for less than five years, employ fewer than 50 people and generate an annual turnover of less than 10 million can apply to the AMA. With the special prize, ACKISION and FUSE have secured a free appearance at the SENSOR+TEST industry trade fair, at the start of which the AMA Innovation Award is traditionally presented.
ACKISION GmbH has developed FUSE, a patent-pending current measuring device. It combines the highest signal-to-noise ratio, wide bandwidth and excellent dynamics with linearity over more than six orders of magnitude from femto- to microamperes. A prototype of FUSE is already in continuous use with a pilot customer and is currently being brought to series maturity as part of an EXIST research transfer - also a success story of starting business, the joint start-up consultancy of hannoverimpuls and Leibniz Universität Hannover.
From airport security checks and water pollution tests to PCR tests: measuring tiny currents is a central component of chemical or physical analysis everywhere. "The basic principle of current measurements always remains the same. But our device not only measures the smallest currents practically error-free, but also quickly - and can still measure large currents too! The combination of these performance factors was the big challenge that was previously missing on the market," says team leader Dr. Ansgar T. Kirk, explaining the development. Incidentally, the initial impetus for this research achievement came from a manufacturer of analytical devices who was dissatisfied with the current market offering.
What is so special about FUSE? First of all, we have to approach the research field of very small currents, the analysis of which offers so many areas of application: A power socket, for example, delivers a current of up to 16 amperes. The currents that the scientists in Hanover work with are in the order of femtoamperes, which corresponds to about one quadrillionth of the current in a socket - or as the researchers put it: If a dinosaur had started to charge a cell phone with these currents in its time 100 million years ago, it would still not have finished today - the charge bar still showed less than one percent! But for chemical analyses, for example, the resulting electrical currents are correspondingly small when searching for contaminants in drinking water or soil. What's more, the fewer these pollutants are present, the less current flows. Lower limit values therefore also require better analysis options and, in particular, better current measuring devices.
The FUSE current measuring device can measure even these smallest currents practically error-free and eliminate previous deviations in measuring processes. Particularly low-noise ammeters often work capacitively, i.e. the charge is collected for measurement. However, this does not work indefinitely - the device must be permanently reset via internal switches. However, in previous measuring devices, these switches cause errors in the results every time they are switched. The ACKISION team has developed FUSE (FUSE stands for: Femtoampere (fA) to microampere (μA) fast detection), the team at ACKISION has invented a circuit that avoids this - and also directly corrects potential subsequent errors thanks to its clever design. This current meter can be used flexibly in chemical analysis to quickly and precisely measure both the smallest concentrations of pollutants and concentrations that are up to a billion times higher. The potential market volume is correspondingly huge: the entire field of environmental analysis as well as quality controls for pharmaceuticals or crude oil. FUSE could make the work of large testing laboratories easier and optimize the results.
The new current meter even enables measurements in the sub-femtoampere range within seconds! At the same time, currents down to one microampere can be measured without any switching due to the high dynamics. This unique combination of speed, sensitivity and dynamics is the decisive unique selling point of the ammeter.
"Congratulations to the FUSE team on this outstanding nomination," says a delighted Tobias Quebe, project manager of starting business at hannoverimpuls. "Further proof that the engineers from ACKISION GmbH have delivered top-class research. We are keeping both fingers crossed for the team for the award ceremony! FUSE is a great example of how young scientists can tackle a problem during their doctorate and put their findings into practice. The development has truly unique selling points on the market and countless areas of application. FUSE has already been awarded 27 EXIST grants," he adds.
The winners of the AMA Innovation Award - which has been awarded to the developers themselves for 22 years and not to the institutions behind them - can expect not only international renown but also prize money of 10,000 euros.
Contact FUSE:
Dr.-Ing. Ansgar T. Kirk
E-mail: kirk@geml.uni-hannover.de
Phone: 0511 762-4864