Luca Cadau from Aalen University awarded the 41st Karl Kessler Prize
Recently, Maschinenfabrik Alfing Kessler GmbH presented the Karl Kessler Prize for the 41st time. This year again, students from Aalen University applied with interesting topics. One of them impressed the decision-makers across the board: Luca Cadau, a graduate of the “Advanced Materials and Manufacturing” program. He has now been honored for his master’s thesis, “An Approach to Generating Artificial Condition Data of Drivetrain Components Using Generative Adversarial Networks to Improve Data-Based Condition Monitoring Systems.”
AALEN “It is a great honor for me, and I would like to sincerely thank the jury, the employees of MAFA, my supervisors and colleagues,” said Luca Cadau from Nördlingen, beaming after the award ceremony at Maschinenfabrik Alfing Kessler’s plant in Wasseralfingen, adding with a laugh: “And of course my family as well, who always supported me during the creation of the master’s thesis and got through the night shifts—of which there were many—and one or two upsets together with me.”
Truly making the assigned task his own
Each year, Maschinenfabrik Alfing Kessler GmbH (MAFA) awards the Karl Kessler Prize for outstanding bachelor’s or master’s theses by students of Aalen University, commemorating the company founder of the traditional enterprise established in 1911. “Karl Kessler himself was a great inventor who initiated important technological innovations and always used to say that one will fail at an assigned task if one does not truly make it one’s own,” explained Konrad Grimm, Managing Director of MAFA and honorary senator of Aalen University, in his welcome address. Luca Cadau had, in the spirit of Karl Kessler, made the task set for him in his master’s thesis his own—and was therefore being honored for good reason. “In his master’s thesis, Luca Cadau demonstrated the highest level of commitment and initiative and has everything required for a doctorate, which I strongly encourage him to pursue,” emphasized Prof. Dr. Markus Kley, who as the supervising professor delivered the laudatory speech at the award ceremony. Rector Prof. Dr. Harald Riegel also congratulated Luca Cadau on this success. “Awards like this are very important for our students,” Riegel said, also thanking the sponsoring company and adding: “They not only reward hard work, but are also an incentive for the future.”
MAFA as a family tradition
Luca Cadau is no stranger at MAFA, as he already wrote his bachelor’s thesis there in 2022 in the Automotive area—today’s Power Components division. His father, who had also come to the award ceremony, as well as other relatives of Cadau work for the company in Wasseralfingen, which Konrad Grimm jokingly referred to as a “fine family tradition” that would hopefully continue.
AI improves condition monitoring in electric vehicles
In a brief presentation that followed, Luca Cadau introduced his development of an innovative method to improve condition monitoring and testing of drivetrains in battery-electric vehicles using artificial intelligence—a topic of growing importance in the era of electromobility. “A key practical problem was that machine-learning models require large amounts of training data. In reality, especially for rare fault conditions, these are often hardly available,” Cadau explained, approaching the problem in a modern way: He used so-called Generative Adversarial Networks to generate artificial but realistic vibration data under non-stationary operating conditions, thereby significantly improving the performance of the machine-learning models. He reached a clear conclusion: “In the future, it’s clear: no mechanical engineering without AI.”
Photo: Pleased about the presentation of the 41st Karl Kessler Prize to Luca Cadau (left to right): Manfred Grimminger, Prof. Dr. Harald Riegel, Peter-Hermann Fischer, Konrad Grimm, Luca Cadau, Prof. Dr. Markus Kley, Dr. Wolfgang Rimkus