A total of twenty-five students and PhD candidates are competing for the awards. Eight nominees will go for the Final Project Award, and there are five nominees for the Design Award. Ten TU/e students are in hot pursuit for the Doctoral Project Award while there are two nominees for the Perspective Award.

Ir. Jos Reijnders and Jorge Crespo Cedeño MSc PDEng are in the running for the Perspective Award. Reijnders graduated from Mechanical Engineering in 2009 and developed a new type of fuel injector for diesel engines. Normally speaking injection takes place by means of an injector containing six to eight pores with a diameter of approx. 0.2 millimeter. This results in a shortage of oxygen during combustion, so that soot is formed. The soot must be removed later by a soot filter, which leads to some three percent extra fuel consumption. Reijnders found a way to prevent the formation of soot, thus reducing CO2 emissions as well as fuel consumption. He used a porous material in the injector. As a result, the fuel is atomized and distributed over the whole cylinder, so that all the oxygen present in the cylinder is used during combustion. In addition, the fuel pressure can be reduced from 2000 bar to approximately 500 bar, with the bonus of a further drop in fuel consumption.

Jorge Crespo Cedeño concentrated on the lighting in camera systems. It is rather difficult to detect the presence of a person when the lighting changes constantly. Normally speaking a powerful algorithm is created for this, but Crespo Cedeño came up with another solution. He developed an algorithm which can learn ‘independently’ from the illumination effects produced by the system. This system functions much faster than the normal one does, which increases the possibility of interpreting human behavior.

Reijnders and Crespo Cedeño will contend with each other in a battle. This implies that they must give a presentation of five minutes and answer questions posed by the jury. Subsequently one of them is elected the winner. The winners of the other categories have been selected in advance, but will not be announced until 10th June.

In between presentations, trendwatcher Remco Bron will present a lecture on how technology changes society. In connection with the relatively large number of foreign nominees, the presentation ceremony will be in English. (JvG)/.

Until 14th June an exhibition of the work created by the nominees will be on show on floor 1 in the hall of the Hoofdgebouw.