Peter Sanders
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The 2008 Google Research Award goes to the research group of Professor Peter Sanders and Dr. Dominik Schultes at the Institute of Theoretical Information Science. The scientists are awarded this prize in the amount of $ 90,000 for their project “The Next Generation Route Planner”. Dr. Beate List from Google will hand this award over to the laureates on Friday, July 11, on the occasion of the Information Science Day.
The group of Professor Sanders has developed methods, by means of which optimum routes can be calculated without noticeable delays. “Now, this even works on mobile devices and also when traffic jams have to be considered”, underlines Sanders. With the help of new techniques, millions of route calculations can be made per second for logistics optimization and traffic simulation. “Apart from commercial licenses, we are also offering an open-source version that can be adapted easily”, says Sanders.
Moreover, the Karlsruhe scientists want to supply flexible target functions that balance energy consumption, driving time, and costs or calculate day time-dependent driving times. With the help of the award money, the researchers will study other promising applications, for example, a better coordination and placement of rides.
With its research award, Google wants to support researchers at academic institutions, who work on advanced and useful methods to access information. Google will discuss the results and their usability with the researchers.
The Faculty of Information Science will organize the Information Science Day on Friday, July 11, from 16.30 hrs at the Audimax (Straße am Forum 1, building 30.95). Apart from the bestowal of the Google Research Award, the program will include the commendation of the best lectures and of the year’s best graduates and students as well as the bestowal of the graduate award by the Klaus Tschira foundation and of the prize donated by the Friends of the Information Science Research Center for the two best diploma theses.
The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is the merger of the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, member of the Helmholtz Association, and the Universität Karlsruhe. This merger will give rise to an institution of internationally excellent research and teaching in natural and engineering sciences. In total, the KIT has 8000 employees and an annual budget of 700 million Euros. The KIT focuses on the knowledge triangle of research – teaching – innovation.
The Karlsruhe institution is a leading European energy research center and plays a visible role in nanosciences worldwide. KIT sets new standards in teaching and promotion of young scientists and attracts top scientists from all over the world. Moreover, KIT is a leading cooperation partner of industry.