Stefan Siegmund, holder of the Chair of Dynamics and Control at the Department of Mathematics at TU Dresden, has been awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Polish Honorary Research Fellowship – the Polish equivalent to the prestigious German Humboldt Research Award. In his project „Qualitative theory of fractional difference operators”, he intends to do basic research on new applications in electronics together with his colleagues from the Silesian University of Technology in Poland. 

Prof. Siegmund’s research addresses so-called “fractional derivatives” – a mathematical question reaching back to the 17^th century. Then, the French mathematician Marquis de L’Hospital asked his famous German colleague Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz whether derivatives and integrals could be “interpolated” – meaning whether fractional derivatives or integrals would be possible. However, it was not until 200 years later that this question could be formulated properly and answered by using “fractional differential operators”.

In the last few years, „fractional derivatives” were rediscovered as a means of modelling “processes with memory”, especially by materials scientists. This method is likely to optimize a variety of applications in fields such as robotics or automated vehicle control. Prof. Siegmund wants to create a basis for such applications and explains: “This is really exciting for me since I have the opportunity to play a part in the development of a new field.” For several weeks this summer, he will therefore work at the Faculty of Automatic Control, Electronics and Computer Science at the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice.

With his Polish host Prof. Adam Czornik, Prof. Siegmund will do research on the application of already known theoretic results. The two scientists are going to discretize the models with fractional derivatives for computing and find out which “fractional difference operators” are most suitable from a mathematical point of view. 

The Foundation for Polish Science (FNP) awards the „Alexander von Humboldt Polish Honorary Research Fellowship“ annually to outstanding professors from Germany. The candidates are nominated by Polish scholars and come from all fields of research. Apart from honouring the scientific accomplishments of the laureates, the fellowship is also intended to promote long-term cooperation between Polish and German researchers. That is why the programme supports research stays at a Polish research institution. These visits may last from three to six months and can be divided flexibly over a period of three years.