Three-minute bacteria test and high-temperature ultrasonic sensors impress the jury

Nuremberg, May 6, 2025 – The AMA Association for Sensor and Measurement Technology has honored two outstanding development teams with the AMA Innovation Award 2025. This year's winners are the development teams at NanoStruct GmbH in Würzburg, a young company with university ties, and the development team at the established Endress+Hauser Flow in Switzerland. Both teams impressed the independent jury of experts from science and industry in equal measure. The prize money of €10,000 will be split between the two winners.

The award ceremony took place on May 6, 2025, at the opening of the SENSOR+TEST trade fair in Nuremberg. This year marked the 25th anniversary of the AMA Innovation Award, an anniversary that impressively reflects the breadth and depth of technological innovations in sensor and measurement technology.

The award-winning projects at a glance:

Three-minute bacteria test with SERS technology

Development team: Dr. Henriette Maaß and Enno Schatz, NanoStruct GmbH, Würzburg

The start-up NanoStruct GmbH, which emerged from the University of Würzburg, developed an innovative rapid test for identifying pathogenic bacteria in food. The technology is based on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) and enables detection within minutes using nanostructured sensors.

The challenge lay in the reproducible production of the nanostructures, which has now been successfully achieved. The technology is about to enter the market – initially in the field of food analysis, with further applications in other safety-critical areas in the future. True to the motto “Faster analysis for a safer life,” the process contributes to greater safety and efficiency in quality control.

Clamp-on ultrasonic sensors for high-temperature flow measurements

Development team: Beat Kissling, Quirin Müller, Roberto Vitali, Andreas Berger, Endress+Hauser Flow, Reinach (Switzerland)

The development team at Endress+Hauser Flow has achieved a technological breakthrough that enables contactless flow measurements at temperatures of up to 550 °C for the first time. The innovative clamp-on ultrasonic sensor can also be used to measure high-temperature liquids such as molten salts with precision, making a significant contribution to industrial applications in the context of the energy transition. The sensors open up new applications, for example in thermal energy storage or in high-temperature processes where no reliable measurement technology was previously available.

“I would like to congratulate both winning teams. With this year's double award, we are recognizing two completely different but equally forward-looking developments,” explains Professor Dr. Andreas Schütze, Chairman of the Jury. ”They show how innovative strength arises in both start-ups and established companies and how important this diversity is for technological progress.”

Brochure with all 2025 submissions

All accepted submissions, the winning teams, and the nominated teams will be published with a brief description of the innovation in the brochure “AMA Innovation Award 2025 – The Applicants,” which can be downloaded free of charge online:
https://www.ama-sensorik.de/fileadmin/2025_InnoBroschuere_FINAL.pdf

Applications for the 2026 Innovation Award

Application forms for the AMA Innovation Award 2026 will be available at the end of October 2025. Applications can be submitted by individuals or development teams from companies and institutes. Further information is available at: https://www.ama-sensorik.de/wissenschaft/ama-innovationspreis/

Three established and two young companies in the final

Berlin, March 25, 2025 – The AMA Association for Sensors and Measurement nominates five outstanding applications for the AMA Innovation Award 2025. Among them, two winners of the special 'Young Enterprise' award have already been determined: NanoStruct GmbH with its three-minute bacteria test based on SERS technology and Pelora GmbH with its highly precise WayveSpot positioning system.

Strong competition and innovative strength

This year, 27 research and development teams from Germany and abroad submitted their projects for the renowned AMA Innovation Award. The jury, consisting of experts from science and industry, nominated five teams, including three established companies and two start-ups. The final winners will be announced at the SENSOR+TEST 2025 in May and will receive prize money of 10,000 euros, which the jury can also split.

Twelve of the submitted applications came from young companies that have been on the market for no longer than five years, employ fewer than 50 people and generate annual sales of less than ten million euros. Two of these companies particularly impressed the jury:

• NanoStruct GmbH (Würzburg) developed a three-minute bacteria test with SERS (Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy) technology, which uses nanotechnological sensors to identify pathogenic bacteria in food in minutes instead of days.

• Pelora GmbH (Erlangen): Their WayveSpot system enables highly precise location of Bluetooth devices by evaluating Bluetooth advertising packets from standard 4.0 and achieving a localization accuracy in the centimetre to lower decimetre range with a patented algorithm.

These two teams will receive a free trade fair appearance at SENSOR+TEST 2025 in Nuremberg as a special prize for young companies and will remain in the running for the AMA Innovation Award 2025.

The five nominees for the AMA Innovation Award 2025

(in alphabetical order):

Clamp-on ultrasonic transducers for high-temperature flow measurement

Endress+Hauser Flow, Reinach/Switzerland – team spokesperson: Beat Kissling

Development of non-invasive ultrasonic sensors for measuring the volume flow of liquid media in pipelines with temperatures of up to +550°C.

Three-minute bacteria test with SERS

NanoStruct GmbH, Würzburg – team spokesperson: Dr. Henriette Maaß

Revolutionizing food analysis by identifying pathogenic bacteria in minutes using sensors based on nanotechnology.

WayveSpot

Pelora GmbH, Erlangen – team spokesperson: Dr. Erik Sippel

Highly precise location of any Bluetooth device with an accuracy in the centimeter to lower decimeter range using a new type of hardware and patented algorithms.

Industrial acceleration sensor with edge AI processing

STMicroelectronics, Cornaredo/Italy – team spokesperson: Carlo Larghi

Digital acceleration sensor with embedded machine learning core for motion pattern classification for industrial IoT applications.

New temperature sensors for wide-band-gap power electronics

Yageo Nexensos GmbH, Kleinostheim – team spokesperson: Stefan Dietmann

High-performance temperature sensors with intrinsic isolation and improved response time for SiC power electronic modules.

Jury chairman emphasizes the high quality of the submissions

“This year's submissions presented us with a difficult decision. The range and depth of the innovations was impressive, and there were numerous exciting solutions that would have been worthy of an award,” says Professor Andreas Schütze, jury chairman from Saarland University. ”The five nominees exemplify the innovative strength of the industry, and you can read about many more exciting projects in the brochure with all the applications.”

Awards ceremony at the SENSOR+TEST 2025

The winners of the AMA Innovation Award 2025 will be announced on 6 May 2025 during the opening event of the SENSOR+TEST 2025 in Nuremberg.

Further information and an overview of all applications can be found at: https://www.ama-sensorik.de/fileadmin/2025_AMA_Innovationspreis_Broschuere.pdf