Friedrich Wilhelm Gundlach Prize 2025 for Valerie Fetzer

The Friedrich Wilhelm Gundlach Prize recognizes outstanding theses in the field of high-frequency engineering. In her work, Valerie Fetzer experimentally validated a novel full-duplex frontend for the first time – an approach that enables simultaneous transmission and reception on the same frequency channel.

A central challenge of such systems is the inherent coupling of transmit power into the receive path. Ms. Fetzer reduced the investigated concept to an analytical circuit model, assessed suitable GaN amplifier chips for integration, and analyzed system performance based on large-signal simulations under realistic conditions.

Building on this, she developed a demonstrator board, implemented the frontend, and designed the drive circuitry for the transmit amplifiers to demonstrate crosstalk suppression. For the experimental validation, she also designed and set up an appropriate measurement environment and conducted the required measurements.

With her work, Ms. Fetzer provides a solid contribution to advancing full-duplex systems and is awarded the Friedrich Wilhelm Gundlach Prize by the VHF.