Erwin Sick (3 November 1909 in Heilbronn – 3 December 1988) was a German inventor and entrepreneur.

Life and career

1924 Erwin Sick began his professional career with an apprenticeship in optometry and then attended the College of Optics and Precision Mechanics in

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The ori ...

. In 1932 he got a job at

Siemens & Halske Siemens & Halske AG (or Siemens-Halske) was a German electrical engineering company that later became part of Siemens. It was founded on 12 October 1847 as ''Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske'' by Werner von Siemens and Johann Ge ...

, where he initially worked in the computer lab. From 1934 to 1939 Erwin Sick held various positions at Siemens, Bosch and Askania Werke AG initially as a designer and later as an engineer. There he was involved in development projects on color film, cinema technology, astronomical and physical devices. In 1939 he became head of the Laboratory of Optical Works A&C Steinheil & Söhne, Munich. In 1945 he quit the job and ventured into self-employment. Because he was politically unencumbered, Erwin Sick received his license to "Practice his profession as an engineer" on 26 September 1946 by the American military government. That was the birth of the company that later became known as

Sick AG Sick AG (or SICK, as spelled by the company), based in Waldkirch (Breisgau), Germany, is a global manufacturer of sensors and sensor solutions for industrial applications. The company is active in the areas of factory and logistics automation and ...

. In June 1951 "German Inventors and Innovations Fair" was held in Munich where Sick presented his first finished wooden model of

Photoelectric sensor A photoelectric sensor is a device used to determine the distance, absence, or presence of an object by using a light transmitter, often infrared, and a photoelectric receiver. They are largely used in industrial manufacturing. There are three ...

and received a certificate "for creative performance". The successful patent application of the invented

s and

Autocollimation {{more citations needed, date=November 2021 Autocollimation is an optical setup where a collimated beam (of parallel light rays) leaves an optical system and is reflected back into the same system by a plane mirror. It is used for measuring small ...

by Erwin Sick on 20 October meant a breakthrough in technical devices and based an entire equipment program. On 3 December 1988 Erwin Sick died at the age of 79 years after a heart attack.
Also see this video describing his life.

Honors and awards

* In 1971, Erwin Sick received Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class at the 25th anniversary of

. * In 1980, the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Technical University of Munich awarded Erwin Sick an honorary Doctor of Engineering in recognition of his contribution "to scientific and constructive development of optical devices with electronic signal evaluation". * In 1982, he was awarded the

Rudolf-Diesel-Medaille The Rudolf-Diesel-Medaille is an award by the German Institute for Inventions (, D.I.E.) in memory of Rudolf Diesel for inventions and the entrepreneurial and economical implications accounting to the laureate. Since 1953 the award has been present ...

"for his numerous inventions in optoelectronics".

Literature

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sick, Erwin Businesspeople from Baden-Württemberg Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany People from Heilbronn 20th-century German inventors 1909 births 1988 deaths Place of death missing Siemens people Engineers from Baden-Württemberg