News & Awards

Autonomous Motion Smart Nanoplasmonics Movement Generation and Control News 20-01-2015 Scientists at the MPI for Intelligent Systems receive more than 3 Million Euro ERC Starting Grants Intelligent Systems Research: Spanning the Length Scale Stuttgart / Tübingen. Five years of basic research is secured: The physicist Dr. Laura Na Liu and the computer scientist Dr. Ludovic Righetti, both from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, receive an ERC Starting Grant of 1,5 Million Euro, respectively. Prof. Jan Peters, head of the robot learning group at the institute (while mainly active as full professor at the TU Darmstadt) will invest part of his ERC starting grant into his research group at the institute. The researchers have won against 3.273 applicants - only 10 per cent of the submitted project appraisals receive the requested award, granted by the European Research Council (ERC). Ludovic Righetti Jan Peters Laura Na Liu

Empirical Inference Award 01-01-2015 Jan Peters : ERC Starting Grant (2015-2020) for Research on Movements of Humanoid Robotics (Project: SKILLS4ROBOTS)

Perceiving Systems Autonomous Vision Award 01-01-2015 Andreas Geiger: KIT Doctoral Award for his PhD thesis

Award 01-01-2015 Dorothea Brüggemann: Emmy-Noether-Program "Smart biomaterials from protein-based composite nanofibres"

Autonomous Motion Movement Generation and Control Award 01-01-2015 Ludovic Righetti received an ERC Starting Grant (2015-2020) for his project CONT-ACT: Control of contact interactions for robots acting in the world.

Empirical Inference Award 01-01-2015 Oliver Kroemer : Runner Up, 2015 Georges Giralt Award (Best European Robotics Ph.D. Thesis Award)

Empirical Inference Award 01-01-2015 Philipp Hennig: Emmy-Noether-Program "Probabilistic Numerics - Probabilistic Programming for Autonomous Systems"

Autonomous Motion News 18-12-2014 Robot on board The robot "Athena" carries new impulses for robotics research in its luggage Travelling from Los Angeles to Frankfurt onboard of Lufthansa flight LH 457, the passenger arrived on December 16, at 11.05 a.m. with no signs of jet lag: this was no ordinary holidaymaker, after all, but the first humanoid robot to take up a seat on a commercial flight. And despite causing quite a stir when boarding the plane in Los Angeles, Athena, dressed in a T-shirt and fetching red shoes, received no special treatment: like most of us, she flew economy class. During the nine-hour flight, the robotic creation was accompanied by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. Athena made her way from Los Angeles to Tübingen in order to acquire many new skills: standing, balancing, walking - and various other meaningful activities, which she can use to assist people in daily life. Jeannette Bohg Alexander Herzog Stefan Schaal

Perceiving Systems News 08-12-2014 Tiny motions bring digital doubles to life Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems unveil new technology for motion and shape capture The new technology (MoSh) will help animators jump the “Uncanny Valley” by turning a few moving dots into detailed body shapes that jiggle and deform like real humans. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen, presented their Motion and Shape Capture (MoSh) study, which appeared in the journal ACM Transactions on Graphics, at SIGGRAPH Asia in Shenzhen on December 6, 2014. Devised by a team of researchers under the direction of Michael J. Black, Director of the Perceiving Systems department, MoSh is a method that allows animators to record the three-dimensional (3D) motion and shape of a real human and digitally “retarget” it to a new body shape. With MoSh, realistic virtual humans can populate games, the Internet, and virtual reality, while reducing animation costs for the special effects industry. Michael Black

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 05-12-2014 Our work in the news, on TV, radio, etc. Our work on realizing a microscallop and nanopropellers that can move through biological tissue is in the news. Our group appears on TV, radio, in newspapers, and on multiple news sites. (December 2014). Tian Qiu Tung Chun Lee Andrew Mark Peer Fischer

Probabilistic Numerics News 01-12-2014 NIPS Oral for Michael Schober PhD student will present his work on probabilistic solvers for differential equations Michael Schober' paper on probabilistic solvers for ordinary differential equations has been selected for a full oral presentation at the flagship conference of machine learning. Michael Schober Philipp Hennig

Perceiving Systems Autonomous Vision News 28-11-2014 Andreas Geiger´s PhD thesis is awarded prize by KIT mobility center KIT-Zentrum für Mobilitätssysteme zeichnet Doktorarbeit von Andreas Geiger aus Für ein autonomes Fahrzeug bedeutet eine innerstädtische Kreuzung mit mehreren Verkehrsteilnehmern eine große Herausforderung. Wie komplexe Verkehrssituationen mithilfe von Videosequenzen besser verstanden werden können, hat Dr. Andreas Geiger in seiner Doktorarbeit gezeigt. Dafür hat er am 27. November 2014 vom KIT-Zentrum für Mobilitätssysteme den Ernst-Schoemperlen-Preis verliehen bekommen. Andreas Geiger

Empirical Inference News 27-11-2014 2014 Milner Award Lecture - Statistical and causal approaches to machine learning In machine learning, we use data to automatically find dependences in the world, with the goal of predicting future observations. Most machine learning methods build on statistics, but one can also try to go beyond this, assaying causal structures underlying statistical dependences. The hope is that this also allows prediction in certain situations where systems change, for instance by interventions. Bernhard Schölkopf

Perceiving Systems Autonomous Vision Award 27-11-2014 Andreas Geiger: Ernst-Schoemperlen-Prize for his PhD thesis, awarded by the KIT Center for Mobility Systems

News 27-11-2014 Successful through innovation Research group leader Samuel Sánchez elected as “Innovator of the year 2014” Tiny self-propelled motors which speed through the water and clean up pollutions along the way or small robots which can swim effortlessly through blood to one day transport medication to a certain part of the body – this sounds like taken from a science fiction movie script. However, Samuel Sánchez is already hard at work in his lab at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart to make these visions come true. For his innovative research, the 34 years old chemist has now been named as Spain’s top innovators under 35 by the Spanish edition of the journal MIT Technology Review. Sámuel Sánchez

Award 22-11-2014 Samuel Sánchez: Span. Innovationspreis 2014 des MIT Technology Review

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 07-11-2014 Tiny vehicles for medical applications Micro- and nano-swimmers can be propelled through media similar to bodily fluids Micro- or even nano-robots could someday perform medical tasks in the human body. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart have now taken a first step towards this goal. They have succeeded in constructing swimming bodies that simultaneously meet two requirements: they are small enough to be used in bodily fluids or even individual cells, and they are able to navigate through complex biological fluids. Peer Fischer Tian Qiu Andrew Mark Debora Schamel John Gibbs

News 13-10-2014 Günter Petzow nominated as honorary chairman of the DGM Former director gets awarded through German Society for Materials Science Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Dr.-Ing. e. h. mult. Günter Petzow, former director of the Max Planck Institute for Metals Resarch in Stuttgart (now Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems) has been nominated as honorary chairman of the German Society for Materials Science (DGM). In the society's 95 year long history, Petzow is only the second person to receive this title.

Autonomous Motion Intelligent Control Systems Award 09-10-2014 Sebastian Trimpe: Klaus Tschira Award 2014 for Science Communication in the field of Computer Science

Autonomous Motion News 09-10-2014 Intelligent Communication: Only if there is something to say Klaus Tschira Award 2014 for Science Communication in the field of Computer Science Tübingen / Heidelberg, October 9, 2014. Science in clear words: Dr. Sebastian Trimpe, a research scientist in the “Autonomous Motion Department" (Stefan Schaal) at the Tübingen Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, has written a short, comprehensible text (in German) that describes the research he conducted during his PhD at ETH Zurich. As winner in the category of computer science, he is one of six awardees who received the Klaus Tschira Award for achievements in public understanding of science on Thursday, October 9, 2014 in Heidelberg. Sebastian Trimpe

Physical Intelligence Award 15-09-2014 Taewon Seo and Metin Sitti received the IEEE/ASME Best Mechatronics Paper Award due to the paper on tank-like modular climbing robots using elastomeric dry adhesives.

Empirical Inference News 01-09-2014 Teaching Awards for Moritz Grosse-Wentrup and Daniel Braun Winter and Summer Term 2013 / 14 at Graduate School of Neural Information Processing / University of Tübingen The senior master students present this years teaching awards to Dr. Moritz Grosse-Wentrup (group leader Brain-Computer-Interface group) and Dr. Daniel Braun (group leader Sensorimotor Learning & Decision Making group). Congratulations! Moritz Grosse-Wentrup

Physical Intelligence Award 06-08-2014 Uyiosa Abosomwan and Metin Sitti received the Best Poster Award in the Adhesion Conference due to the research poster on contact self-cleaning mechanics of gecko-inspired adhesives.

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 01-08-2014 Congratulations Tung-Chun (John) Lee will leave the group and move to a faculty position at University College London, where he will start his own group in the Center for Materials Discovery. (August 2014) Tung Chun Lee

Smart Nanoplasmonics News 21-07-2014 DNA used as a lightswitch A nanostructure made from two tiny gold rods reversibly changes its optical properties when specific DNA molecules are added Electronics now has a competitor. Information is increasingly being transmitted and processed by means of light rather than electrons. And just as has happened to electronic components, their photonic counterparts are to shrink to nanoformat. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität in Munich, and Ohio University in Athens, USA, have developed a switch for nano-optics. Two gold nanorods are the key players here. If the angle between them changes, certain optical properties of the nano-lightswitch also change. The researchers control the angle itself by means of molecules which in living nature are the carriers of genetic information: DNA. Laura Na Liu

Empirical Inference Award 01-07-2014 Carl-Johann Simon-Gabriel: Google European Doctorate Fellowship 2014-2016

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 01-07-2014 Welcome We welcome three new postdocs to the group: Piotr Garbacz, Jérome Roche, and Dhruv Singh. Piotr Garbacz Jerome Roche Dhruv Pratap Singh

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 22-06-2014 Smallest Chemical Nanomotor and Smallest Nanopropeller published We have published a paper about synthetic chemical nanomotors with an overall size (30 nm) that is comparable to that of some enzymes (Nano Lett., 2014, 14 (5), pp 2407–2412), as well as nanopropellers that are small enough to navigate complex biological networks (diameter of 70 nm), yet can be fully controlled (ACS Nano, Article ASAP, DOI: 10.1021/nn502360t). Tung Chun Lee John Gibbs Andrew Mark Mariana Alarcon-Correa Debora Schamel Cornelia Miksch Peer Fischer

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 09-06-2014 Featured Cover Article Our paper "Nanopropellers and Their Actuation in Complex Viscoelastic Media“ is the cover article for ACS Nano 8, 8794–8801, (2014). In addition the ACS Nano September 2014 podcast features our work. News sites and blogs report our work as "world’s smallest propeller“. (September 2014) Image by Alejandro Posada Boada. Debora Schamel Andrew Mark John Gibbs Cornelia Miksch Peer Fischer Alejandro Posada

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Award 07-06-2014 Paper award: Tian Qiu, Debora Schamel, Andrew G. Mark, and Peer Fischer's paper "Active Microrheology of the Vitreous of the Eye applied to Nanorobot Propulsion" is the "Best Automation Paper Award - Finalist" of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation - ICRA 2014. (June 2014)

Award 06-06-2014 Peter A. van Aken: 1. Poster Award

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 21-05-2014 Cover Article Our paper “Shape control in wafer-based aperiodic 3D nanostructures” is the cover article for Nanotechnology 25 doi:10.1088/0957-4484/25/23/235302. (June, 2014). Jeong Hyeon-Ho Andrew Mark John Gibbs Peer Fischer

Physical Intelligence News 21-05-2014 Metin Sitti becomes new director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems The Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems has appointed Metin Sitti as a new director at the institute’s Stuttgart location. There, Sitti will head the Physical Intelligence Department. One of the main goals of his research will be to obtain a new understanding of physically intelligent systems made of smart and soft materials. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 05-05-2014 Congratulations To our alumni Yigit Menguc, Onur Ozcan, and Rika Wright Carlsen on their new faculty positions. Yigit has accepted a position at Oregon State University, Onur has accepted a position at Bilkent University, and Rika has accepted a position at Robert Morris University. Metin Sitti

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 01-05-2014 Congratulations/Welcome John Gibbs will leave the group and move to a faculty position in Arizona where he will start his own group as a Prof in Physics; Marcel Pfeifer passed his Ph.D. exam – congratulations to both. Welcome to Prof. J.P. Singh from IIT Delhi who is a sabbatical visitor. (May, 2014). John Gibbs

Award 28-04-2014 Ilia Platzman: Günter Petzow Preis 2014

News 28-04-2014 Dr. Ilia Platzman awarded with Günter Petzow Prize 2014 Young scientist honored for outstanding research in the field of material science Ilia Platzman will receive this year’s Günter Petzow Award from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. He will be honored for the exploration of the capacity of microfluidic techniques and material sciences in synthetic biology.

Physical Intelligence News 07-04-2014 Our lab's work Our lab's work on self-cleaning gecko adhesive is featured as a picture of the week by the science news website Science Friday. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 03-04-2014 Congratulations Congratulations to NanoRobotics Lab alumnus TaeWon Seo and Professor Sitti on winning the 2013 IEEE/ASME Best Mechatronics Paper Award. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 12-03-2014 Newsweek Professor Sitti discusses novel gecko-inspired tape with Newsweek. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence Award 26-02-2014 Metin Sitti became an IEEE Fellow due to contributions to micro- and nano-scale robotic systems.

Smart Nanoplasmonics News 20-02-2014 Laura Na Liu awarded with Heinz Maier-Leibnitz-Prize Nanoscientist receives important award for young academics Laura Na Liu

Physical Intelligence News 10-02-2014 Congratulations Our lab's collaborative work is covered as featured research by Science Daily. Metin Sitti

Smart Nanoplasmonics Award 07-02-2014 Laura Na Liu: Maier-Leibnitz-Preis der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft

Physical Intelligence Award 05-02-2014 Eric Diller, Zhou Ye, Guo Zhan Lum, Joshua Giltinan and Metin Sitti were selected as the Best Paper Award Finalist in the Robotics Science and Systems Conference due to the paper on novel six degrees-of-freedom actuation method for mobile magnetic microrobots.

Physical Intelligence Award 05-02-2014 Matthew Woodward and Metin Sitti: Top 5 Most Read Papers of 2014 of the International Journal of Robotics Research journal for the paper entitled, "MultiMo-Bat: Biologically Inspired Integrated Jumping-Gliding Robot".

Physical Intelligence News 01-02-2014 Fellow Professor Sitti is named as IEEE Fellow. Metin Sitti

Physical Intelligence News 28-01-2014 Collaborative work Our lab's collaborative work on "Untethered microrobotic coding of three-dimensional material composition" with Harvard Medical School (Prof. Utkan Demirci) is published in Nature Communications. Metin Sitti

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 24-01-2014 Guest Editor Peer Fischer is guest editor for the Nanoscale themed issue on “Helical Micro- and Nanostructures” (Nanoscale, 2014). Peer Fischer

Physical Intelligence News 15-01-2014 Good luck Our lab's recent graduate Dr. Eric Diller will be an assistant professor at the University of Toronto (Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department) from January 2014. Metin Sitti

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