News & Awards

Dynamic Locomotion News 19-07-2017 Benedikt Gyoerfi presents Master thesis Benedikt Gyoerfi presents his Master thesis Benedikt Gyoerfi

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 13-07-2017 Max Planck PhD student receives his second award from Materials Research Societies Hyeon-Ho Jeong, PhD student in the Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Research Group headed by Peer Fischer at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart is the recipient of the graduate student award combined with a grant of 450 Euro from the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS). He received the award at the Spring Meeting 2017 in Strasbourg, France. Jeong Hyeon-Ho Peer Fischer

News 12-07-2017 A beacon of light for artificial intelligence The Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems is celebrating the opening of its new building in Tübingen Tübingen, 12. Juli 2017. This opening ceremony involved teamwork between humans and machines. While the robot Apollo held the red ribbon, Minister-President Winfried Kretschmann and Martin Stratmann, President of the Max Planck Society, cut the symbolic cordon to officially open the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems’ new building in Tübingen. They were assisted by Science Minister Theresia Bauer and Stefan Schaal, the Institute’s Managing Director. After a two-and-a-half-year construction period, the scientists recently moved into the Institute building made possible by funding worth millions from the federal state government. They are now conducting basic research on artificial intelligence here. Michael Black Bernhard Schölkopf Stefan Schaal

Physical Intelligence News 11-07-2017 Mobile Microrobotics New book from Metin Sitti Progress in micro- and nano-scale science and technology has created a demand for new microsystems for high-impact applications in healthcare, biotechnology, manufacturing, and mobile sensor networks. The new robotics field of microrobotics has emerged to extend our interactions and explorations to sub-millimeter scales. This is the first textbook on micron-scale mobile robotics, introducing the fundamentals of design, analysis, fabrication, and control, and drawing on case studies of existing approaches. Metin Sitti

Dynamic Locomotion Award 30-06-2017 Steve Heim receives "Outstanding Poster Award" at AMAM2017 on "Towards understanding how changing morphology influences learning". Congratulations!

Dynamic Locomotion News 30-06-2017 Steve receives 'Outstanding Poster Award' at AMAM2017 Steve receives 'Outstanding Poster Award' Steve Heim

Haptic Intelligence News 28-06-2017 Is Clinical Virtual Reality the Future of Therapy? Out with the couch, on with the headset. As the meteors came down from the sky, my heart thudded in my chest. There was only one way I could save the town below: Reach out into the air, make a fist, and in doing so, set off an explosion. And then another. And another. How else can one be expected to defend a village? Katherine J. Kuchenbecker Betty Mohler

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Award 27-06-2017 Jan-Philipp Günther and Vincent Mauricio Kadiri won the first poster prize on the NanoBioMater 2017 Summer School and International Conference for their contribution "Nanorheology and Nanopropellers in Biological Fluids".

Physical Intelligence News 19-06-2017 Robotta insan hücresi Prof. Dr. Metin Sitti gives an interview on Milliyet.com.tr Describing the work that will create micro robot revolution in health Prof. Dr. Metin Sitti has said that the cyborg system in which human cells are transferred to robots is in the process of animal experimentation ... Metin Sitti

Empirical Inference News 19-06-2017 The Machine Learning Summer School 2017 is back in Tübingen! For the fifth time, the MLSS takes place in Tübingen

Physical Intelligence News 14-06-2017 A Colonoscopy Robot and Other Weird Biomedical Tech From IEEE's Biggest Robotics Conference Swallowable biopsy robot of doom Metin Sitti Mehmet Turan Donghoon Son

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 12-06-2017 Cover Article Back Cover Our paper "Nanodiamonds that Swim" is the Back-cover article for Advanced Materials, 12 June 2017, DOI: 10.1002/advs.201500016 JiKae Kim Udit Choudhury Jeong Hyeon-Ho Peer Fischer

Haptic Intelligence Award 09-06-2017 A paper by Ph.D. student Eric Young and Katherine J. Kuchenbecker is a finalist for the Best Poster Paper Award at the 2017 IEEE World Haptics Conference Eric Young Katherine J. Kuchenbecker

Autonomous Motion Intelligent Control Systems Movement Generation and Control Award 07-06-2017 Cédric de Crousaz receives an ETH Medal 2017 for his excellent master thesis, which he did at the Autonomous Motion Department (supervision by Ludovic Righetti and Sebastian Trimpe).

Autonomous Motion Movement Generation and Control News 07-06-2017 Awards for Two Master Theses Cédric de Crousaz and Julian Viereck receive the ETH Medal for their outstanding Master Theses Sebastian Trimpe Ludovic Righetti Julian Viereck Alexander Herzog

Award 05-06-2017 The paper "Probabilistic Articulated Real-Time Tracking for Robot Manipulation" by Cristina Garcia Cifuentes, Jan Issac, Manuel Wüthrich, Stefan Schaal and Jeannette Bohg was finalist for the Best Robotic Vision paper at the 2017 IEEE/RAS International Conference on Robotics and Automation. See the link for the winner and the other finalists.

Autonomous Motion Award 01-06-2017 Jeannette Bohg and Cristina Garcia Cifuentes receive the ICRA CEB award for Best Reviewers.

Autonomous Motion News 01-06-2017 Finalist for the Best Robotic Vision Paper at the 2017 IEEE/RAS International Conference on Robotics and Automation The paper "Probabilistic Articulated Real-Time Tracking for Robot Manipulation" by Cristina Garcia Cifuentes, Jan Issac, Manuel Wüthrich, Stefan Schaal and Jeannette Bohg was finalist for the Best Robotic Vision paper at the 2017 IEEE/RAS International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Cristina Garcia Cifuentes Manuel Wüthrich Jan Issac Stefan Schaal Jeannette Bohg

Physical Intelligence News 01-06-2017 Programmable self-assembly Scientists under the lead of Metin Sitti at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart have recently constructed a material system that provides dynamic self-assembly. To be alive, biologically speaking, means to be able to breath, to eat, to drink, to grow, to age, and, perhaps, to move. Food is the energy source, and metabolism translates the stored chemical energy into biochemical energy to sustain live functions. The physical abstraction of this energy transduction by living organisms is extremely simple: it involves energy input and energy dissipation. This mechanistic view of life looks almost trivial, but to apply this type of thinking in the design of materials and material systems is non-trivial. Scientists under the lead of Metin Sitti at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart have recently constructed a material system that requires continuous magnetic energy input and viscous dissipation to maintain its spatiotemporal patterns, and the term usually used to describe this type of material system in the research community is dynamic self-assembly. Metin Sitti Wendong Wang

Movement Generation and Control Award 01-06-2017 Julian Viereck receives the ETH Medal for his outstanding master thesis on “Learning to Hop Using Guided Policy Search” (Handed out to < 2.5 % of all master theses per year at ETH Zurich). He did his master thesis at the Movement Generation and Control Group under the supervision of A. Herzog and L. Righetti.

Physical Intelligence News 30-05-2017 Physicists discover why drying liquid crystal drops leave unusual 'coffee rings' Phys.org Penn alumnus Zoey Davidson, now a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany, had been experimenting with Sunset Yellow, a dye that gives Doritos and orange soft drinks their bright colors, when he accidentally spilled some of the material. Metin Sitti Zoey Davidson

Autonomous Motion News 29-05-2017 Release of Bayesian Articulated Object Tracking Libraries Robust and real-time Bayesian articulated object tracking methods, implemented in C++ and CUDA. We release open-source code and data sets on Bayesian articulated object tracking. The library contains approaches towards problems ranging from single object tracking to full robot arm pose estimation. The data sets allow the quantitative evaluation of alternative approaches thanks to accurate ground-truth annotations. Cristina Garcia Cifuentes Jan Issac Manuel Wüthrich Jeannette Bohg

Physical Intelligence Award 29-05-2017 Donghoon Son and Metin Sitti were the Best Medical Robotics Award Finalist in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Conference for the research paper entitled, “Magnetically Actuated Soft Capsule Endoscope for Fine-Needle Aspiration Biopsy”.

Physical Intelligence News 26-05-2017 Gecko-inspired multipurpose gripper An elastic membrane covered with tiny fibres paired with a pressure differential enables a new soft gripper system with a high adhesion performance even on curved surfaces Robots generally need a gripper that adapts to three-dimensional surfaces. Such a gripper needs to be soft to adapt to a great variety of geometries, but not too soft, as it will detach easily and not be able to bear weight for very long. Researchers working with Metin Sitti at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart developed a membrane equipped with microscopic fibres inspired by the fine hairs on a gecko's foot and attached it to a suction cup-like flexible body. An internal pressure differential ensures perfect conformation of the flexible gripper to a wide variety of surfaces and equally distributes the load over the entire contact interface. As a result, the researchers suppressed load induced stress concentrations at the edges, which strongly reduced the adhesion. The gripper demonstrates a 14-times higher adhesion than grippers without this load sharing mechanism. Metin Sitti Sukho Song Dirk Drotlef

Autonomous Motion News 24-05-2017 ICRA 2017 - Awards for our Robotics Researchers ICRA CEB award for best reviewers Jeannette Bohg Cristina Garcia Cifuentes

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Award 23-05-2017 Hyeon-Ho Jeong was awarded this year's Graduate Student Award at the 2017 E-MRS Spring Meeting in Strasbourg.

Physical Intelligence News 22-05-2017 Functional Microrobots Could Harbor Bioengineering Apps HospiMedica.com A new study suggests that untethered micron-scale mobile robots can navigate and non-invasively perform specific tasks inside hard-to-reach body sites. Currently being designed, fabricated, and tested at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and Carnegie Mellon University, the first-generation microrobots will be able to deliver therapeutics and other cargo to targeted body sites, as well as to enclosed organ-on-a-chip microfluidic devices with live cells. A new two-step approach is use to provide the microrobotic devices with desirable functions. The first step uses three-dimensional (3D) laser lithography to crosslink light-responsive polymers. Metin Sitti Hakan Ceylan Immihan Ceren Yasa

Haptic Intelligence News 20-05-2017 In Zukunft mit Gefühl Roboter können erstaunliche Dinge. Doch unser Tastsinn ist ihnen noch überlegen. Warum sich das bald ändern könnte – und was das heißt Katherine J. Kuchenbecker

Physical Intelligence News 18-05-2017 Bacteria-Driven Drug Delivery Carriers: A Paradigm Shift Advanced Science News Congrats to Babak, Oncay and Jiang that their paper, “Bioadhesive bacteria-driven microswimmers for targeted drug delivery in the urinary and gastrointestinal tracts”, is highlighted on their news website Metin Sitti Babak Mostaghaci Oncay Yasa Jiang Zhuang

News 18-05-2017 Tübingen exibition: "Origins" - Steps of Humankind Opening of the exibition: Friday, May 19, 2017, 7:00 p.m., Schloß Hohentübingen (free entrance) The exhibition in the Museum Ancient Cultures (Hohentübingen Castle) will focus on the most important steps of humankind. Our institute supports the last part of the exibition "Origin of digital innovation" with a Nao robot and the Mosh Camera App. Vincent Berenz Claudia Daefler

Physical Intelligence News 16-05-2017 3D-microrobots voor minuscule chirurgie fpt-vimag.n Een kleine robot die door een eenvoudige medische injectie in het menselijk lichaam wordt gebracht en daar rechtstreeks en doelgericht een niet te opereren tumor bestrijdt. Dit klinkt misschien een beetje als science fiction, maar onderzoekers werken momenteel druk aan het moderniseren van de gezondheidszorg met behulp van bio-engineering. De uitdagingen zitten vooral in het ontwerp, productieproces en de codering van de microrobots die dit moeten gaan realiseren. Metin Sitti Hakan Ceylan Immihan Ceren Yasa

Physical Intelligence News 16-05-2017 Sticky gripper can lift flasks and tomatoes Nature.com A gecko-inspired adhesive could help robots to climb bumpy walls and grasp fragile objects. The hairs that make geckos’ feet sticky have inspired the invention of adhesives for flat surfaces, but creating strong adhesives that can grab complex, 3D objects has proved a challenge. Metin Sitti at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany, and his colleagues spread elastic microfibres, or ‘hairs’, across a soft, stretchy membrane, allowing it to mould and stick to a surface. The team attached this to a ‘gripper’ layer. Reducing the pressure inside the gripper spreads the load evenly across the sticky membrane, strengthening the bond between it and the target object. Changing the pressure in the system increased the membrane’s ‘stickiness’ 14-fold, allowing the device to suspend a variety of hard and soft objects, from fluid-filled flasks to tomatoes. Metin Sitti Sukho Song Dirk Drotlef

Physical Intelligence News 15-05-2017 Sciencemag.org Gecko-inspired gripper could help robots climb walls “The design of the backing is key to making these adhesives function properly for most applications, and this is a very exciting development.” The technology has several potential applications, says Metin Sitti, an author of the study and a mechanical engineer at the Max Planck Institute ... Metin Sitti Sukho Song Dirk Drotlef

Physical Intelligence News 11-05-2017 3D-Mikroroboter für minimal-invasive Chirurgie (Medizin Aspekte) medizin-aspekte.de Ein kleiner Roboter, der mühelos mittels Injektion in den menschlichen Körper gelangt, die gesunden Organe meidet und das Ziel – einen nicht operablen Tumor – findet und direkt behandelt… Klingt dies nicht nach Science-Fiction? Um es Wirklichkeit werden zu lassen, arbeiten immer mehr Forscher an der Vision, wesentliche Bereiche der Medizin und Biotechnologie zu revolutionieren. Das Design und die Herstellung solcher Mikroroboter, sowie auch die Ausstattung mit den entsprechenden Funktionalitäten, stellen jedoch noch große Herausforderungen dar. Metin Sitti Hakan Ceylan Immihan Ceren Yasa

Physical Intelligence News 05-05-2017 3D-Mikroroboter für minimal-invasive Chirurgie Innovations-report.de Wissenschaftler am Max-Planck-Institut für Intelligente Systeme in Stuttgart haben einen Herstellungsprozess für Mikroroboter entwickelt. Diese könnten zukünftig miminal-invasiv schwer zugängliche Körperteile wie das Gehirn, das Rückenmark oder das Auge erreichen Ein kleiner Roboter, der mühelos mittels Injektion in den menschlichen Körper gelangt, die gesunden Organe meidet und das Ziel – einen nicht operablen Tumor – findet und direkt behandelt… Klingt dies nicht nach Science-Fiction? Metin Sitti Hakan Ceylan Immihan Ceren Yasa

Physical Intelligence News 03-05-2017 3D-Mikroroboter für minimal-invasive Chirurgie E-health-com.de Wissenschaftler am Max-Planck-Institut für Intelligente Systeme in Stuttgart haben einen Herstellungsprozess für Mikroroboter entwickelt. Diese könnten zukünftig miminal-invasiv schwer zugängliche Körperteile wie das Gehirn, das Rückenmark oder das Auge erreiche. Metin Sitti Hakan Ceylan Immihan Ceren Yasa

Physical Intelligence News 03-05-2017 3D-Mikroroboter für minimal-invasive Chirurgie (NeoDoc) neodoc.de Wissenschaftler am Max-Planck-Institut für Intelligente Systeme in Stuttgart haben einen Herstellungsprozess für Mikroroboter entwickelt. Diese könnten zukünftig miminal-invasiv schwer zugängliche Körperteile wie das Gehirn, das Rückenmark oder das Auge erreichen Metin Sitti Hakan Ceylan Immihan Ceren Yasa

Autonomous Vision News 03-05-2017 Heinz Maier-Leibnitz-Prize 2017 for Andreas Geiger The Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize is recognized as the most important science award in Germany to early career researchers. It was awarded May 3rd, 2017 in Berlin. Andreas Geiger

Physical Intelligence News 03-05-2017 Kleinstroboter für größte OP-Erfolge unternehmen-heute.de Die moderne Medizin macht oft große Fortschritte im kleinen Maßstab. Am Max-Planck-Institut für Intelligente Systeme in Stuttgart wird an Mikrorobotern geforscht, die Körperteile wie das Gehirn, das Rückenmark oder das Auge erreichen können. Metin Sitti Hakan Ceylan Immihan Ceren Yasa

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 02-05-2017 Special issue Stefano Palagi, Tian Qiu and Peer Fischer are editing a special issue in the journal Micromachines on “Locomotion at Small Scales: From Biology to Artificial Systems” Stefano Palagi Tian Qiu Peer Fischer

Perceiving Systems News 28-04-2017 Günter Enderle Best Paper Award at Eurographics 2017 for the paper "Sparse Inertial Pose: Automatic 3D Human Motion Capture from Sparse IMUs" Gerard Pons-Moll Michael Black

Autonomous Motion News 28-04-2017 Local networking event for women researchers from Tübingen Hosted this time by Jeannette Bohg Jeannette Bohg

Perceiving Systems Award 28-04-2017 Best Paper Award, Eurographics 2017, for the paper Sparse Inertial Poser: Automatic 3D Human Pose Estimation from Sparse IMUs, by von Marcard, T., Rosenhahn, B., Black, M. J., Pons-Moll, G.

News 22-04-2017 March for Science - Tübingen Science, not Silence! The Managing Directors encourage staff and supporters of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems to participate in March for Science events.

Haptic Intelligence News 20-04-2017 Katherine J. Kuchenbecker joins the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems as a new director The Max Planck Society has appointed Katherine J. Kuchenbecker as a director at the Stuttgart location of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. She will lead the newly established "Haptic Intelligence" department, which focuses on incorporating the sense of touch into robotic systems. Katherine J. Kuchenbecker

News 23-03-2017 Nanomagnetism in X-ray Light Today’s most advanced scanning X-ray microscope is operated by the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems at Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin. The MAXYMUS scanning X-ray microscope has its home at Berlin’s synchrotron radiation source BESSY II at Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin. Scientific support is provided by Dr. Markus Weigand from the “Modern Magnetic Systems” department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) under the management of Professor Dr. Gisela Schütz.

Modern Magnetic Systems News 23-03-2017 Nanomagnetism in X-ray Light Today’s most advanced scanning X-ray microscope is operated by the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems at Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin The MAXYMUS scanning X-ray microscope has its home at Berlin’s synchrotron radiation source BESSY II at Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin. Scientific support is provided by Dr. Markus Weigand from the “Modern Magnetic Systems” department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) under the management of Professor Dr. Gisela Schütz.. Gisela Schütz

Haptic Intelligence Award 17-03-2017 Rachael Bevill Burns is selected to receive a grant from the Whitaker International Program to do research with the HI Department Rachael Burns

News 07-03-2017 New Research School for Intelligent Systems Call for Applications - Ph.D. positions The International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) for Intelligent Systems (IS) is starting in fall 2017. This new doctoral program will enroll about 100 Ph.D. students over the next six years. Apply now! Leila Masri

Autonomous Motion News 01-03-2017 DOOMED - A new online learning approach from AMD in the spotlight Text: Kathryn Ryan. New Rochelle, February 21, 2017. Robotics researchers have developed a novel adaptive control approach based on online learning that allows for the correction of dynamics errors in real time using the data stream from the robot. The strategy is described in an article published in Big Data, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Big Data website until March 14, 2017. Franzi Meier Daniel Kappler Nathan Ratliff Stefan Schaal

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