News & Awards

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Award 01-05-2021 Vincent Kadiri has won Best Oral Award for his talk at the 2021 MRS Spring meeting.

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 01-05-2021 Best Oral Presentation Congratulations - Vincent Kadiri has won Best Oral Award for his talk entitled “Materials for Magnetically Actuated Micro- and Nanorobots” which he gave at the 2021 MRS Spring meeting. His presentation has been selected by the meeting chairs. Vincent Mauricio Kadiri

Robust Machine Learning Award 01-05-2021 Emmy Noether Fellowship Wieland Brendel receives an Emmy Noether Fellowship

Rationality Enhancement News 30-04-2021 Nisha Tyagi joined our lab! Welcome, Nisha! Nisha Tyagi

Physical Intelligence News 29-04-2021 A modular building platform for the most ingenious of robots Playground of new possibilities arises in constructing miniature soft-bodied machines A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) have developed a system with which they can fabricate miniature robots building block by building block, which function exactly as required. Jiachen Zhang Ziyu Ren Wenqi Hu Ren Hao Soon Immihan Ceren Yasa Zemin Liu Metin Sitti

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 22-04-2021 Eunjin Choi wins in "Science as Art" at the 2021 MRS Spring Meeting The depicted Art piece by Eunjin Choi is called "Snowman-village" and is based on an SEM image adapted from research published in ACS Nano “Arrays of plasmonic nanoparticle dimers with defined nanogap spacers”. It won 2nd place at this year's 2021 MRS Spring Meeting. More information can be found following the link provided by the MRS. Congratulations, Eunjin! EunJin Choi

Physical Intelligence News 19-04-2021 MPI-IS participates in the Max Planck-University of Toronto Centre for Neural Science and Technology Metin Sitti to cooperate with neurosurgeons to use his miniature robots as new tools in neurological diseases Better therapies for diseases such as dementia or Parkinson's, as well as more powerful computers and new artificial intelligence technologies – these are the goals scientists will pursue at the Max Planck-University of Toronto-Centre for Neural Science and Technolgy. The center was officially inaugurated on April 14, 2021, in a virtual event with many prominent guests. Metin Sitti, Director of the Physical Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, also attended. Metin Sitti

Haptic Intelligence Award 07-04-2021 Ph.D. students Alexis E. Block, Rachael Bevill Burns, and Mayumi Mohan are selected to participate in the Gordon Research Seminar on the Future of Robotics: Possibilities for Transforming Healthcare Alexis Block Rachael Burns Mayumi Mohan

Haptic Intelligence News 06-04-2021 Challenging the design of electrovibrations to generate a more realistic feel A user should feel realistic haptic feedback on a touchscreen embedded with electrovibration technology – independent of the number of fingers used, the movements made, or the pressure applied to the screen. Unfortunately, not even the most advanced touchscreen devices provide a realistic user experience – all images feel like glass. In the near future, a completely rethought design of the electrical signals causing the haptic sensation could close the gap between reality and fiction. In an experiment, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and Delft University of Technology laid the foundation for rethinking the design approach, generating more compelling tactile sensations on touchscreens, and improving the usability of mobile devices. Yasemin Vardar Katherine J. Kuchenbecker

Perceiving Systems Award 31-03-2021 Michael Black is elected to the German National Academy of Science Leopoldina.

Neural Capture and Synthesis News 29-03-2021 Making the virtual world even more realistic The MPI-IS gains an expert for capture and synthesis Capturing the real world, synthesizing, and realistically modeling people, objects, and rooms so that a viewer no longer notices the difference – Justus Thies has set himself ambitious goals for the coming five years. His research has already made a significant contribution to making video content more photorealistic. This comes with a huge responsibility. As facial reenactment is continuously improved, it is increasingly difficult to detect deep fakes, for instance. By gaining knowledge about the creation process, Thies aims to put a strong emphasis on designing more advanced forgery detection algorithms that can recognize and flag fake video content automatically and reliably.

Learning and Dynamical Systems News 26-03-2021 “We’d like to make complex dynamical systems better able to adapt to changing conditions” Michael Mühlebach recently joined MPI-IS as leader of the independent Learning and Dynamical Systems research group Mühlebach’s research is supported by the prestigious Branco Weiss and Emmy Noether Fellowships Michael Muehlebach Valerie Callaghan

Rationality Enhancement News 18-03-2021 Nishad Singhi joined our lab! Welcome, Nishad! Nishad Singhi

Locomotion in Biorobotic and Somatic Systems News 18-03-2021 Underwater swimming robot responds with feedback from soft lateral line A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) in Germany, from Seoul National University in Korea and from Harvard University in the US, successfully developed a predictive model and closed-loop controller of a soft robotic fish, designed to actively adjust its undulation amplitude to changing flow conditions and other external disturbances. Ardian Jusufi Yu-Hsiang Lin Hritwick Banerjee Toshihiko Fukushima Fabian Schwab Robert Siddall

Rationality Enhancement News 16-03-2021 Congratulations to Gabriela Iwama and Falk Lieder on publishing! "Toward a formal theory of proactivity" is now online! Gabriela Iwama Falk Lieder

Physical Intelligence News 16-03-2021 Metin Sitti and his team finalists for the 2020 Cozzarelli Prize The highly prestigious annual Cozzarelli Prize recognizes outstanding contributions to the scientific disciplines represented by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Winners and finalists are chosen among articles that appeared in the journal last year in the six broadly defined classes under which the NAS is organized. Additionally, the Editorial Board has recognized six papers – one in each class – as finalists for the 2020 Cozzarelli Prize. Metin Sitti Hamed Shahsavan Amirreza Aghakhani Yubing Guo Zoey Davidson

Dynamic Locomotion News 15-03-2021 Bernadett Kiss joins DLG New group member Bernadett Kiss becomes new Dynamic Locomotion Group member. Bernadett Kiss

Empirical Inference News 12-03-2021 Teilnehmende für COVID-19 Studie gesucht Künstliche Intelligenz soll Früherkennung eines schweren Krankheitsverlaufs ermöglichen Bernhard Schölkopf Annika Buchholz Stefan Bauer

Haptic Intelligence Award 11-03-2021 Ph.D. student Rachael Bevill Burns wins first place at the HRI 2021 Student Elevator Pitch Competition Rachael Burns

Physical Intelligence News 08-03-2021 Jaekang Kim receives Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship The scientist working in the Physical Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart will be supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for two years to continue his bio-inspired adhesive research in Germany Jaekang Kim Metin Sitti

Rationality Enhancement News 08-03-2021 Our article on computational models of goal pursuit received positive reviews "Resource-Rational Models of Human Goal Pursuit" Benjamin Prystawski Florian Mohnert Mateo Tosic Falk Lieder

Physical Intelligence Appointment 01-03-2021 Donghoon Son was appointed Assistant Professor at the Pusan National University

Physical Intelligence Appointment 01-03-2021 Sungwoo Chun will become Assistant Professor at Korea University

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 01-03-2021 Vincent Kadiri receives Alfred Landecker Democracy Fellowship Vincent Mauricio Kadiri was recently selected as one of 30 rising activists, community leaders, and young professionals to join the Alfred Landecker Democracy Fellowship! The tagline guiding the Alfred Landecker Democracy Fellowship's inaugural cohort is "Reinventing Democratic Spaces in Times of COVID-19". It is funded through Humanity in Action in partnership with the Alfred Landecker Foundation. With the funding granted through the project, he will spend the coming months building a grassroots science communication network of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPoC) working in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). The name "Na’egbia Iyese" is Etsako and can be translated as „Good Morning Knowledge“. Through this initiative, he hopes to inspire especially Youth of Color to join academia and follow their passion for science by shining the spotlight on the kinds of diverse role models he and many other Scientists of Color often did not have growing up. The website and social media accounts were all launched recently, and if you have questions or want to join and/or support Na’egbia Iyese in any way, then please feel free to contact Vincent (https://naegbia-iyese.org/)! In addition he has received a Mercator Fellowship on International affairs which will allow him to investigate decolonial approaches to scientific collaboration and research. This prestigious program selects 25 young professionals and provides them with funding to work on a self-selected project in international organizations, NGOs, and think tanks for a year. Congratulations, Vincent.

Rationality Enhancement News 25-02-2021 Call for Submissions for the Life Improvement Science Conference - June 2021 The deadline to submit is April 16, 2021! The first Life Improvement Science conference will be held online between June 9 - June 13, 2021 Falk Lieder Mike Prentice

Physical Intelligence News 24-02-2021 Shuaizhong Zhang receives Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship The scientist working in the Physical Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart will be supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for two years to continue his soft robotic research in Germany. Shuaizhong Zhang Metin Sitti

Rationality Enhancement News 18-02-2021 "Automatic Discovery of Interpretable Planning Strategies" is going to be published! Great work Julian, Frederic, and Falk! The Rationality Enhancement Group is proud to announce the acceptance of an article! Julian Skirzynski Frederic Becker Falk Lieder

Empirical Inference News 16-02-2021 Artificial intelligence supports medical prognoses Using COVID-19 as an example, a machine learning method predicts patients' individual mortality risk Estimating the risk of patients dying is arguably one of the most difficult and stressful challenges physicians face. This has been especially true in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, with doctors around the world repeatedly confronted with difficult decisions. In the best of cases, they have been able to adjust treatments and save lives. In the worst case scenario, however, physicians have to allocate scarce beds and life-saving machines in intensive care units. An international team led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent System has now developed an algorithm and trained it with machine learning methods to help medical professionals with mortality predictions. The algorithm can also be trained to predict mortality risk for other diseases, and thus support physicians in decision-making processes. Stefan Bauer Bernhard Schölkopf Valerie Callaghan

Modern Magnetic Systems News 09-02-2021 World's first video recording of a space-time crystal Periodic pattern consisting of magnons is formed at room temperature A team of researchers has succeeded in creating a micrometer-sized space-time crystal consisting of magnons at room temperature. With the help of an ultra-precise X-ray microscope, they were able to capture the recurring periodic magnetization structure in a movie. The research project “Real space observation of magnon interaction with driven space-time crystals” was published in Physical Review Letters. Nick-André Träger Joachim Gräfe Gisela Schütz

Rationality Enhancement News 08-02-2021 Reena Pauly joins the Rationality Enhancement Group! Welcome, Reena! Expanding the Solve Education project team Reena Pauly

Movement Generation and Control Award 25-01-2021 Sarah Bechtle won best student paper award at the International Conference of Pattern Recognition 2020 (ICPR2020)

Physical Intelligence News 18-01-2021 Swimming soft millirobots to improve water quality monitoring in precision agriculture SOMIRO project kicks off Metin Sitti

Empirical Inference News 15-01-2021 Progress in the field of Brain-Computer Interaction: scientists take BCI research out of the lab and into the real world Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen and the University of Vienna have introduced MYND, an open-source software that allows people to participate in brain-computer interaction (BCI) research from home, without expert supervision. Their research could take the field a decisive step forward: MYND can complement laboratory-based basic research with human-computer interaction experiments in a range of real-life environments. The researchers are confident their approach will provide a viable basis for further research on accessible use of BCI in daily life. Matthias Hohmann Bernhard Schölkopf Valerie Callaghan

Autonomous Learning News 15-01-2021 Two Publications Accepted at ICLR 2021 Our papers "Extracting Strong Policies for Robotics Tasks from Zero-order Trajectory Optimizers" and "Self-supervised Visual Reinforcement Learning with Object-centric Representations" got acceped to ICLR 2021. Cristina Pinneri Shambhuraj Sawant Sebastian Blaes Andrii Zadaianchuk Maximilian Seitzer Georg Martius

Physical Intelligence News 14-01-2021 Scientists remotely stimulate neurons in the brains of mice This research could one day help limit the symptoms of Parkinson disease Devices that electrically modulate parts of the brain are seen as breakthroughs in the management of neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease. However, such devices require major surgery and expose a patient to the risk of hemorrhage or infection. Scientists have now created remotely powered nanoparticles that could one day become a less invasive method to modulate neurons in the brain. The researchers injected the tiny nanoelectrodes into mice and showed how they wirelessly transmit electrical signals to the brain, just like a deep brain stimulator would, after exposing the mice to an external magnetic field. Kristen Kozielski Hunter Gilbert Yan Yu Onder Erin Metin Sitti

Rationality Enhancement News 04-01-2021 Ruiqi He joined our lab! Starting off a new year with Ruiqi! Welcome to the REG! Ruiqi He

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Award 02-01-2021 Vincent Mauricio Kadiri receives the Alfred Landecker Democracy Fellowship.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2021 Donghoon Son and Sungwoo Chun joined Pusan National University and Korea University, respectively as an assistant professor in S. Korea.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2021 Hakan Ceylan selected as a Young Academy Member by Turkish Science Academy, 2021.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2021 Jaekang Kim, Aniket Pal, Zhen Yin, Wei Feng, Yingdan Wu, and Mingchao Zhang received the Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2021 Jie Han, Chong Hong, Yingbo Yan, Fan Wang, Shuqi Wang, and Xianglong Lyu received the CSC PhD fellowship.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2021 Saadet Fatma Baltaci-Demir and Siyeon Jang received the DAAD PhD fellowship.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2021 Savas Tasoglu received the Humboldt fellowship for experienced researchers.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2021 Utku Culha and Kristen Kozielski joined Technical University of Munich as a chief scientist and assistant professor, respectively.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2021 Wei Feng received the Best Paper Award in Bonic Robotics at the International Workshop on Bionic Engineering.

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2021 Yichao Tang received the 1000 Young Talents Award in China and joined Tongji University as a full professor.

Physical Intelligence Appointment 01-01-2021 Abdon Pena-Francesch becomes Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan

Haptic Intelligence Award 01-01-2021 Ph.D. student Rachael Bevill Burns is selected to participate in the HRI Pioneers 2021 Workshop Rachael Burns

Physical Intelligence Appointment 01-01-2021 Vimal Kishore will join Banaras Hindu University

Physical Intelligence Award 01-01-2021 Hakan Ceylan and Xiaoguang Dong will join Mayo Clinic and Vanderbildt University, respectively, and Abdon Pena-Francesch joined University of Michigan, Ann Harbour as an assistant professor in USA.

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