About Us

Our primary mission is research and education with a focus on machine perception, cognition, action and control.

The chair is organized into four research areas:

Human Robot Interaction and Service Robotics including work on the integration of speech, language, vision and action; programming service robots; development of new application scenarios for sensor-based service robots; robot systems for education;

Medical Robotics covering all aspects of manipulator and instrument control for complex surgical procedures, e.g. visualisation of all types of patient data, haptic feedback for delicate handling, skill transfer, shared control, multi-manipulator cooperation;

Cognitive Robotics encompassing a comprehensive area of topics ranging from sensor models by the way of individual sensor processing entities (e.g. for high-speed face tracking) to high-level cognitive skills for navigation, adaptation, learning;

Cyber-Physical / Embedded Systems are investigated with special emphasis on fault tolerance and high availability; special topics are the design of very small redundant systems and the associated software development models and tool chains.

Our goals for teaching are to provide robotics and computer science literacy to a broad spectrum of students starting from high school students to whom we offer our exciting education and entertainment robotics activities. In more detail, our courses include:

Undergraduate Education: Introduction to Computer Science I and II, Seminars on different topics, related exercises, labs.

Graduate Education: Robotics, Real-time Systems, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Digital Signal Processing, and more.

Ph.D. Programs: There is a multitude of opportunities for students to pursue their degree, both in funded programs and on regular staff positions.

Virtual Tour: Click here to go on a virtual tour of our chair in our Indoor Viewer

News

• 03.03.2017: Discover the ECHORD++ Robotics Innovation Facilities (RIFs) - Brand new RIF video launched. Watch the video here...
• 25.01.2017: Our new frontiers article explains the technical and scientific concepts behind the HBP Neurorobotics Platform read more...
• 16.12.2016: Our Science Supplement article on Neurorobotics in the Human Brain Project is now available! read more...
• 03.12.2016: Prof. Knoll contributes in German newspaper article on female robots. read more...
• 30.11.2016: HBP exhibition at European Parliament. read more...
• 25.10.2016: Appearance of Prof. Knoll at 'World Robot Conference 2016' in Beijing. read more... (in Chinese)
• 25.10.2016: EU-Commissioner Oettinger: ECHORD scheme facilitates access to EU-funding for SMEs. read more...
• 21.10.2016: German newspaper article about ECHORD++: 'Vom Labor auf den Markt'. read more...
• 29.06.2016: ECHORD++ attracts thousands of visitors at AUTOMATICA trade fair. read more...
• 02.06.2016: An administrative position in our subproject of the Human Brain Project is available. More information here.
• 30.03.2016: The Neurorobotics Platform is now released. Watch the recorded streams of introduction and the demo on our YouTube channel!
• 10.03.2016: an interesting and provacative talk with Prof Alois Knoll, read more on Robotics & Automation News and Robohub
• 25.02.2016: Prof Alois Knoll speaking at the Axel Springer Award (together with Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel and the EU parlament president Martin Schulz) Ceremony video , read more...
• 29.01.2016: ECHORD++'s scientific project manager Reinhard Lafrenz named new Secretary General of euRobotics read more...
• 27.01.2016: The report from our IROS 2015 workshop on Advances in Biologically Inspired Brain-Like Cognition and Control for Learning Robots is featured on Robohub.
• 21.01.2016: Gang Chen has successfully defended his PhD thesis: "Resource Management in Real-time Multicore Embedded Systems: Performance and Energy Perspectives". The thesis provides reconfiguration techniques and scheduling algorithms for resource management in real-time multi-core embedded systems.
• 18.01.2016 Information about next term's courses offered by our chair can now be found on our webpage. Please check frequently as information will be updated.
• 15.12.2015: Hardik Shah has successfully defended his PhD thesis: "Predictable and high performance multi-core architectures". The thesis provides techniques to achieve deterministic execution time on multi-core architectures at minimal performance penalty.
• 27.03.2015: TUM students win first Audi Autonomous Driving Cup Photo by Audi, see also press release by Audi and Team information.
• 21.08.2014: At Automatica trade fair 2014 the ECHORD++ team asked the visitors of their booth one simple question: “What do you think is the future of robotics?” We got the most interesting answers from roboticists from all over the world and put them together in a short video.
• 24.07.2014: Our Bavarian Bending Units just became Runner-up World Champion of the Logistics League at RoboCup 2014 in João Pessoa (Brazil) with 10 international teams competing. Congratulations! See more on their website.
• 03.06.2014: Today the European Commissioner for Digital Agenda and Vice-President of the European Commission Neelie Kroes visited our ECHORD++ booth at the Automatica trade fair in Munich. See more on the Echord++ website.

• more...

Some of our Affiliations and Cooperations

The Human Brain Project HBP
The European Flagship project on Brain Research

Neurorobotics in the HBP
The Neurorobotics Subproject in the Human Brain Project

ECHORD++ project
The European Coordination Hub for Open Robotics Development

ECHORD project
The European Clearing House on Open Robotics Development

Graduate School of Information Science in Health
Top level education for information in science in health

INI.TUM
The "Ingolstadt Institute der TU München" is a cooperation between AUDI AG, Technische Universität München and Ingolstadt

ECCEROBOT
The project "Embodied Cognition in a Compliantly Engineered ROBOT" developed a completely new type of robot

MYOROBOTICS
The project "Myorobotics" develops soft modular robots

CoTeSys
Cognition for Technical Systems

Neuro-IT.net
A former network of excellence at the interface between robotics and neuroscience

Neurovers-IT
A project to develop "in vitro neuronal networks" as a novel class of "computational device"

Our Course of Study

Robotics, Cognition, Intelligence
An interdisciplinary master course

Our Lectures

• Cognitive Systems by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Alois Knoll, Florian Walter (ECTS: 5.0, SWS: 3V+1Ü)
• Introduction To Digital Signal Processing by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Alois Knoll, Alexander Kuhn (ECTS: 7.0, SWS: 3V+3Ü)
• Autonomes Fahren by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Alois Knoll, Dipl.-Ing. Gereon Hinz (ECTS: 4.0, SWS: 2V)
• Cyber-Physical Systems by Prof. Matthias Althoff (ECTS: 6.0, SWS: 3V+2Ü)
• Perlen der Informatik 2 by Prof. Matthias Althoff (SWS: 2V)
• Deep learning in Robotics by Prof. Darius Burschka, Dipl.-Phys. Berthold Baeuml (ECTS: 2.0, SWS 2V)

Our Lab Courses

• Master-Praktikum/Lab Course Hardware/Software Co-Design on an Autonomous Driving Car by M.Eng. Xiebing Wang; M.Sc. Xiang Gao; Dr. Kai Huang; (ECTS: 10.0, SWS: 6)
• Master-Praktikum/Lab Course Design and control of a snake-like robot by M.Eng. Long Cheng; M.Eng. Zhenshan Bing; M.Eng. Zhuangyi Jiang; Dr. Kai Huang; (ECTS: 10.0, SWS: 6)
• Master-Praktikum/Lab Course Safe Human-Robot Co-Existence by Aaron Pereira MEng; Andrea Giusti M. Sc.; Prof. Dr-Ing. Matthias Althoff and Markus Koschi M. Sc.; (ECTS: 10.0, SWS: 6)
• Master/Bachelor-Praktikum/Lab Course Motion Planning and Control of Robotic Manipulators by Dr. Yannick Morel and M.Sc. Arne Peters; (ECTS: 10.0, SWS: 6)
• Master-Praktikum/Lab Course Design of an autonomous bicycle by Dr. Daniel Renjewski, Dipl.-Ing. Gereon Hinz (ECTS: 10.0, SWS: 6)
• Master-Praktikum/Lab Course Roboy Student Team - anthropomimetic Robot development by M. Sc. Rafael Hostettler, M. Sc. Raphael Dürscheid (ECTS: 10.0, SWS: 6)
• Master-Praktikum/Lab Course Roboy Advanced Student Team - anthropomimetic Robot development by M. Sc. Rafael Hostettler, M. Sc. Raphael Dürscheid (ECTS: 10.0, SWS: 6)
• Master-Praktikum/Lab Course Sensor Model-Based Autonomous Driving by Dipl.-Ing. Gereon Hinz and M.Sc. Guang Chen (ECTS: 10.0, SWS: 6)

Our Seminars

• Seminar Cyber-Physical Systems by Markus Koschi and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Althoff (ECTS: 4.0, SWS: 2)
• Seminar Human-Robot Interaction by Dr. Markus Rickert; Alexander Perzylo, M.Sc.; Stefan Profanter, M.Sc.; Ingmar Kessler, M.Sc.; Ahmed Rehman Ghazi, B.Sc.; and Biao Hu, M.Sc. (ECTS: 4, SWS: 2)
• Seminar Robot-assisted Surgery in Clinics by Dr.-Ing. M. Ali Nasseri , M.Eng. Mingchuan Zhou, Dr. Kai Huang, and Sabine Thürauf (ECTS: 4, SWS: 2)
• Seminar Roboy Advanced Student Team Seminar - anthropomimetic Robot development by M. Sc. Rafael Hostettler, M. Sc. Raphael Dürscheid (ECTS: 4, SWS: 6)
• Proseminar Bahnplanung für autonome Fahrzeuge by Stefanie Manzinger, Markus Koschi, Matthias Althoff (ECTS: 4.0, SWS: 2)
• Research Seminar Neurorobotics by PD Dr.rer.nat Florian Röhrbein (ECTS: 4.0, SWS: 2)

Other

• Particiption in Audi Autonomous Driving Cup 2017 by M.Sc. Arne Peters

---

WS 2017/18, SS 2017, WS 2016/17, SS 2016, WS 2015/16, SS 2015, WS 2014/2015, SS 2014, WS 2013/2014,SS 2013, WS 2012/2013, SS 2012, WS 2011/2012, SS 2011, WS 2010/2011, SS 2010, WS 2009/2010, SS 2009, WS 2008/2009, SS 2008, WS 2007/2008, SS 2007, WS 2006/2007, SS 2006, WS 2005/2006, SS 2005, WS 2004/2005, SS 2004, WS 2003/2004, SS 2003, WS 2002/2003, SS 2002, WS 2001/2002

Downloads

• OpenTL
  A general-purpose tracking library
• Robotics Library
  Open source software in robotics
• EasyLab (in German)
  Model-driven development of embedded software
• Boolean Expression Simplifier
  Simplify your boolean expressions