News & Awards

Modern Magnetic Systems News 07-09-2018 Novel polymer lenses for X-ray microscopes: highly efficient and low cost Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart invented a new and cost-effective method for making X-ray lenses with nanometer-sized features and excellent focusing capabilities. By using an advanced 3D printing technique, a single lens can be manufactured under a minute from polymeric materials with extremely favorable X-ray optical properties, hence the costs of prototyping and manufacturing are strongly reduced. High-throughput and high-yield manufacturing processes of such lenses are sought after world-wide, which is why the scientists have filed a patent for their invention. Umut Sanli Kahraman Keskinbora Hakan Ceylan Gisela Schütz Metin Sitti

Rationality Enhancement Award 04-09-2018 Best Poster Award Falk Lieder

Rationality Enhancement News 04-09-2018 Best poster award at KogWis 2018 From September 3-6, 2018 the 14th biannual conference of the German Society for Cognitive Science (GK) was held at the Technische Universität Darmstadt. Contributing to the main topic of the conference "Computational Approaches to Cognitive Science", we presented our work on cognitive tutors, which won the best poster award! Falk Lieder

News 04-09-2018 Best poster award at KogWis 2018 From September 3-6, 2018 the 14th biannual conference of the German Society for Cognitive Science (GK) was held at the Technische Universität Darmstadt. Contributing to the main topic of the conference "Computational Approaches to Cognitive Science", we presented our work on cognitive tutors, which won the best poster award!

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 30-08-2018 A boost for biofuel cells In chemistry, a reaction is spontaneous when it does not need the addition of an external energy input. How much energy is released in a reaction is dictated by the laws of thermodynamics. In the case of the spontaneous reactions that occur in the human body this is often not enough to power medical implants. Now, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, together with an international team of researchers, found a way to boost the energy output by storing and bundling the energy of many spontaneous enzyme reactions. The work is published in the journal Nature Communications and shows how abundant, simple enzyme reactions can be used to power energy-hungry reactions and electronic devices. Peer Fischer

Physical Intelligence News 27-08-2018 A slippery world in bio-inspired robotics A roboticist at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems studies the multifunctional feet of the desert locust and its jumping behavior on different surfaces to extract the traits which contribute to enhancing surface friction and stop slips. The scientist then built a robot inspired by the locust. His findings about the morphological intelligence of the insect contribute to solving the complex locomotion problems seen in even the most advanced robots. This new field of research is increasingly gaining attention within the scientific community, so much so that renowned science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published the researcher´s findings in its latest edition. Matthew Woodward Metin Sitti

News 03-08-2018 PhD Fellowships at the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems The joint academic program between the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems (CLS) has opened the call for excellent doctoral fellows as of August 3rd, 2018. Barbara Kreilkamp

Rationality Enhancement News 01-08-2018 Yash Raj Jain joined our lab Yash Raj Jain has joined our lab for an internship on measuring and reverse-engineering metacognitive learning. He is a final year undergraduate pursuing a dual major in Computer Science and Economics at BITS Pilani, Hyderabad, India. Welcome Yash! Yash Raj Jain

News 25-07-2018 Blind Justice Researchers take new approach to machine learning fairness by applying privacy methods Can justice be blind when it comes to machine learning? Researchers from The Alan Turing Institute, the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and Software Systems, the University of Cambridge and Warwick as well as from the University College London present findings at ICML 2018.

News 20-07-2018 3D Nanofabrication of high-resolution X-ray focusing lenses Scientists at the Max-Planck-Institute for Intelligent Systems developed advanced lenses for X-Ray microscopes to be able to see inside of materials in high resolution of only a few nanometers in size. Their unique layer-by-layer 3D fabrication method allows them to build extremely precise multilayered diffractive lenses with virtually unlimited aspect ratios. Gisela Schütz Umut Sanli Kahraman Keskinbora

News 15-07-2018 Summer Colloquium 2018 Great talks - an 80th birthday - the Günter Petzow Prize ceremony - fantastic atmosphere - a sunny evening BBQ Robots as household helpers, learning robots, mini robots for medical research, and big data: this year's summer colloquium focused on current topics in artificial intelligence. Katherine J. Kuchenbecker Ildikó Papp-Wiedmann Matthias Tröndle Claudia Daefler

Physical Intelligence Award 13-07-2018 Wenqi Hu received the Günter Petzow Prize.

Autonomous Learning News 13-07-2018 First machine learning method capable of accurate extrapolation Scientists develop new machine learning method that can make robots safer - New method provides simpler and more intuitive models of physical situations Understanding how a robot will react under different conditions is essential to guaranteeing its safe operation. But how do you know what will break a robot without actually damaging it? A new method developed by scientists at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems is the first machine learning method that can use observations made under safe conditions to make accurate predictions for all possible conditions governed by the same physical dynamics. Especially designed for real-life situations, their method provides simple, interpretable descriptions of the underlying physics. The researchers will present their findings tomorrow at this year’s prestigious International Conference for Machine Learning (ICML). Georg Martius

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 03-07-2018 Vector Foundation 2018 MINT-Innovation Grant Congratulations to Mariana Alarcón-Correa and Vincent M. Kadiri Mariana Alarcon-Correa Vincent Mauricio Kadiri

Rationality Enhancement News 01-07-2018 Florian Mohnert joined our lab Florian Mohnert has joined our lab for an internship on optimal goal setting. He is a Master’s student in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Amsterdam. Welcome Florian! Florian Mohnert

Rationality Enhancement News 01-07-2018 Our lab started As part of the Cyber Valley initiative, the Max Planck Research Group for Rationality Enhancement headed by Dr. Falk Lieder started today. The scientific mission of the group is to lay the cognitive and technological foundations for helping people become more effective. Our approach combines building and testing computational models of human learning and decision-making with developing intelligent systems for enhancing human rationality and evaluating them in field experiments. We are looking forward to five productive and successful years! Falk Lieder

Modern Magnetic Systems News 29-06-2018 DynaMAX Projekt erhält großzügige Mittel vom BMBF Das Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung unterstützt Projekt des Max-Planck-Instituts für Intelligente Systeme innerhalb des Deutsch-Schwedischen Großforschungsprojekts Röntgen-Ångström-Cluster mit 1,2 Millionen Euro. Ein Drittel davon gehen für das Teil-Projekt DynaMAX nach Stuttgart. Joachim Gräfe Gisela Schütz

Physical Intelligence News 28-06-2018 A multifunctional, multiscale, reconfigurable surface Composite surface has features that can move microparticles, mix droplets, repel biofilms and more. Wendong Wang

Autonomous Learning News 27-06-2018 Jia-Jie Zhu receives the Marie Curie Individual Fellowship A prestigious junior scientist fellowship is awarded to the MPI-IS researcher Jia-Jie Zhu Georg Martius

News 27-06-2018 MPI-IS Researchers high in demand to give keynote speeches Several scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems have recently given keynote speeches at some of the most important conferences in their fields. Katherine J. Kuchenbecker Metin Sitti Peer Fischer Sebastian Trimpe

Autonomous Learning Award 25-06-2018 coming

Modern Magnetic Systems News 22-06-2018 Neue Phänomene im magnetischen Nanokosmos Beobachtung magnetischer Tröpfchen große Bedeutung für die magnetische Datenprozessierung Forscher am Max-Planck-Institut für Intelligente Systeme in Stuttgart konnten mit Hilfe eines Röntgenmikroskops bei der Bildung von magnetische Tröpfchen ein völlig unerwartetes Verhalten beobachten. Wenn der Strom über einen Nanokontakts durch die magnetische Schicht fließt, breitet er sich wesentlich weiter aus, als die Ausdehnung des Nanokontakt es zulassen sollte. Bisher waren Forscher davon ausgegangen, dass nur die Fläche unterhalb des Nanokontakts reagiert. Doch Experimente haben die Wissenschaftler eines Besseren belehrt. Ein spannendes Phänomen in der Grundlagenforschung und von großer Bedeutung für die magnetische Datenprozessierung. Joachim Gräfe Gisela Schütz

Physical Intelligence News 22-06-2018 Smart Materials Engineer choses MPI-IS for his NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship Dr. Hamed Shahsavan receives a prestigious Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, the country´s federal funding agency for university-based research and student training in natural sciences and engineering. The smart materials engineer choses the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems for his research stay because of the state-of-the-art facilities provided there. Hamed Shahsavan Metin Sitti

Autonomous Learning News 21-06-2018 ICML 2018 paper accepted Our Paper "Learning Equations for Extrapolation and Control" got excepted at ICML 2018! We are looking forward to present and discuss in Stockholm in July 10-15, 2018. Georg Martius

Autonomous Vision News 20-06-2018 Award for Tübinger Computer Vision Scientist stands tribute to Cyber Valley being at the forefront of AI research For the first time, the prestigious IEEE PAMI Young Researcher Award goes to a German researcher. Andreas Geiger Michael Black

Perceiving Systems News 20-06-2018 Realistic Avatars for the Virtual Zoo On the basis of a few photos alone, a new technique creates realistic avatars of animals that look and move like real animals Filmmakers and developers of computer games will have a new way of animating animals in the future. A team led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen, Germany, has developed a technique that uses photographs alone to create lifelike 3D models of almost all quadrupeds. These avatars can be animated to realistically imitate the movements of animals. But the simple method of bringing animals to life on the computer is not only interesting for the entertainment industry. Many people have lost a beloved family pet. Now this technology can bring them back to “life” as a virtual 3D avatar. It could also benefit biologists in species protection and help to make children in particular aware of the importance of biodiversity. Michael Black Silvia Zuffi Angjoo Kanazawa

Autonomous Vision Award 19-06-2018 Andreas Geiger receives the IEEE PAMI Young Researcher Award

Autonomous Learning Award 19-06-2018 Michal Rolinek is awarded with a CVPR Honorable Mention for the paper 'Efficient Optimization for Rank-based Loss Functions'

Autonomous Learning News 19-06-2018 CVPR Honorable Mention The paper 'Efficient Optimization for Rank-based Loss Functions', on which Michal Rolinek was contributing to, received the CVPR Honorable Mention award. Michal Rolinek

Dynamic Locomotion News 19-06-2018 Cooperation work on Oncilla Open-Source Quadruped Robot Open-Source Quadruped Robot Our publication behind the open-source Oncilla quadruped robot project, developed at the Biorobotics Laboratory at EPFL, Lausanne Switzerland and several other universities in Europe, just has been published. Alexander Badri-Spröwitz

Haptic Intelligence News 15-06-2018 Hasti Seifi wins EuroHaptics Society prize for best Ph.D. thesis Dr. Hasti Seifi is the winner of the 2017 EuroHaptics Society award for the best Ph.D. thesis in the field of haptics. While Ms. Seifi is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) in Stuttgart, the award honors research she conducted at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada, where she completed her doctorate in Computer Science under the supervision of Professor Karon E. MacLean. Hasti Seifi Katherine J. Kuchenbecker

Haptic Intelligence Award 15-06-2018 Postdoc Hasti Seifi wins the 2017 EuroHaptics Society prize for the best Ph.D. thesis in the field of haptics; she earned her doctorate with Karon MacLean at UBC in Canada Hasti Seifi

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Award 12-06-2018 Kai Melde won the "Excellent Communication Award" at the International Conference on Ultrasonics 2018 in Caparica Portugal.

Empirical Inference News 05-06-2018 Machine Learning Frontiers in Precision Medicine Dept. Empirical Inference is part of this new scientific network The Marie Curie Innovative Training Network "Machine Learning Frontiers in Precision Medicine" is funded by the European Commission with 3.6 Mio € for four years (2019-2022). It is coordinated by Professor Karsten Borgwardt from the Machine Learning and Computational Biology Lab of ETH Zurich. Bernhard Schölkopf

Modern Magnetic Systems News 04-06-2018 Joachim Gräfe erhält Otto-Hahn-Medaille der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Der Nanomagnetismus-Forscher wird für seine innovative Forschung der Magnetisierungsdynamik auf der Nanoskala, insbesondere der Magnonik, durch den Einsatz modernster Röntgenmikroskopie ausgezeichnet. Joachim Gräfe

Modern Magnetic Systems Award 01-06-2018 Joachim Gräfe receives the Otto-Hahn-Medal for his PhD Thesis "Statische und dynamische Magnetisierungseigenschaften nanoskaliger Überstrukturen", written at the MPI for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart

Intelligent Control Systems Physics for Inference and Optimization Rationality Enhancement Embodied Vision Locomotion in Biorobotic and Somatic Systems News 25-05-2018 Cyber Valley attracts research group leaders from around the world Research cooperation in the field of Intelligent Systems gains momentum Michael Black Tamara Almeyda

Autonomous Vision News 25-05-2018 Fully Funded PhD Positions at IMPRS-IS Application Deadline: Nov 15, 2018 The International Max Planck Research School for Intelligent Systems is now hiring our 2019 generation of Ph.D. students. They will contribute to world-leading research in areas such as machine learning, computer vision, robot dynamics and control, micro- and nano-robotics, and haptics. Leila Masri

Haptic Intelligence News 23-05-2018 Brent Gillespie receives Humboldt Research Award The award will allow the visiting professor in the Haptic Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart to extend his stay in Germany. Brent Gillespie Katherine J. Kuchenbecker

Dynamic Locomotion News 21-05-2018 ICRA2018: Shaping in Practice: Training Wheels to Learn Fast Hopping Directly in Hardware Our paper 'Shaping in Practice: Training Wheels to Learn Fast Hopping Directly in Hardware' was accepted for ICRA2018. It will be presented in May 2018 in Brisbane. See you there! Steve Heim Felix Ruppert Alborz Aghamaleki Sarvestani Alexander Badri-Spröwitz

Physical Intelligence News 17-05-2018 Research prize by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for Prof. Dr. David H. Gracias Sabbatical of the recipient will take place in the Physical Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart.

Perceiving Systems Award 16-05-2018 Michael J. Black, Alumni Research Award, Department of Computer Science, University of British Columbia, 2018

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 16-05-2018 Best of luck – start at IIT Pisa Dr. Stefano Palagi moves back to Italy and joins the Bioinspired Soft Robotics research team at the IIT and the Center for Micro-BioRobotics in Pisa. Best of luck and lots of success! Stefano Palagi Peer Fischer

Dynamic Locomotion News 14-05-2018 SIMPAR2018: Learning from Outside the Viability Kernel Our paper 'Learning from Outside the Viability Kernel: Why we Should Build Robots that can Fail with Grace ' was accepted for SIMPAR2018. Steve Heim will present his work in May 2018 in Brisbane (SIMPAR: Brisbane, Australia, 16-19 May 2018). Steve Heim Alexander Badri-Spröwitz

Autonomous Learning News 01-05-2018 ALIFE 2018 paper accepted Our paper 'Systematic self-exploration of behaviors for robots in a dynamical systems framework' was accepted for ALIFE 2018 and will be presented in Tokyo, July 2018. Cristina Pinneri Georg Martius

Haptic Intelligence Award 01-05-2018 Visiting Professor Brent Gillespie receives a Humbold Research Award Brent Gillespie

Dynamic Locomotion News 27-04-2018 Alexander Spröwitz presents research at final meeting of DFG project 'Das verdatete Tier' Alexander Spröwitz gives an invited talk at the final DFG project meeting 'Das verdatete Tier' at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. This DFG project final meeting is organized by Prof. Dr. Stefan Rieger and Ina Bolinski, M.A. . Alexander Badri-Spröwitz

Physical Intelligence News 26-04-2018 Multifunctional bacterial microswimmer able to deliver cargo and destroy itself The untethered biohybrid microswimmer is able to transport and deliver cargo encapsulated into a guidable red blood cell, while an attached bacterium, one of the most efficient swimmers in nature, acts as a propeller to move it forward. Once it has reached its destination and delivered its cargo, the scientists can destroy the microswimmer using infrared light. Yunus Alapan Oncay Yasa Metin Sitti

Autonomous Motion Award 25-04-2018 Best Paper of RA-L 2017, Finalist of Best Robotic Vision Paper Award of ICRA 2017

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