News & Awards

Empirical Inference News 26-10-2017 From small to not so pixel-perfect large The Algorithm EnhanceNet-PAT is OK not being perfect – but shows a better result (Talk at ICCV 2017, Venice) Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen utilize the Artificial Intelligence of a software to create a high definition version of a low resolution image. While the pixel-perfectness is being sacrificed, the reward is a better result. Bernhard Schölkopf Mehdi S. M. Sajjadi Michael Hirsch Claudia Daefler

News 25-10-2017 World´s smallest jet engine invented in Stuttgart For the second time, Dr. Samuel Sánchez from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart receives the Guinness World Record for the smallest nanotube travelling through fluid like a jet engine. Sámuel Sánchez

News 23-10-2017 Amazon to join Cyber Valley The technology company is supporting the research collaboration on AI initiated by the Max Planck Society Cyber Valley has attracted another collaboration partner from industry. In future, Amazon intends to participate in the research collaboration initiated by the Max Planck Society in December 2016 which is one of the biggest projects in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) in Europe. In addition to its commitment to Cyber Valley, Amazon is also setting up its own research center adjacent to the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen and will step up collaboration with the Max Planck Society. “We appreciate Amazon’s commitment in the Cyber Valley and to research on artificial intelligence,” remarked Max Planck President Martin Stratmann. “We gain another strong cooperation partner who will further increase the international significance of research in the area of machine learning and computer vision in the Stuttgart and Tübingen region.” Michael Black Bernhard Schölkopf Claudia Daefler

Perceiving Systems Autonomous Vision Award 12-10-2017 Andreas Geiger with collaborators from Daimler and Freiburg won the best student paper award at 3DV for the paper "Sparsity Invariant CNNs"

Autonomous Vision News 12-10-2017 Andreas GTC Europe talk on Deep Models for 3D Reconstruction Andreas GTC Europe talk on Deep Models for 3D Reconstruction is now available.

Perceiving Systems Autonomous Vision News 12-10-2017 Best student paper award at 3DV 2017 Best student paper award at the International Conference on 3D Vision (3D 2017) for the paper "Sparsity Invariant CNNs" for Andreas Geiger and collaborators from Daimler R&D and Freiburg University. Andreas Geiger

Autonomous Motion News 11-10-2017 Jeannette Bohg is a woman in robotics you should know about! Robohub 2017 list of 25 women in Robotics you need to know about On the occasion of Ada Lovelace Day on 10 October 2017, robohub presented their annual list of “25 women in robotics you need to know about”. Recently, Jeannette Bohg became Assistant Professor in Computer Science at Stanford. She is Guest Researcher at the Autonomous Motion Department of MPI, where she did her research on robotics between 2012 and 2017. Congratulations! Jeannette Bohg

News 29-09-2017 Funded Ph.D. Positions at the New International Max Planck Research School for Intelligent Systems The Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and the Universities of Stuttgart and Tübingen are collaborating to offer a new interdisciplinary Ph.D. program, the International Max Planck Research School for Intelligent Systems. This new doctoral program will be accepting its new generation of Ph.D. students in Spring 2018 and will enroll about 100 Ph.D. students over the next six years. Leila Masri

News 28-09-2017 PhD Fellowships at the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems The Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems is a joint research center of ETH Zurich and the Max Planck Society. The Center’s mission is to pursue research in the design and analysis of learning systems, synthetic or natural. This initiative brings together more than 40 professors and senior researchers in the fields of machine learning, perception, robotics on large and small scales, as well as neuroscience.

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Award 20-09-2017 Eunjin Choi and Hyeon-Ho Jeong, respectively, received the 2017 scholarship awards from the Korean Scientists and Engineers Association in the FRG (VeKNI e.V).

News 18-09-2017 The Three Pillars of Fully Autonomous Driving 2017 Max Planck Lecture by Professor Amnon Shashua The field of transportation is undergoing a seismic change with the coming introduction of autonomous driving. The technologies required to enable computer driven cars involves the latest cutting edge artificial intelligence algorithms along three major thrusts: Sensing, Planning and Mapping.

Haptic Intelligence News 15-09-2017 A Balanced Equation - Women in STEM Roadtrip Breakthroughs come from breaking down barriers. Katherine J. Kuchenbecker

Autonomous Vision Award 12-09-2017 Andreas Geiger wins the German Pattern Recognition Award 2017.

Perceiving Systems Autonomous Vision News 12-09-2017 Andreas Geiger wins German Pattern Recognition Award 2017 The German Pattern Recognition Award is awarded once a year to one young researcher in computer vision, pattern recognition or machine learning at an age of 35 years or less and sponsored by the Daimler AG with 5000€. Andreas Geiger

Probabilistic Numerics Award 11-09-2017 Philipp Hennig: ERC Starting Grant (Acronym: PANAMA)

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Award 06-09-2017 Peer Fischer is named Steinhofer lecturer at the University of Freiburg and he receives the associated prize of the Steinhofer-Foundation.

Autonomous Vision News 04-09-2017 Andreas Geiger's tutorial talk at BMVC 2017 on Probabilistic and Deep Models for 3D Reconstruction 3D reconstruction from multiple 2D images is an inherently ill-posed problem. Prior knowledge is required to resolve ambiguities and probabilistic models are desirable to capture the ambiguities in the reconstructed model. In this talk, I will present two recent results tackling these two aspects. First, I will introduce a probabilistic framework for volumetric 3D reconstruction where the reconstruction problem is cast as inference in a Markov random field using ray potentials. Our main contribution is a discrete-continuous inference algorithm which computes marginal distributions of each voxel's occupancy and appearance. I will show that the proposed algorithm allows for Bayes optimal predictions with respect to a natural reconstruction loss. I will further demonstrate several extensions which integrate non-local CAD priors into the reconstruction process. In the second part of my talk, I will present a novel framework for deep learning with 3D data called OctNet which enables 3D CNNs on high-dimensional inputs. I will demonstrate the utility of the OctNet representation on several 3D tasks including classification, orientation estimation and point cloud labeling. Finally, I will present an extension of OctNet called OctNetFusion which jointly predicts the space partitioning function with the output representation, resulting in an end-to-end trainable model for volumetric depth map fusion. Andreas Geiger

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 25-08-2017 International Conference on Micro and Nanomachines The 2017 International conference on micro- and nanomachines will be held in Wuhan, China, from the 25-28 August and will be co-chaired by Peer Fischer Peer Fischer

Perceiving Systems Autonomous Vision News 22-08-2017 NVIDIA CEO presenting the brand new Tesla V100 GPUs at CVPR. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang presented the NVAIL AI Labs with the very first Tesla V100 GPUs, based on NVIDIA's Volta architecture. MPI-IS is among the top centers working at the leading edge of deep learning in computer vision. As such it is recognized by NVIDIA as one of its NVAIL labs and giving the MPI access to the best and latest NVIDIA technology. Huang unveiled these new GPUs at CVPR saying that he wants to put them in the hands of researchers first. Michael Black Andreas Geiger

Empirical Inference Award 06-08-2017 Matej Balog, Nilesh Tripuraneni, Zoubin Ghahramani, Adrian Weller: Honorable Mentions at ICML 2017 for their paper: "Lost Relatives of the Gumbel Trick".

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 02-08-2017 Steinhofer lecture Peer Fischer, head of the Research Group "Micro-, Nano- and Molecular Systems" at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Stuttgart, was awarded with a Steinhofer lecture 2017 of the University of Freiburg "for his fundamental work in the field of targeted 3D-production of artificial nanostructures and their application in biomedicine". Professor Fischer gave his lecture on "How to Teach Nanoparticles and Enzymes to Swim". Peer Fischer

Perceiving Systems News 01-08-2017 4D Movies Capture People in Clothing, Creating Realistic Virtual Try-on Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) have developed technology to digitally capture clothing on moving people, turn it into a 3D digital form, and dress virtual avatars with it. This new technology makes virtual clothing try-on practical. Gerard Pons-Moll Sergi Pujades Michael Black

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 01-08-2017 Faculty position Congrats and good luck to Dr. Vijay Chikkadi who will start his own group this summer as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science Education Research (IISER) Pune. Chikkadi kudleppa

Haptic Intelligence News 28-07-2017 Can You Feel Me Now? The Science Of Digitizing Touch Scientists are developing tools that allow you to digitally feel textures like wood and cotton. Katherine J. Kuchenbecker

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Award 27-07-2017 Tian Qiu, Stefano Palagi, and Fabian Adams win the Best Oral Paper Award, at the 10th Hamlyn Symposium on Medical Robotics, London 2017.

Perceiving Systems Award 26-07-2017 Siyu Tang: Winner of the CVPR 2017 Multi-Object Tracking Challenge

Perceiving Systems Award 19-07-2017 Varun Jampani, Osman Ulusoy, and Silvia Zuffi. Outstanding Reviewer Award. CVPR 2017.

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”.

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