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News 15-12-2016 Go-ahead for Cyber Valley Science and industry form one of Europe's largest research partnerships in artificial intelligence Intelligent systems will shape our future: they could drive us as autonomous cars, help us out in the home on a daily basis or perform medical services as tiny robots. An initiative by the Max Planck Society and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in the Stuttgart-Tübingen area is bringing together partners from science and industry to establish Cyber Valley where systems can be developed that will be capable of performing such feats. Winfried Kretschmann, Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg, Theresia Bauer, Minister of Science in Baden-Württemberg and Martin Stratmann, President of the Max Planck Society, together with the other project participants, have launched the initiative on Thursday, 15 December 2016 in Stuttgart's Neues Schloss. Matthias Tröndle
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Probabilistic Numerics News 13-12-2016 ICERM Seminar on Probabilistic Scientific Computing An upcoming workshop in June 2017 will explore applications of probabilistic numerics. Philipp Hennig
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News 08-12-2016 Leibniz Prize 2017 for Joachim P. Spatz Max Planck Director awarded with most prestigious german funding prize Awards ceremony on 15 March 2017 in Berlin
Probabilistic Numerics News 03-12-2016 Dagstuhl Seminar on the Future of Learning with Kernels and Gaussian Processes A recent meeting at the Leibniz Centre for Computer Science highlights the ongoing significance of analytic nonparametric models for machine learning. Philipp Hennig
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Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Award 01-12-2016 Hyeon-Ho Jeong was awarded the MRS Gold Graduate Student Award for a presentation on Chiral Plasmonic Nanosensors at the 2016 MRS Fall Meeting in Boston.
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Autonomous Motion News 17-11-2016 Finalist for the Best Interactive Session Paper at the IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids 2016) Brahayam Ponton Alexander Herzog Ludovic Righetti Stefan Schaal
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Movement Generation and Control Award 17-11-2016 The paper "A Convex Model of Humanoid Momentum Dynamics for Multi-Contact Motion Generation" by Brahayam Ponton, Alexander Herzog, Stefan Schaal and Ludovic Righetti was Finalist for the Best Interactive Session Award at the 2016 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robotics. 10 finalists out of 283 submitted / 186 accepted papers.
Smart Nanoplasmonics News 09-11-2016 IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Optics 2016 awarded to Laura Na Liu Laura Na Liu, Group Leader at the Max-Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, and Professor at the Kirchhoff Institute of Physics, University of Heidelberg, is the recipient of the 2016 IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Optics for “outstanding contributions to Nanooptics, Nanophotonics, Nano plasmonics, and Metamaterials.” She is Associate Editor of Science Advances, and member of the Editorial Advisory Board of ACS Photonics. Laura Na Liu
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Probabilistic Numerics News 01-11-2016 Summer School on Probabilistic Numerics in 2017 The Dobbiaco Summer School 2017 will be devoted to Probabilistic Numerics, and taught by Philipp Hennig & Mark Girolami. Philipp Hennig
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Autonomous Motion News 28-10-2016 Finalist for Best Paper Award at the 4th RSI International Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (ICROM). Ludovic Righetti Alexander Herzog Majid Khadiv Stefan Schaal
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Movement Generation and Control Award 27-10-2016 The paper "Stepping Stabilization Using a Combination of DCM Tracking and Step Adjustment" by Majid Khadiv, Sébastien Kleff, Alexander Herzog, Ali Moosavian, Stefan Schaal and Ludovic Righetti was Finalist for the Best Paper Award at the 4th RSI International Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (ICROM).
Empirical Inference Award 17-10-2016 Moritz Grosse-Wentrup, Vinay Jayaram: IEEE Brain Initiative Best Paper Award at the IEEE SMC 6th Workshop on Brain-Machine Interface Systems, at the Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Annual Conference in Budapest.
Award 16-10-2016 Prof. Dr.Ir. Eric J. Mittemeijer: has been announced as honorary member of the German Society for Materials Science e. V.
Empirical Inference News 08-10-2016 The Paralympics are over - the Cybathlon starts! CYBATHLON Championship for Athletes with Disabilities Zürich. On October 8, 2016, a collaboration of the research group "Brain-Computer-Interfaces" at the MPI-IS and the "Autonomous Systems Lab" at the TU Darmstadt will send a joint team into the Brain-computer-Interface Race at the Cybathlon 2016 in Zurich. The so called Athena-Minerva team consists mainly of computer science students of bachelor and master-level at the Technical University Darmstadt. They are interested in "Machine Learning", signal processing and especially for Brain-Computer-Interfaces (BCI). The team is headed by Moritz Grosse-Wentrup from MPI-IS and by Jan Peters, TU Darmstadt. The pilot is Sebastian Reul. Moritz Grosse-Wentrup
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Perceiving Systems News 05-10-2016 Christoph Lassner in portrait #thatsmyscience Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience (University of Tuebingen), Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems Christoph Lassner
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News 30-09-2016 Motion-directed robots on a micro scale Microswimmers capped with carbon on one side can be propelled and steered by light Phototactic behaviour directs some bacteria towards light and others into darkness: This enables them to utilize solar energy as efficiently as possible for their metabolism, or, otherwise, protects them from excessive light intensity. A team of researchers headed by Clemens Bechinger from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and the University of Stuttgart, as well as colleagues from the University of Düsseldorf have now found a surprisingly simple way to direct synthetic microswimmers towards light or darkness. Their findings could eventually lead to minuscule robots that seek out and treat lesions in the human body.
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Physical Intelligence News 26-09-2016 Shape-programmable miniscule robots Soft materials that can use magnetic fields to generate desired time-varying shapes could provide an engine for microswimmers One day, microrobots may be able to swim through the human body like sperm or paramecia to carry out medical functions in specific locations. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart have developed functional elastomers, which can be activated by magnetic fields to imitate the swimming gaits of natural flagella, cilia and jellyfish. Using a specially developed computer algorithm, the researchers can now automatically generate the optimal magnetic conditions for each gait for the first time. According to the Stuttgart-based scientists, other applications for this shape-programming technology include numerous other micro-scale engineering applications, in which chemical and physical processes are implemented on a miniscule scale. Metin Sitti Guo Zhan Lum
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Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 21-09-2016 Holograms with sound A new way of shaping sound waves in 3D aids technology and could be useful for medical ultrasound applications Sound can now be structured in three dimensions. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and the University of Stuttgart have found a way of generating acoustic holograms, which could improve ultrasound diagnostics and material testing. The holograms can also be used to move and manipulate particles. Peer Fischer Kai Melde Andrew Mark
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Perceiving Systems Award 12-09-2016 Highly cited article: "A Quantitative Analysis of Current Practices in Optical Flow Estimation and the Principles Behind Them" by Deqing Sun, Stefan Roth, and Michael Black, is cited by Thompson Reuters as one of three highly cited articles published in the Int. J. of Computer Vision (IJCV) since 2014.
News 09-09-2016 Tuebingen is a great Research City! (Video) Video: Research needs Future. One of Germany’s oldest and most renowned universities and a wide range of top-level research institutes. Together, they make Tuebingen an ideal place for science and research. They have joined forces in the Tuebingen Research Campus to further intensify their cooperation and to offer joint services to scientists interested in joining us.
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Probabilistic Numerics News 26-08-2016 NIPS workshop: Optimizing the Optimizer contributions invited Maren Mahsereci and Philipp Hennig are co-organizing a NIPS workshop (with Alex Davies at Google) on parameter inference for nonlinear optimization algorithms. Maren Mahsereci Philipp Hennig
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Empirical Inference Award 17-08-2016 Daniel, C.; van Hoof, H.; Neumann, G..; Peters, Jan: Best Student Paper Award of ECML-PKDD 2016 for their paper: "Probabilistic Inference for Determining Options in Reinforcement Learning".
Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 10-08-2016 Congratulations Debora Walker receives a Humboldt Postdoctoral fellowship to go to Harvard (August 2016). Debora Schamel
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Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 05-08-2016 ERC Grant We are awarded an ERC Proof of Concept Grant (August 2016). Peer Fischer
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Probabilistic Numerics News 01-08-2016 Setting up the Max Planck Group on Probabilistic Numerics Max Planck Society funds focussed research program on uncertainty in computation Our research group will be funded as an independent entity within the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems from December 2016. An official set-up phase starts in September 2016. This also brings an end to our beloved status as an Emmy Noether group. Philipp Hennig
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Perceiving Systems News 26-07-2016 Body Talk: A New Crowdshaping Technology Uses Words to Create Accurate 3D Body Models A breakthrough in our shared understanding, perception, and description of human body shape brings new alternatives to 3D body scanning ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA -- JULY 26, 2016 -- Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and the University of Texas at Dallas, revealed new crowdshaping technology at SIGGRAPH 2016 that creates accurate 3D body models from 2D photos using crowdsourced linguistic descriptions of body shape. The Body Talk system takes a single photo and produces 3D body shapes that look like the person and are accurate enough to size clothing. It does this using the help of 15 volunteers who rate the body shape in the photo using 30 words or fewer. The researchers believe this technology has applications in online shopping, gaming, virtual reality and healthcare. Michael Black Stephan Streuber Maria Alejandra Quiros-Ramirez Silvia Zuffi
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Empirical Inference News 18-07-2016 Bernhard Schölkopf has been elected member of the "Leopoldina" Leopoldina - National Academy of Sciences Founded in 1652, the Leopoldina is one of the oldest academies of science in the world. It is dedicated to the advancement of science for the benefit of humankind and to the goal of shaping a better future. With some 1,500 members, the Leopoldina brings together outstanding scientists from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and many other countries. Bernhard Schölkopf
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Empirical Inference News 11-07-2016 Matthias Hohmann in portrait #thatsmyscience Matthias Hohmann, PhD Student Max Placnk Institute For Intelligent Sysytems, IMPRS for cognitice and systems neuroscience Matthias Hohmann
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Perceiving Systems News 24-06-2016 FAUST dataset wins the "Dataset Award" at the Eurographics Symposium on Geometry Processing 2016 The FAUST dataset wins the "Dataset Award" at the Eurographics Symposium on Geometry Processing 2016. The award encourages and recognises the importance of the distribution of high-quality datasets on which geometry processing algorithms are tested. Federica Bogo Javier Romero Matthew Loper Michael Black
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Perceiving Systems Award 24-06-2016 The FAUST dataset was awarded the "Dataset Award" at the Eurographics Symposium on Geometry Processing 2016.  The award encourages and recognises the importance of the distribution of high-quality datasets on which geometry processing algorithms are tested. The creators of the dataset are Federica Bogo, Javier Romero, Matthew Loper, and Michael Black.  The work originally appeared in the  IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) 2014.    
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Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 20-06-2016 Humboldt fellowship Congratulations to Dr. Zhiguang Wu who has been awarded a Humboldt Research Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers (June 2016). Zhiguang Wu
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News 18-06-2016 Open Day - Tag der offenen Tür Max Planck Campus Tübingen Einblicke in die Labore, Experimente zum Mitmachen und ein Science Slam: Im Juni gibt es Forschung zum Anfassen Claudia Daefler
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Award 15-06-2016 Hunter Gilbert receives a Humboldt Postdoctoral fellowship.
Award 15-06-2016 Xing Ma: receives the Günter Petzow Price 2016 for his outstanding research activities in the field of materials science.
Physical Intelligence Award 15-06-2016 Yunus Alapan and Hunter Gilbert received the Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship. 
Empirical Inference Award 13-06-2016 Jonas Peters: elected New Member of the German "Young Academy".
Empirical Inference News 13-06-2016 Jonas Peters New Member of the German "Young Academy" Young, excellent and motivated - Jonas Peters has been elected as one of ten new members to the "Junge Akademie" and will contribute to the interdisciplinary work of this organization. Congratulations! Jonas Peters
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Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 12-06-2016 Faculty position Congrats and good luck to Dr. Ji Tae Kim who has started as Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Hong Kong (June 2016). JiKae Kim
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Autonomous Motion News 01-06-2016 Finalist for WODES 2016 Best Student Paper Simon Ebner´s paper on the results of his master thesis Topic: "Communication rate analysis for event-based state estimation" Simon Ebner
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Autonomous Motion Intelligent Control Systems Award 01-06-2016 Simon Ebner Finalist for WODES 2016 Best Student Paper for the paper "Communication Rate Analysis for Event-based State Estimation" co-authored with Sebastian Trimpe.
Perceiving Systems News 30-05-2016 A special kind of robot workshop (a nice story from last year) A Nao flies East and helps Laura Sevilla to teach technology knowledge to children from the Philippines Fascinated Kids with excited faces and curious voices, expressing happiness and thankfulness...- these emotions were raised by a little NAO robot that was the main actor of a robot workshop that took place in May 2015 in the Philippines. Laura Sevilla, a PostDoc at the MPI for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen, took two months off and volunteered more than five weeks in order to organize and lead this workshop. Laura Sevilla
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Autonomous Motion Movement Generation and Control News 18-05-2016 Heinz Maier-Leibnitz-Prize 2016 for Ludovic Righetti Medal-Marathon for Robotics Researcher Tübingen – Stockholm – Berlin – Stockholm – Tübingen; Ludovic Righetti receives within 24 hours two renowned prizes for young researchers for his outstanding science on movements of robots Ludovic Righetti
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Physical Intelligence News 18-05-2016 Switch and stick The chemical element gallium could be used as a new reversible adhesive that allows its adhesive effect to be switched on and off with ease Some adhesives may soon have a metallic sheen and be particularly easy to unstick. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart are suggesting gallium as just such a reversible adhesive. By inducing slight changes in temperature, they can control whether a layer of gallium sticks or not. This is based on the fact that gallium transitions from a solid state to a liquid state at around 30 degrees Celsius. A reversible adhesive of this kind could have applications everywhere that temporary adhesion is required, such as industrial pick-and-place processes, transfer printing, temporary wafer bonding, or for moving sensitive biological samples such as tissues and organs. Switchable adhesion could also be suitable for use on the feet of climbing robots. Metin Sitti Zhou Ye Guo Zhan Lum Sukho Song
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Perceiving Systems News 13-05-2016 Michael J. Black Inducted as Foreign Member of Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Dr. Black recognized for his leadership in advancing body modeling and computer vision sciences Body Labs (bodylabs.com), the provider of the world's most advanced technology for analyzing the human body's shape, pose and motion, announced today that Michael J. Black, Body Labs co-founder and board member, will be inducted as a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Michael Black
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Empirical Inference Award 30-04-2016 Bernhard Schölkopf: has been elected member of the Leopoldina (German National Academy of Science).
News 29-04-2016 Tiny microbots that can clean up water Max Planck researchers have developed self-propelled tiny ‘microbots’ that can remove lead or organic pollutions from contaminated water. Working with colleagues in Barcelona and Singapore, Samuel Sanchez’s group used graphene oxide to make their microscale motors, which are able to adsorb lead from industrial wastewater from a level of 1000 parts-per-billion to down to below 50 parts-per-billion in just an hour. The lead can later be removed for recycling, and the micromotors can be used over and over again. Sámuel Sánchez
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News 12-04-2016 Flow at the nanoscale: what stops a drop and keeps nanobubbles alive Max Planck researchers from Stuttgart present first model calculation All of us have seen it: a raindrop running down the windowpane. It stops at a certain point, is met by a second raindrop and the two join up before continuing to run down the pane. Very small irregularities or dirt on the windowpane appear to stop the course of the raindrops. If the surface was entirely smooth and chemically clean, the raindrops would be able to flow unhindered. Surface defects such as small bumps and dimples as well as chemical contaminants stop the liquid drops. These are everyday phenomena everyone knows and can observe with the naked eye. Lothar Schimmele Alberto Giacomello Siegfried Dietrich
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Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Award 05-04-2016 Tian Qiu has been granted the “National Award for Outstanding Self-financed Chinese Students Abroad 2015” by the China Scholarship Council (April, 2016).
News 02-04-2016 2+1 is Not Always 3 In the microworld unity is not always strength If a person pushes a broken-down car alone, there is a certain effect. If another person helps, the result is the sum of their efforts. If two micro-particles are pushing another microparticle, however, the resulting effect may not necessarily be the sum their efforts. A recent study published in Nature Communications, measured this odd effect that scientists call “many body.” Siegfried Dietrich
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Autonomous Motion Movement Generation and Control Award 31-03-2016 Ludovic Righetti receives the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize 2016. It is awarded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. It is considered the most prestigious award in Germany for early career researchers across all disciplines who have established an independent scientific career since having gained their doctorates.