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News 13-10-2014 Günter Petzow nominated as honorary chairman of the DGM Former director gets awarded through German Society for Materials Science Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Dr.-Ing. e. h. mult. Günter Petzow, former director of the Max Planck Institute for Metals Resarch in Stuttgart (now Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems) has been nominated as honorary chairman of the German Society for Materials Science (DGM). In the society's 95 year long history, Petzow is only the second person to receive this title.
Autonomous Motion Intelligent Control Systems Award 09-10-2014 Sebastian Trimpe: Klaus Tschira Award 2014 for Science Communication in the field of Computer Science
Autonomous Motion News 09-10-2014 Intelligent Communication: Only if there is something to say Klaus Tschira Award 2014 for Science Communication in the field of Computer Science Tübingen / Heidelberg, October 9, 2014. Science in clear words: Dr. Sebastian Trimpe, a research scientist in the “Autonomous Motion Department" (Stefan Schaal) at the Tübingen Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, has written a short, comprehensible text (in German) that describes the research he conducted during his PhD at ETH Zurich. As winner in the category of computer science, he is one of six awardees who received the Klaus Tschira Award for achievements in public understanding of science on Thursday, October 9, 2014 in Heidelberg. Sebastian Trimpe
Physical Intelligence Award 15-09-2014 Taewon Seo and Metin Sitti received the IEEE/ASME Best Mechatronics Paper Award due to the paper on tank-like modular climbing robots using elastomeric dry adhesives.
Empirical Inference News 01-09-2014 Teaching Awards for Moritz Grosse-Wentrup and Daniel Braun Winter and Summer Term 2013 / 14 at Graduate School of Neural Information Processing / University of Tübingen The senior master students present this years teaching awards to Dr. Moritz Grosse-Wentrup (group leader Brain-Computer-Interface group) and Dr. Daniel Braun (group leader Sensorimotor Learning & Decision Making group). Congratulations! Moritz Grosse-Wentrup
Physical Intelligence Award 06-08-2014 Uyiosa Abosomwan and Metin Sitti received the Best Poster Award in the Adhesion Conference due to the research poster on contact self-cleaning mechanics of gecko-inspired adhesives.
Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 01-08-2014 Congratulations Tung-Chun (John) Lee will leave the group and move to a faculty position at University College London, where he will start his own group in the Center for Materials Discovery. (August 2014) Tung Chun Lee
Smart Nanoplasmonics News 21-07-2014 DNA used as a lightswitch A nanostructure made from two tiny gold rods reversibly changes its optical properties when specific DNA molecules are added Electronics now has a competitor. Information is increasingly being transmitted and processed by means of light rather than electrons. And just as has happened to electronic components, their photonic counterparts are to shrink to nanoformat. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität in Munich, and Ohio University in Athens, USA, have developed a switch for nano-optics. Two gold nanorods are the key players here. If the angle between them changes, certain optical properties of the nano-lightswitch also change. The researchers control the angle itself by means of molecules which in living nature are the carriers of genetic information: DNA. Laura Na Liu
Empirical Inference Award 01-07-2014 Carl-Johann Simon-Gabriel: Google European Doctorate Fellowship 2014-2016  
Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 01-07-2014 Welcome We welcome three new postdocs to the group: Piotr Garbacz, Jérome Roche, and Dhruv Singh. Piotr Garbacz Jerome Roche Dhruv Pratap Singh
Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 22-06-2014 Smallest Chemical Nanomotor and Smallest Nanopropeller published We have published a paper about synthetic chemical nanomotors with an overall size (30 nm) that is comparable to that of some enzymes (Nano Lett., 2014, 14 (5), pp 2407–2412), as well as nanopropellers that are small enough to navigate complex biological networks (diameter of 70 nm), yet can be fully controlled (ACS Nano, Article ASAP, DOI: 10.1021/nn502360t). Tung Chun Lee John Gibbs Andrew Mark Mariana Alarcon-Correa Debora Schamel Cornelia Miksch Peer Fischer
Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 09-06-2014 Featured Cover Article Our paper "Nanopropellers and Their Actuation in Complex Viscoelastic Media“ is the cover article for ACS Nano 8, 8794–8801, (2014). In addition the ACS Nano September 2014 podcast features our work. News sites and blogs report our work as "world’s smallest propeller“. (September 2014) Image by Alejandro Posada Boada. Debora Schamel Andrew Mark John Gibbs Cornelia Miksch Peer Fischer Alejandro Posada
Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Award 07-06-2014 Paper award: Tian Qiu, Debora Schamel, Andrew G. Mark, and Peer Fischer's paper "Active Microrheology of the Vitreous of the Eye applied to Nanorobot Propulsion" is the "Best Automation Paper Award - Finalist" of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation - ICRA 2014.  (June 2014)
Award 06-06-2014 Peter A. van Aken: 1. Poster Award
Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 21-05-2014 Cover Article Our paper “Shape control in wafer-based aperiodic 3D nanostructures” is the cover article for Nanotechnology 25 doi:10.1088/0957-4484/25/23/235302. (June, 2014). Jeong Hyeon-Ho Andrew Mark John Gibbs Peer Fischer
Physical Intelligence News 21-05-2014 Metin Sitti becomes new director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems The Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems has appointed Metin Sitti as a new director at the institute’s Stuttgart location. There, Sitti will head the Physical Intelligence Department. One of the main goals of his research will be to obtain a new understanding of physically intelligent systems made of smart and soft materials. Metin Sitti
Physical Intelligence News 05-05-2014 Congratulations To our alumni Yigit Menguc, Onur Ozcan, and Rika Wright Carlsen on their new faculty positions. Yigit has accepted a position at Oregon State University, Onur has accepted a position at Bilkent University, and Rika has accepted a position at Robert Morris University. Metin Sitti
Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 01-05-2014 Congratulations/Welcome John Gibbs will leave the group and move to a faculty position in Arizona where he will start his own group as a Prof in Physics; Marcel Pfeifer passed his Ph.D. exam – congratulations to both. Welcome to Prof. J.P. Singh from IIT Delhi who is a sabbatical visitor. (May, 2014). John Gibbs
Award 28-04-2014 Ilia Platzman: Günter Petzow Preis 2014
News 28-04-2014 Dr. Ilia Platzman awarded with Günter Petzow Prize 2014 Young scientist honored for outstanding research in the field of material science Ilia Platzman will receive this year’s Günter Petzow Award from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. He will be honored for the exploration of the capacity of microfluidic techniques and material sciences in synthetic biology.
Physical Intelligence News 07-04-2014 Our lab's work Our lab's work on self-cleaning gecko adhesive is featured as a picture of the week by the science news website Science Friday. Metin Sitti
Physical Intelligence News 03-04-2014 Congratulations Congratulations to NanoRobotics Lab alumnus TaeWon Seo and Professor Sitti on winning the 2013 IEEE/ASME Best Mechatronics Paper Award. Metin Sitti
Physical Intelligence News 12-03-2014 Newsweek Professor Sitti discusses novel gecko-inspired tape with Newsweek. Metin Sitti
Physical Intelligence Award 26-02-2014 Metin Sitti became an IEEE Fellow due to contributions to micro- and nano-scale robotic systems.
Smart Nanoplasmonics News 20-02-2014 Laura Na Liu awarded with Heinz Maier-Leibnitz-Prize Nanoscientist receives important award for young academics Laura Na Liu
Physical Intelligence News 10-02-2014 Congratulations Our lab's collaborative work is covered as featured research by Science Daily. Metin Sitti
Smart Nanoplasmonics Award 07-02-2014 Laura Na Liu: Maier-Leibnitz-Preis der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft
Physical Intelligence Award 05-02-2014 Eric Diller, Zhou Ye, Guo Zhan Lum, Joshua Giltinan and Metin Sitti were selected as the Best Paper Award Finalist in the Robotics Science and Systems Conference due to the paper on novel six degrees-of-freedom actuation method for mobile magnetic microrobots.
Physical Intelligence Award 05-02-2014 Matthew Woodward and Metin Sitti: Top 5 Most Read Papers of 2014 of the International Journal of Robotics Research journal for the paper entitled, "MultiMo-Bat: Biologically Inspired Integrated Jumping-Gliding Robot". 
Physical Intelligence News 01-02-2014 Fellow Professor Sitti is named as IEEE Fellow. Metin Sitti
Physical Intelligence News 28-01-2014 Collaborative work Our lab's collaborative work on "Untethered microrobotic coding of three-dimensional material composition" with Harvard Medical School (Prof. Utkan Demirci) is published in Nature Communications. Metin Sitti
Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 24-01-2014 Guest Editor Peer Fischer is guest editor for the Nanoscale themed issue on “Helical Micro- and Nanostructures” (Nanoscale, 2014). Peer Fischer
Physical Intelligence News 15-01-2014 Good luck Our lab's recent graduate Dr. Eric Diller will be an assistant professor at the University of Toronto (Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department) from January 2014. Metin Sitti
Autonomous Motion Award 02-01-2014 Stefan Schaal : IEEE Fellow 2014
Empirical Inference Award 01-01-2014 Bernhard Schölkopf: Royal Society Milner Award 2014
Empirical Inference Award 01-01-2014 Moritz Grosse-Wentrup and Daniel Braun: Teaching Award Winter & Summer Term 2013/14 at Graduate School of Neural Information Processing, University of Tübingen 
Empirical Inference Award 01-01-2014 A. Abdolmaleki  (Universidade de Aveiro), N. Lau (Universidade de Aveiro), G. Neumann(TU Darmstadt), J. Peters, 1st Place at the 3D Free Challenge of the RoboCup 2014.
Empirical Inference Award 01-01-2014 M. Deisenroth (TU Darmstadt), P. Englert (Uni Stuttgart), J. Peters, D. Fox (U. Washington), IROS Best Cognitive Robotics Paper Award
Empirical Inference Award 01-01-2014 O. Kroemer (TU Darmstadt), H. van Hoof (TU Darmstadt), G. Neumann(TU Darmstadt), J. Peters, IROS Best Cognitive Robotics Paper Award Finalist
Empirical Inference Award 01-01-2014 Sebastian Weichwald and Timm Meyer best student paper award at the 4th International Workshop on Cognitive Information Processing (CIP 2014) for the paper: Decoding Index Finger Position From EEG Using Random Forests published with Bernhard Schölkopf, Tonio Ball, and Moritz Grosse-Wentrup.
Perceiving Systems Award 06-12-2013 Michael J. Black: ICCV Helmholtz Prize 2013
News 05-12-2013 The geometry of cancer cells Malignant and healthy cells display characteristic fractal patterns, which can be used to tell them apart new approach has given rise to the hope for a faster and more reliable method for determining cancer cell types. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart and the University of Heidelberg found that cells can be very accurately characterised using fractal geometry. This theory describes objects whose minute structural details resemble their larger contours. Cancer cells are not able to regulate their growth and, as a consequence their shape, as effectively as healthy cells. The particular fractal geometry of a cell therefore becomes a marker of the cell type. Using this mathematical method in combination with sophisticated image recognition, it is possible to establish the progression of cancer in a cell. The researchers studied the statistical distribution of the occurrence of structural details on the surface of different tumour cells, and were thus able to identify cancer cells with more accuracy than when using the conventional immunohistological method. Moreover, they were able to distinguish between different tumours.
Perceiving Systems News 01-12-2013 Michael Black awarded 2013 Helmholtz Prize 2013 Helmholtz Prize honors Michael J. Black's work on robust optical flow estimation described in the ICCV 1993 paper with P. Anandan on "A framework for the robust estimation of optical flow." Michael Black
Empirical Inference News 01-12-2013 NIPS 2013 outstanding paper award Manuel Gomez-Rodriguez, Department Empirical Inference (Prof. Schölkopf), received an outstanding paper award at NIPS 2013. Manuel Gomez Rodriguez
Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 18-11-2013 Cover Article Our paper on “Plasmonic nanohelix metamaterials with tailorable giant circular dichroism” is the featured cover article for the Applied Physics Letters Issue 21, vol. 103, 18 November 2013. John Gibbs Andrew Mark Sahand Eslami Peer Fischer
Physical Intelligence News 02-11-2013 National Science Foundation Our lab alumnus Prof. Seok Kim at UIUC will receive the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award for his research and educational activities on microassembly using transfer printing. Metin Sitti
Autonomous Motion News 01-11-2013 Stefan Schaal elected IEEE Fellow 2014 For his contributions to robot learning and modular motion planning. Stefan Schaal
Empirical Inference News 29-10-2013 2013 Young Investigator Award der International Neural Networks Society für Prof. Jan Peters Preis für entscheidende Beiträge im Bereich der Neuronalen Netzwerke Tübingen. Prof. Ph.D. Jan Peters, Leiter des „Robot-Learning-Labs“ am MPI für Intelligente Systeme, ist mit dem 2013 Young Investigator Award der International Neural Network Society ausgezeichnet worden. Peters hat den Preis erhalten für seine entscheidenden Beiträge im Bereich der Neuronalen Netzwerke, insbesondere zur Entwicklung neuer Lernmethoden, die es Robotern erlauben, neue Fähigkeiten zur Bewegung zu lernen. Jan Peters
News 23-09-2013 Summer School "Maschinelles Lernen für Personalisierte Medizin" An der Schnittstelle zwischen Maschinellem Lernen und Statistischer Genetik Tübingen. Vom 23. Bis 27. September 2013 besuchen rund 70 Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmer die „Machine Learning for Personalized Medicine“ (MLPM) Summer School am Max-Planck-Campus Tübingen. Maschinelles Lernen entwickelt sich zur Schlüsseldisziplin zur Bewältigung riesiger Datenmengen – unter anderem in der Biologie und Medizin. Bisher mangelt es aber an Fachkräften in diesem Bereich. Das EU-geförderte und von Prof. Dr. Karsten Borgwardt koordinierte MLPM-Projekt bildet in den kommenden drei Jahren international 14 Nachwuchswissenschaftler an der Schnittstelle von Maschinellem Lernen und Statistischer Genetik aus. Sie sollen künftig dazu beitragen, entscheidende Hindernisse für die personalisierte Medizin zu bewältigen. Karsten Borgwardt Matthias Tröndle
Perceiving Systems Award 10-09-2013 Gerard Pons-Moll: BMVC 2013 Best Science Paper for Metric Regression Forests for Human Pose Estimation with Jonathan Taylor, Jamie Shotton, Aaron Hertzmann and Andrew Fitzgibbon.