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MPI Year Book Scientific Report 2022 - 2024 SAB, 2025 (Published) PDF BibTeX
Perceiving Systems MPI Year Book Virtuelle Körper ermöglichen Blick in eine gesunde Zukunft / Virtual bodies provide a glimpse into a healthy future Behrens, S. C., Tesch, J., Sun, P. J. B., Starke, S., Black, M. J., Schneider, H., Pruccoli, J., Zipfel, S., Giel, K. January 2023 (Published)
Menschen mit Magersucht leben in ständiger Angst, zuzunehmen. Betroffene tun oft alles dafür, um keinesfalls mehr zu wiegen – selbst wenn sie bereits unter den gesundheitlichen Folgen leiden oder im Alltag eingeschränkt sind. Forschende des Max-Planck-Instituts für Intelligente Systeme und des Universitätsklinikums Tübingen haben ein Virtual-Reality-Tool entwickelt, mit dem sich eine Gewichtszunahme simulieren lässt. Die Forschungsergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass die wiederholte Auseinandersetzung mit virtuellem gesundem Gewicht Personen mit Magersucht hilft, ihre Angst vor einer Gewichtzunahme zu reduzieren. ENGLISH: People with anorexia live in constant fear of gaining weight. They often do everything in their power to avoid putting on weight, even if they are already suffering from the health consequences or are restricted in their daily lives. Computer Vision researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and the University Hospital Tübingen have developed a virtual reality tool that can be used to simulate weight gain. The research suggests that repeated exposure to a healthy bodyweight in virtual reality helps people with anorexia nervosa reduce their fear of gaining weight. The full text can be found in German on the website of the Max Planck Society.
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Haptic Intelligence Autonomous Learning MPI Year Book Fingerspitzengefühl für Roboter / Sensitive fingertips for robots Sun, H., Kuchenbecker, K. J., Martius, G. January 2022 (Published)
Um den Tastsinn von Robotern zu verbessern, entwickelten Forschende des Max-Planck-Instituts für Intelligente Systeme einen Sensor, der einem Daumen gleicht und im Inneren mit einer Kamera ausgestattet ist. Das Team trainierte ein tiefes neuronales Netz, um aus den Kamerabildern Informationen abzuleiten, wo und wie stark der Sensor berührt wird. Aus den beobachteten Verformungen der flexiblen Außenhülle des Sensors generierte das neuronale Netz ein dreidimensionales Abbild der Kräfte, die auf den Daumen einwirken. Die Erfindung kommt dem Tastsinn unserer Haut einen wesentlichen Schritt näher, funktioniert allerdings ganz anders. ENGLISH: Striving to improve touch sensing in robotics, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems developed a thumb-shaped sensor with a camera hidden inside and trained a deep neural network to infer its haptic contact information. The system constantly constructs a force map – where and how things are touching the flexible outer shell of the sensor – and in this way “sees” the contact deformations. This research invention significantly improves a robot finger’s haptic perception, coming ever closer to the sense of touch of human skin, though it works in a completely different way.
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Perceiving Systems MPI Year Book Computer-Vision-Forschung deckt Stereotypen über Körperformen auf / Computer vision research unveils stereotypes about body shapes Quirós-Ramírez, M. A., Streuber, S., Black, M. J. January 2021 (Published)
Untersuchungen am MPI für Intelligente Systeme haben gezeigt, wie Menschen andere wahrnehmen und dabei einer Person allein auf Basis ihrer Körperform unbewusst bestimmte Charaktereigenschaften zuschreiben. Dabei stellte das Forschungsteam fest, dass die Parteizugehörigkeit der Betrachtenden die soziale Wahrnehmung beeinflusst. Das Urteil über andere hängt sowohl von der Körperform der betrachteten Person als auch von der eigenen politischen Gesinnung ab, was möglicherweise politische und gesellschaftliche Auswirkungen hat. Diese Forschungsarbeit soll das Bewusstsein für diese Voreingenommenheit schärfen. ENGLISH: Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems show how people perceive others and unconsciously attribute certain character traits to a person based solely on their body shape. They also found that the political affiliation of the observer influences the social perception. The judgment of others depends on both the body shape of the person being observed and the viewer’s own political preference, potentially having political and social implications. The research project aims to raise awareness of this bias.
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Robotic Materials MPI Year Book Elektrohydraulischer Arachno-Bot ein faszinierendes Leichtgewicht / Electrohydraulic arachno-bot a fascinating lightweight Kellaris, N., Rothemund, P., Zeng, Y., Mitchell, S. K., Smith, G. M., Jayaram, K., Keplinger, C. January 2021 (Published)
Die beeindruckenden Fortbewegungs- und Manipulationsfähigkeiten von Spinnen haben schon so manch einen Robotiker inspiriert, Maschinen zu bauen, die diesen faszinierenden Tieren nachempfunden sind. Ein Wissenschaftler-Team des Max-Planck-Instituts für Intelligente Systeme in Stuttgart und der University of Colorado Boulder hat nun Gelenke entwickelt, denen Spinnenbeine Modell standen. Sie bauten daraus leichte und filigrane Roboter, die die Messlatte im Bereich der bioinspirierten Robotik ein ganzes Stück höher hängt. ENGLISH: The impressive locomotion and manipulation capabilities of spiders have inspired many a roboticist to build machines mimicking these fascinating animals. A team of scientists at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart and the University of Colorado Boulder has developed highly advanced joints inspired by spiders' legs and used them to build lightweight and delicate robots that raise the bar in the field of bioinspired robotics.
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Empirical Inference Haptic Intelligence Perceiving Systems Physical Intelligence Robotic Materials MPI Year Book Scientific Report 2016 - 2021 2021
This report presents research done at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems from January2016 to November 2021. It is our fourth report since the founding of the institute in 2011. Dueto the fact that the upcoming evaluation is an extended one, the report covers a longer reportingperiod.This scientific report is organized as follows: we begin with an overview of the institute, includingan outline of its structure, an introduction of our latest research departments, and a presentationof our main collaborative initiatives and activities (Chapter1). The central part of the scientificreport consists of chapters on the research conducted by the institute’s departments (Chapters2to6) and its independent research groups (Chapters7 to24), as well as the work of the institute’scentral scientific facilities (Chapter25). For entities founded after January 2016, the respectivereport sections cover work done from the date of the establishment of the department, group, orfacility. These chapters are followed by a summary of selected outreach activities and scientificevents hosted by the institute (Chapter26). The scientific publications of the featured departmentsand research groups published during the 6-year review period complete this scientific report.
Scientific Report 2016 - 2021 BibTeX
Physical Intelligence MPI Year Book "Jellyfishbot"- Ein Schwimmroboter inspiriert von Quallen / Scientists invent jellyfish-inspired swimming robot “Jellyfishbot” Ren, Z., Hu, W., Dong, X., Sitti, M. January 2019 (Published)
Am Max-Planck-Instituts für Intelligente Systeme in Stuttgart entwickeln wir einen Roboter, der wie eine Qualle aussieht und sich auch so bewegt: den "Jellyfishbot". Der nicht kabelgebundene Roboter verfügt wie sein natürliches Vorbild über eine schirmförmige Glocke und nachziehende Tentakel. Die Forschungsarbeit birgt großes Potenzial, sowohl die Auswirkungen von Umweltveränderungen auf die Ökosysteme der Ozeane zu untersuchen als auch die Behandlung von Krebs zu revolutionieren. ENGLISH: At the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart we develop a robot that looks and moves like a jellyfish, one of the world’s most common marine animals: the “jellyfishbot”. The untethered robot features an umbrella-shaped bell and trailing tentacles just like its natural model. The research holds great potential when investigating the impact of environmental changes on the oceans’ ecosystems. Another vision for the jellyfishbot is to revolutionize the treatment of cancer. Den gesamten Forschungsbeitrag finden Sie auf der Homepage der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.
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Perceiving Systems MPI Year Book Colour patch could throw self-driving vehicles off track Ranjan, A., Janai, J., Geiger, A., Black, M. J. January 2019 (Published)
In our team of researchers at the Max-Planck-Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen we show that optical flow systems based on deep neural networks – a likely component of future autonomous cars – are vulnerable to adversarial attacks. The computer vision experts are shaking up the automotive industry by warning car manufacturers around the globe that it could take a simple color pattern to put the brakes on computer vision systems in autonomous cars. The full article can be read on the website of the Max Planck Society.
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MPI Year Book Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems - Highlights 2019
In the future, artificially intelligent systems will substantially change the way we live, work, and communicate. Intelligent systems will become increasingly important in all spheres of life – as virtual systems on the Internet, or as cyber-physical systems in the real world. Artificial intelligence (AI) will be used for autonomous driving, as well as to diagnose and fight diseases, or to carry out emergency operations that are too dangerous for humans. This is just the beginning.
MPI IS Yearbook 2019 (en) MPI IS Jahresbericht 2019 (de) MPI IS Jahresbericht 2019 (de) BibTeX
Perceiving Systems Empirical Inference Haptic Intelligence Physical Intelligence MPI Year Book Scientific Report 2016 - 2018 2019
This report presents research done at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems from January 2016 to December 2018. It is our third report since the founding of the institute in 2011. This status report is organized as follows: we begin with an overview of the institute, including its organizational structure (Chapter 1). The central part of the scientific report consists of chapters on the research conducted by the institute’s departments (Chapters 2 to 5) and its independent research groups (Chapters 6 to 18), as well as the work of the institute’s central scientific facilities (Chapter 19). For entities founded after January 2016, the respective report sections cover work done from the date of the establishment of the department, group, or facility.
Scientific Report 2016 - 2018 BibTeX
Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems MPI Year Book Nanorobots propel through the eye Wu, Z., Troll, J., Jeong, H., Qiang, W., Stang, M., Ziemssen, F., Wang, Z., Dong, M., Schnichels, S., Qiu, T., Fischer, P. Max Planck Society, 2018 (Published)
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart developed specially coated nanometer-sized robots that could be moved actively through dense tissue like the vitreous of the eye. So far, the transport of such nano-vehicles has only been demonstrated in model systems or biological fluids, but not in real tissue. Our work constitutes one step further towards nanorobots becoming minimally-invasive tools for precisely delivering medicine to where it is needed.
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MPI Year Book Biomechanics and Locomotion Control in Legged Animals and Legged Robots Sproewitz, A., Heim, S. 2017
An animal's running gait is dynamic, efficient, elegant, and adaptive. We see locomotion in animals as an orchestrated interplay of the locomotion apparatus, interacting with its environment. The Dynamic Locomotion Group at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart develops novel legged robots to decipher aspects of biomechanics and neuromuscular control of legged locomotion in animals, and to understand general principles of locomotion.
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MPI Year Book Computing with Uncertainty Hennig, P. 2017
Machine learning requires computer hardware to reliable and efficiently compute estimations for ever more complex and fundamentally incomputable quantities. A research team at MPI for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen develops new algorithms which purposely lower the precision of computations and return an explicit measure of uncertainty over the correct result alongside the estimate. Doing so allows for more flexible management of resources, and increases the reliability of intelligent systems.
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MPI Year Book Interface-controlled phenomena in nanomaterials Mittemeijer, E. J. W. Z. 2016
Nanosized material systems characteristically exhibit an excessively high internal interface density. A series of previously unknown phenomena in nanomaterials have been disclosed that are fundamentally caused by the presence of interfaces. Thus anomalously large and small lattice parameters in nanocrystalline metals, quantum stress oscillations in growing nanofilms, and extraordinary atomic mobility at ultralow temperatures have been observed and explained. The attained understanding for these new phenomena can lead to new, sophisticated applications of nanomaterials in advanced technologies.
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MPI Year Book Robots learn how to see Geiger, A. 2016
Autonomous vehicles and intelligent service robots could soon contribute to making our lives more pleasant and secure. However, for autonomous operation such systems first need to learn the perception process itself. This involves measuring distances and motions, detecting objects and interpreting the threedimensional world as a whole. While humans perceive their environment with seemingly little efforts, computers first need to be trained for these tasks. Our research is concerned with developing mathematical models which allow computers to robustly perceive their environment.
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MPI Year Book Learning robots Trimpe, S. 2015
An exploded power plant, collapsed buildings after an earthquake, a burning vehicle loaded with hazardous goods – all of these are dangerous situations for human emergency responders. What if we could send robots instead of humans? Researchers at the Autonomous Motion Department work on fundamental principles required to build intelligent robots which one day can help us in dangerous situations. A key requirement for making this happen is that robots must be enabled to learn.
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MPI Year Book The smallest human-made nano-motor Sánchez, S. 2015
Tiny self-propelled motors which speed through the water and clean up pollutions along the way or small robots which can swim effortlessly through blood to one day transport medication to a certain part of the body – this sounds like taken from a science fiction movie script. However, Samuel Sánchez is already hard at work in his lab at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart to make these visions come true. Self-propelled micro-nanorobots and the usage as integrated sensors in microfluid-chips: that’s the topic of Sánchez` research group.
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MPI Year Book Exploring complex diseases with intelligent systems Borgwardt, K. 2014
Physicians are collecting an ever increasing amount of data describing the health state of their patients. Is new knowledge about diseases hidden in this data, which could lead to better therapies? The field of Machine Learning in Biomedicine is concerned with the development of approaches which help to gain such insights from massive biomedical data.
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MPI Year Book The cellular life-death decision – how mitochondrial membrane proteins can determine cell fate García-Sáez, A. J. 2014
Living organisms have a very effective method for eliminating cells that are no longer needed: programmed death. Researchers in the group of Ana García Sáez work with a protein called Bax, a key regulator of apoptosis that creates pores with a flexible diameter inside the outer mitochondrial membrane. This step inevitably triggers the final death of the cell. These insights into the role of important key enzymes in setting off apoptosis could provide useful for developing drugs that can directly influence apoptosis.
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MPI Year Book Being small, being smart Liu, N. 2013
Metallic nanostructures feature plasmonic resonances which spatially confine light on the nanometer scale. In the ultimate limit of a single nanostructure, the electromagnetic field can be strongly concentrated in a volume of only a few hundred nm3 or less. We utilize such plasmonic focusing for hydrogen detection at the single particle level, which avoids any inhomogeneous broadening and statistical effects that would occur in sensors based on nanoparticle ensembles. This concept paves the road towards the observation of single catalytic processes in nanoreactors.
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MPI Year Book Perceiving Systems – Computers that see Gehler, P. V. 2013
Our research goal is to define in a mathematical precise way how visual perception works. We want to describe how intelligent systems understand images. To this end we study probabilistic models and statistical learning. Encoding prior knowledge about the world is complemented with automatic learning from training data. One aspect is being able to identify physical factors in images, such as lighting, geometry, and materials. Furthermore we want to automatically recognize and give names to objects and persons in images and understand the scene as a whole.
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MPI Year Book Brain-computer interfaces – a novel type of communication Grosse-Wentrup, M. 2012
Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) provide a new means of communication that does not rely on volitional muscle control. This may provide the capability to locked-in patients, e.g., those suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, to maintain interactions with their environment. Besides providing communication capabilities to locked-in patients, BCIs may further prove to have a beneficial impact on stroke rehabilitation. In this article, the state-of-the-art of BCIs is reviewed and current research questions are discussed.
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MPI Year Book From artificial flagella to medical microbots – the start of a "phantastic voyage" Fischer, P. 2012
There have been numerous speculations in scientific publications and the popular media about wirelessly controlled microrobots (microbots) navigating the human body. Such micro-agents could revolutionize minimally invasive medical procedures. Using physical vapor deposition we grow billions of micron-sized colloidal screw-propellers on a wafer. These chiral mesoscopic screws can be magnetized and moved through solution under computer control. The screw-propellers resemble artificial flagella and are the only ‘microbots’ to date that can be fully controlled in solution at micron length scales.
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MPI Year Book Preparation of high-efficiency nanostructures of crystalline silicon at low temperatures, as catalyzed by metals: The decisive role of interface thermodynamics Wang, Z., Jeurgens, L. P. H., Mittemeijer, E. J. 2011
Metals may help to convert semiconductors from a disordered (amorphous) to an ordered (crystalline) form at low temperatures. A general, quantitative model description has been developed on the basis of interface thermodynamics, which provides fundamental understanding of such so-called metal-induced crystallization (MIC) of amorphous semiconductors. This fundamental understanding can allow the low-temperature (< 200 ºC) manufacturing of high-efficiency solar cells and crystalline-Si-based nanostructures on cheap and flexible substrates such as glasses, plastics and possibly even papers.
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MPI Year Book The sweet coat of living cells – from supramolecular organization and dynamics to biological function Richter, R. 2011
Many biological cells endow themselves with a sugar-rich coat that plays a key role in the protection of the cell and in structuring and communicating with its environment. An outstanding property of these pericellular coats is their dynamic self-organization into strongly hydrated and gel-like meshworks. Tailor-made model systems that are constructed from the molecular building blocks of pericellular coats can help to understand how the coats function.
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