Automation & Robotics Research Group

Welcome to the website of the SnT Automation & Robotics Research Group (SnT ARG) led by Prof. Holger Voos. The group was founded in 2012 and has two main research directions:

Autonomous Vehicles and Robots

Mobile robots such as service robots, highly automated cars or drones are expected to become a huge market in the coming years. In contrast to the stationary and automatic robot arms, mobile service robots and drones will need to move in unstructured and unknown environments, perform complex tasks with a higher degree of autonomy and also to closely interact with human users.

Our mission and passion is to contribute to the creation of such autonomous vehicles and mobile robots. We are interested in novel perception and control approaches that enable robots to efficiently act on the ground, in the air and in space. We investigate approaches for intelligent control and how adaptation and learning can be applied in the context of perception and control. We are fascinated by robots that socially interact with humans and by robots that cooperate in teams. Finally, we also strive for novel methods to support the systems and software engineering of autonomous vehicles and robots.

 

Distributed and Networked Automation and Control

The control and automation of large-scale distributed systems is a highly relevant but also very challenging task. Examples are energy networks, traffic and logistic systems, production and manufacturing plants, buildings, water supply and purification systems or groups of mobile robots. The respective control systems are preferably structured as a networked control system (NCS) where locally distributed control devices are interconnected using suitable communication networks to form the overall control system.

We are interested in novel distributed estimation, control and optimization algorithms for such NCS. Herein, special emphasis is on systems that are additionally characterized by a complex networked structure and the presence of delays, uncertainties and disturbances. Furthermore, we investigate approaches to achieve safe and secure NCS that are also able to withstand cyber attacks.

We welcome visitors to explore more details of our research areas and the projects that are often conducted together with national or international partners, both from industry and academia.