DLR Humanoids, from Earth to the Moon

Abstract:  Robots are not only machines which are supposed to relieve humans from dangerous or routine work – they are also a scientific endeavour attempting to better understand human and animal motion and intelligence in a synthetizing way, by using the system analytic tools of engineering and computer science. The exploding commercial interest in humanoids in the last two years, with billions of dollars of investment and a large number of companies building such robots, is definitely a hype in the short run. On the other hand, the huge investment of resources and talents induced a transformation in robotics which is here to stay, and which will transform our society massively in the long run. From mechatronics and control standpoint, humanoids became a quite mature technology during the last years, and still, the development in this field continues at a high pace of innovation. The convergence of these developments with rapidly evolving artificial intelligence techniques has created the foundation for a new generation of cognitive, adaptive, multi-purpose machines - commonly referred to as Physical AI or Embodied Intelligence. or AI-Powered Robotics. In this talk, I will give an overview on humanoid robot developments at DLR, covering the entire bandwidth from design, control, over perception and cognition, up to several application examples in space and on earth.

Bio: Alin Albu-Schäffer received his M.S. in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Timisoara, Romania in 1993 and his Ph.D. in automatic control from the Technical University of Munich in 2002. Since 2012 he is the head of the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Moreover, he is a professor at the Technical University of Munich, holding the Chair for "Sensor Based Robotic Systems and Intelligent Assistance Systems" at the School of Computation, Information and Technology. His personal research interests include robot design, modeling and control, nonlinear control, flexible joint and variable compliance robots, impedance and force control, physical human-robot interaction, bio-inspired robot design and control. He received several awards, including the IEEE King-Sun Fu Best Paper Award of the Transactions on Robotics in 2012 and 2014; several ICRA and IROS Best Paper Awards as well as the DLR Science Award. He was strongly involved in the development of the DLR light-weight robot and its commercialization through technology transfer to KUKA. He is the coordinator of euROBIN, the European network of excellence on intelligent robotics, IEEE Fellow and RAS-AdCom member.

Embodied AI driving the Future of Assistive Technologies

Abstract: Latest advances in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence has turbocharged the development, testing and deployment of embodied systems such as humanoid robotics, exoskeletons and assistive systems for daily living. In my talk, I will aim to separate the hype from reality, focusing on key enablers like representational learning, variable impedance actuation and sensorimotor learning and adaptation that is driving this revolution. At the same time, I will focus on yet unsolved and difficult problems that are crucial for scaling these systems to become safe, economically viable and ubiquitous.

Bio: Sethu Vijayakumar is the Professor of Robotics at the University of Edinburgh, UK and the Founding Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics. He has pioneered the use of large-scale machine learning techniques in the real-time control of several iconic robotic platforms such as the SARCOS and the HONDA ASIMO humanoids, KUKA-LWR robot arm and iLIMB prosthetic hand. He has held adjunct faculty positions at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles and the RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Japan. One of his landmark projects (2016) involved a collaboration with NASA Johnson Space Centre on the Valkyrie humanoid robot being prepared for unmanned robotic pre-deployment missions to Mars. Professor Vijayakumar, who has a PhD from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, holds the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) - Microsoft Research Chair at Edinburgh. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed and highly cited articles [H-index 52, Citations > 14,000 as of 2025] on topics covering robot learning, optimal control, and real-time planning in high dimensional sensorimotor systems. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a judge on BBC Robot Wars and winner of the 2015 Tam Dalyell Prize for excellence in engaging the public with science. Professor Vijayakumar helps shape and drive the UK Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) agenda in his recent role as the Programme Director for Robotics and Human AI Interfaces at The Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and AI.