INFORMATIK 2021

Human-centred robots have the potential to support and facilitate people’s lives, ranging from improved well-being and increased independence to reduced risk or harm, a removal of boring jobs. They can take the form of humanoid robots, wearable robots or other types of mobility assistance robots and have to enter in in close physical interactions with humans or support them physically. For this, human-centred robots require motion intelligence or embodied intelligence that makes the robot aware of how it moves in and interacts with its dynamic environment and with humans. In this talk, I will give an overview of our research on endowing human-centred robots with motion intelligence, covering examples from humanoid robotic co-workers to exoskeletons and external assistive devices in medical applications. An important ingredient of this research is to gain a fundamental understanding of the biomechanics of human movement and human-human and human-robot interaction and to translate this understanding into predictive mathematical models. Another core component of our research is the development of efficient algorithms for motion generation, control and learning, combining advanced model-based optimization with model-free approaches.