Curriculum Vitae
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Frank Kirchner
University of Bremen
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Robotics Group
DFKI GmbH (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence)
Robotics Innovation Center
Robert Hooke Str. 1
D-28359 Bremen
| Phone: E-mail: Homepage: | +49 421 178 45 4101 Frank.Kirchner(at)dfki.de www.dfki.de/robotics |
Academic Positions
| 05.2020 | Appointment Executive Director and authorised officer DFKI Bremen |
| 05.11.2018 | Appointment as Research Fellow of the Tsinghua University Beijing |
| 31.07.2017 | Awarded Honorary Doctorate by the Centro Universitário SENAI CIMATEC, Brazil for contributions in the area of robotics and artificial intelligence. |
| 2017 - | Co-Founder of the ‘Schwerpunkt Program’ Softrobotics at the German Research Foundation (DFG) |
| 2016 - | Associate Professor at the University CIMATEC, Senai, Bahia, Brasilien |
| 2015 - | Member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities |
| 2013 - | Scientific Director of the Brazilian Institute of Robotics (BIR) in Salvador, Bahia. The BIR is an institute formed by the involvement of the two non-profit organizations: Senai Cimatec and the DFKI focused on developing robots in Brazil. |
| 2010 | Initiator and co-founder of the “Institut für Maritime Technologien“ (MarTech) at the University of Bremen |
| 2009-2013 | Member of the Advisory Board and Co-coordinator of the Personal Mobility Center (PMC) of the Electric Mobility Model Region NorthWest |
| 2009-2010 | Initiator of the joint project „Maritime Intelligente Meerestechnologien für das 21. Jahrhundert“ (MarIT21) |
| 2008 - | Director of the Bremen location of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) with was inaugurated in February of 2008. |
| 2005 - | Head of the Robotics Group at the University of Bremen and speaker of the newly founded Bremen laboratory of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) |
| 2002 - | Holder of the chair of Robotics at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Bremen |
| 2002 | Appointment as Full Professor – C4 - at the University of Bremen |
| 1999-2002 | Appointment as Tenure Track Assistant Professor at the Northeastern University in Boston (MA, USA); management of a series of national German and US-American projects focusing on autonomous intelligent robots in real-world applications in cooperation with the MIT (Boston) and the National Space Agency NASA. |
| 1998-1999 | Senior Scientist und Principal Investigator at the Northeastern University in Boston (MA, USA), setting up a branch of the Fraunhofer Institute for Autonomous Intelligent Systems; team leader of the workgroup Biomimetic Autonomous Robots (BAR) |
| 1997-1998 | Head of Department “Biomimetische Autonome Roboter (BAR)“ at the Institut für Autonome Intelligente Systeme (AIS) der FHG, Sankt Augustin |
| 1996-1997 | Project leader at the Gesellschaft für Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung (GMD) in Sankt Augustin |
| 1994-1996 | Researcher at the Gesellschaft für Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung (GMD) in Sankt Augustin |
Membership in Professional Societies
| 2021 - | Committee member of the National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina) on handling security-relevant research | |
| 2017-2021 | Head of the working group "Hostile-to-life Environments", Platform 'Learning Systems' of the BMBF (The Federal Ministry of Education and Research) | |
| 2017-2021 | Member of NCE (Networks of Centres of Excellence) Standing Selection Committee, Canada | |
| 2017 - | Chair of the Program Committee ‘Robotics and Automation’ for the German National Space Agency, (DLR) | |
| 2016 - | Associated Professor at the University CIMATEC, Senai, Bahia, Brazil | |
| 2015-2017 | Member High-tech Forum – Expert forum “Autonomous Systems” | |
| 2015 - | Member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Technical/Scientific Class | |
| 2013 - | Spokesman high-profile research area Robotics at the University of Bremen | |
| 2013 | Scientific Director of the Brazilian Institute of Robotics (BIR) in Salvador, Bahia | |
| 2013-2017 | Vice Chair of the Program Committee ‘Robotics and Automation’ for the German National Space Agency, (DLR) | |
| 2013 - | Member of the advisory board on Space Robotics, at the German National Space Agency (DLR) | |
| 2012-2013 | Core team Excellence Cluster application University of Bremen | |
| 2012 - | IEEE Task Force on Intelligent Space Systems and Operations | |
| 2012 | Founding Member of the Institute „Ground Truth Robotics“ | |
| 2012 | Committee member: Nationale Masterplan Maritime Technologien (NMMT) | |
| 2010 | Founding Member of the Institute „MarTech“ with DLR, MARUM and DFKI | |
| 2009-2010 | Member of the Board "Maritime Intelligente Meerestechnologien für das 21. Jahrhundert" (MarIT) | |
| 2007-2014 | Member of the Board „GMT Gesellschaft für Maritime Technik“, Hamburg | |
| 2006-2013 | Member of the Advisory Board and coordinator of the Personal Mobility Center (PMC) | |
| 2006 | Founding Member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation's Technical Committee on: Space Robotics | |
| 2006 | Founding Member of International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems |
Education
| 1999 | Doctorate (Dr. rer. nat) at the University of Bonn |
| 1994 | Diploma of Informatics, Neurobiology at the University of Bonn |
| 1988 - 1994 | Student of Computer Science and Neurobiology at the University of Bonn |
| 1985 - 1988 | Student of Business Sciences at the University of Cologne |
| 1983 | German “Abitur” at the Gymnasium “Am Hammer”, Leichlingen |
Conference Committees
| 2025 | Advisory Committee IJCAI 2025 |
| 2020 | Programme Committee 52nd International Symposium on Robotics (ISR) 2020 |
| 2019 | Programme Committee The AAAI-20 Student Poster and Abstract Program |
| 2017 | Conference Chair VDI-Conference "Humanoid Robots 2017", Munich |
| 2017 | Session Chair 34th International Supply Chain Conference Think different − Act digital, Berlin |
| 2016 | Conference Chair VDI-Conference "Humanoid Robots 2016", Munich |
| 2015 | Co-Chair IROS 2015, Hamburg |
| 2014 | International Symposium Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space (i-SAIRAS) |
| 2012 - 2014 | International Joint Conference Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIODEVICES) |
| 2013 | International Congress on Neurotechnology, Electronics and Informatics (NEUROTECHNIX) |
| 2013 | Session Chair Symposium Advanced Space Technologies in Robotics, (ASTRA) |
| 2007 - 2013 | IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) |
| 2011 - 2013 | IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) |
| 2010 - 2012 | German national Conference on Robotics (ROBOTIK) |
| 2012 | IEEE International Conference on Multisensor Fusion and Information Integration, Hamburg |
| 2011 | Co-Chair ASTRIUM second R&T Days, ASTRIUM Space Transportation, Paris |
| 2011 | Co-Chair IROS Session „Towards Anthropomimetic Robots", IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems |
Organization of Scientific Events
| 2018-2021 | Editor in Chief of the Journal “AI Perspectives”, published by Springer Nature |
| 2014 | Editorial Board of "Evolutionary Robotics", a specialty of Frontiers in Robotics and AI |
| 2014 - | Editorial Board: Associated Editor „Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS)", Elsevier |
| 2014 | Co-Editor „Contemporary Planetary Robotics - An Approach towards Autonomous Systems”, Wiley |
| 2013 | Co-Editor of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine, Special Issue on “Computational Intelligence for Space Systems and Operations” |
| 2013 | Guest Editor of special issue on ‘Space Robotics’, KI – Künstliche Intelligenz, German Journal on Artificial Intelligence, Springer |
| 2012 | Technical Editor of the third Edition “Artificial Intelligence” Russel/ Norvig |
| 2006 | Editorial Board: Associated Editor Humanoid Robots, International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, InTech |
Reviewer Activities
- The Royal Society, London
- Academy of Finland, Helsinki
- Israel Science Foundation (ISF)
- The Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), Vienna
- "Artificial Intelligence”, Journal, Elsevier
- "Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence", The International Journal of Intelligent Real-Time Automation, Elsevier
- "Journal of Field Robotics", Journal, Wiley
- "Robotics and Automation Magazine", IEEE Xplore
- "Robotics and Automation Society", IEEE-RAS
- "Transactions on Robotics" Journal, IEEE-T-RO
- "International Journal of Robotics Research" Journal, IJRR
- "Mechatronics"; The Science of Intelligent Machines, Elsevier
- "Bioinspiration & Biomimetics", Journal, IOP Science
- "International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems", Journal, InTech
- Vici Physical Sciences and Engineering, Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research NWO
Funding institutions:
- Since 2001: EU
- Since 2003: DFG, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWI), BMU, DAAD
- Various national and international foundations and organizations
Teaching at University of Bremen / Courses and Seminars
| 2017 - | Seminar: Behaviour Learning for Crossing the Simulation-Reality Gap |
| 2012 - 2014 | Propaedeutics: Introduction in control frameworks using an autonomous underwater vehicle as an example, summer semester |
| 2010 - 2014 | Propaedeutics: Software development, experiments and practical experience with a autonomous underwater vehicle (auv) |
| 2009 - | Machine learning for autonomous robots, summer semester |
| 2006 - | Graduate Seminar |
| 2006 - | Postgraduate Seminar |
| 2006 - | Biological basics for autonomous mobile robots, winter semester |
| 2005 - | Modern Robot Control Architectures |
| 2004 - | Reinforcement Learning |
| 2003 - 2015 | Basics of Robotics 1 |
| 2003 - 2015 | Basics of Robotics 2 |
| 2003 - | Robot Design Lab |
Student Projects at University of Bremen
| 2020 - | Project "HelloRic" |
| 2019 - 2020 | Project "Semi-autonomous, highly mobile robot" |
| 2017 - 2018 | Project „Yemo“ |
| 2014 - 2016 | Project „ARTEMIS“ |
| 2013 - 2014 | Project „SpaceBot Cup“ |
| 2012 - 2013 | Project “Control of a 'BRIO Labyrinth' game” |
| 2011 - 2012 | Project „MonsterMind“ |
| 2005 - 2007 | Project „Rescue Robotics" |