Professor Roderich Gross
PhD, SMIEEE, MACM
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Visiting Professor
- Profile
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Professor Gross is a Professor and Head of the RCPS Laboratory at TU Darmstadt. Roderich received a Ph.D. degree in engineering science in 2007 from Université libre de Bruxelles, and was a JSPS Fellow (Tokyo Institute of Technology), a Research Associate (University of Bristol), and a Marie Curie Fellow (EPFL & Unilever) before becoming a Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer atthe ±¬ÁÏTV. Roderich's research interests are in robotics and artificial intelligence. Roderich has made contributions to the coordination of robot swarms and reconfigurable robots, and invented a machine learning method called Turing Learning. Roderich served as the General Chair of DARS 2016 and as an Editor of IROS 2015-18. Currently, Roderich serves as an Associate Editor of Swarm Intelligence, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters and the IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine.
- Research interests
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- Swarm robotics, self-reconfigurable robots, multi-robot coordination, collaborative robots
- Robotics software/tools (human-robot interaction interfaces, formal design tools, operating systems)
- Machine learning for behavior inference (Turing Learning, generative adversarial networks)
- Autonomous systems and decision making
- Natural computing (swarm intelligence, evolutionary algorithms, artificial life)
- Publications
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Journal articles
- . IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 10(7), 6832-6839.
- . New Journal of Physics, 26.
- . Current Robotics Reports, 4(4), 101-116.
- . Nature Communications, 14.
- . Nat Commun, 14(1), 3476.
- . npj Robotics, 4(1), 5.
Conference proceedings
- . Companion Proceedings of the 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp 196-200)
- (pp 259-272)
- . 2025 IEEE International Symposium on Multi-Robot and Multi-Agent Systems (MRS) (pp 1-7), 4 December 2025 - 5 December 2025.
- . 2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (pp 570-576), 19 May 2025 - 23 May 2025.
- Ready, bid, go! On-demand delivery using fleets of drones with unknown, heterogeneous energy storage constraints. Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (pp 2015-2023). Detroit, Michigan, USA, 19 May 2025 - 19 May 2025.
- . Swarm Intelligence: 14th International Conference, ANTS 2024, Konstanz, Germany, October 9–11, 2024, Proceedings, Vol. LNCS 14987 (pp 3-15). Konstanz, Germany, 9 October 2024 - 9 October 2024.
- . Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems. DARS 22, Vol. 28 (pp 537-549). Montbéliard, France, 28 November 2022 - 28 November 2022.
- . 2023 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) Proceedings (pp 8847-8853). Detroit, Michigan, USA, 1 October 2023 - 1 October 2023.
- Towards heterogeneous modular robotic systems for industrial applications. Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems (TAROS'23). Cambridge, UK, 13 September 2023 - 13 September 2023.
- Angled cantilever construction by force-aware robotic swarms. Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems (TAROS'23). Cambridge, UK, 13 September 2023 - 13 September 2023.
- Warmth and Competence in the Swarm: Designing Effective Human-Robot Teams. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics). Darmstadt, Germany, 8 June 2026 - 8 June 2026.
- Energy replenishment strategies for robot swarms. 1st German Robotics Conference (GRC 2025). Nuremberg, Germany, 13 March 2025 - 13 March 2025.
- Multi-human multi-robot interaction: cooperation leveraging a robot swarm as a shared resource. 1st German Robotics Conference (GRC 2025). Nuremberg, Germany, 13 March 2025 - 13 March 2025.
Preprints
- , arXiv.
- Ready, Bid, Go! On-Demand Delivery Using Fleets of Drones with Unknown, Heterogeneous Energy Storage Constraints.
- , arXiv.
- Grants
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- Horizon Europe OpenSwarm: Orchestration and Programming ENergy-aware and collaborative Swarms With AI-powered Reliable Methods, £463,699, from 01/01/2023
- EPSRC 'EPSRC Core Capital', £104,196, from 22/01/2020
- DSTL 'DSTL Multi Robot Systems', £98.781, from 30/10/2019
- Industry Research/Consultancy, 'Modular robotics', from 24/03/2017
- EPSRC 'Robotics Capital Equipment' £462,075, 01/10/2016 - 31/03/2017
- EPSRC ‘Human-Machine Cooperation in Robotics and Autonomous Systems’, £330,333.80 (App No.138565) 01/07/2013 – 30/09/2014
- ESPRC ‘Evo-Bots’, £100,905 (App No. 135020) 01/07/2013 – 31/12/2014
- EU FP7 'Evolving Robots', £37,125 (PERG07-GA-2010-267354) 01/09/2010 - 31/08/2013
- Unilever Research ‘Unilever Research Portsunlight’, £62,414 (App No. 132096) 01/11/2011 – 31/07/2012
- Professional activities and memberships
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- General Chair: (13th Int Symp on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems)
- Chair, (2016-2017)
- Editor, - 2015 (IEEE/RSJ Int Conf on Intelligent Robots and Systems)
- Associate Editor: (from 2015)
- Associate Editor: (from 2015)
- Associate Editor: (from 2013)
- Associate Editor: , 2015 - 2012 (IEEE Int Conf on Robotics and Automation)
- Associate Editor: IROS, 2014 - 2012 (IEEE/RSJ Int Conf on Intelligent Robots and Systems)
- Program Co-Chair: (Swarm Intelligence Track)
- Program Co-Chair: (Robotics Track)
- Program Co-Chair: (8th Int Conf on Swarm Intelligence)
- Program Co-Chair: (12th Conf Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems)
- Publication Chair: (7th Int Conf on Swarm Intelligence)
- Best/Outstanding Associate Editors: 2020 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
- Member of the Editorial Board:
- Part Editor:
- Guest Editor: Distributed Robotics special issue (Auton Robots, 2018)
- Guest Editor: Swarm Robotics special issue (Neural Comput & Appl, 2010)
- Guest Editor: TAROS 2011 special issue (Robot Auton Syst)
- Guest Editor: ANTS 2010 and ANTS 2012 special issues (Swarm Intell)
- Grant Reviewer for national funding bodies (EU, Canada, UK, Switzerland, Germany, Austria)
- Reviewer (e.g., Royal Soc Interface, IEEE Trans Robot, Int J Robot Res, IEEE Trans Evol Compt, PLoS ONE)
- SPC Member:
- PC Member: RSS 2020, NeurIPS 2020, IJCAI 2020, AAMAS 2020, GECCO 2020
Invited talks (selected)
- "Advances in distributed robotics and Turing Learning", SSR, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (2018)
- "Robots, swarms and Turing learning", Plenary talk at 27th ERNSI Workshop (European Research Network on System Identification), Cambridge, UK (2018)
- "Robots, swarms and Turing learning", Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Konstanz, Germany (2018)
- "Less is more? Defining your building blocks", Dagstuhl seminar on Algorithmic Foundations of Programmable Matter, Germany (2018)
- "Less is more? Controlling swarms and Turing learning", Biological Distributed Algorithms (BDA) Workshop, UCL, UK (2018)
- "Less is more? Controlling swarms and Turing learning", Conference on Collective Robotics, International Centre for Theoretical Physics/UNESCO, Italy (2018)
- "Less is more? New approaches for swarm control and inference", Janelia Conference on Distributed, Collective Computation in Biological and Artificial Systems, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA (2018)
- "Swarms - design, interaction and learning", University of Southampton, UK (2017)
- "Advances in massively distributed robotics and machine learning", ULB, Brussels, Belgium (2017)
- "Bandits, swarms, and Turing Learning", University of Bristol, UK (2017)
- "Less is more? New approaches for swarm control and inference", 2016 CCS Workshop, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2016)
- "Controlling swarms of robots without computation", JSPS EPSRC UK - Japan Workshop on Soft Robotics, University of Cambridge, UK (2016)
- "Swarm robotics", IEEE RAS Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems, NUS, Singapore (2016)
- "Less is more? New approaches for swarm control and inference", University of Liverpool, UK (2016)
- "Less is more? New approaches for swarm control and inference", NIPS 2016 Workshop, Montreal, Canada (2015)
- "Swarm robotics: Minimalism, learning and evolution" - University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2015)
- "Controlling robot swarms - from theory to practice - and evolution beyond control", EPFL, Switzerland (2015)
- "Swarm robotics - the future of healthcare?", RE.WORK Future Tech Summit, London, UK (2015)
- "Swarm robotics: Minimalism, learning and evolution" - ULB, Belgium (2014)
- "Swarm robotics: Minimalism, learning and evolution" - University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA (2014)
- "Is less more? Design principles for massively distributed robotic systems" - The Royal Society UK-Russia Frontiers of Science meeting, Kazan, Russia (2013)
- "Towards distributed autonomous robotic systems," CSAIL, MIT, USA (2012)
- "Towards autonomous robotic systems," Transducers Science and Technology Group, Univ. of Twente, The Netherlands (2011)
- "From natural swarms to swarms of robots," Thrilling Wonder Stories 3, Architectural Association London, UK (2011)
- "Self-assembly at the macroscopic scale," Self-Assembly on all Scales workshop, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, Germany (2011)
- "Autonomous mobile systems inspired by nature," Institute of Computer Science, Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany (2009)
- "Autonomous robotic systems inspired by nature," Fakultaet fuer Informatik, Univ. of Karlsruhe, Germany (2009)
- "Physical interactions in multi-robot systems," Faculty of EE & IT, Technical Univ. of Munich, Germany (2009)
- "Self-assembling robots: Physical interactions in collective robotics," IPVS, Univ. of Stuttgart, Germany (2008)
- "What properties are required for individuals that work in groups or teams?," IPAB, Univ. of Edinburgh, UK (2007)
- "Teamwork in colonies of insect-like robots," Bristol Robotics Laboratory, UK (2007)
- "Self-assembly and its use in swarm-bot," Murata Lab, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan (2005)
- "Group transport by a self-assembling robotic system," Kosuge and Wang Lab, Tohoku Univ., Japan (2005)
- "Swarm-bots: A self-assembling robotic system," Fukuda Lab, Nagoya Univ., Japan (2005)
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