News

On 29 April 2026, the digitalPV innovation network held its latest in-person networking meeting at the Chair of Robotics. Partners from industry and research gathered to exchange knowledge and discuss the latest developments in the digitalization of photovoltaic power plant inspection and operation.

Maintaining wind turbines at dizzying heights is risky, expensive, and associated with long downtime. Robots could be an alternative. A joint research project with the participation of the University of Würzburg is working on solving this problem.

We introduce Dynamic-ICP, a Doppler-aware odometry framework designed for highly dynamic environments. By extracting motion directly from FMCW LiDAR—without calibration or auxiliary sensors—our method separates ego-motion from dynamic objects, predicts their behavior, and aligns scans with a novel geometry–Doppler objective. Across multiple real-world datasets, Dynamic-ICP significantly outperforms existing approaches in both stability and accuracy.

Our paper titled "Artificial intelligence-powered space systems including launch, space, ground and user segments: Current status and future challenges" will be published in Acta Astronautica, Volume 240, March 2026, Pages 328-347.

Leo Renaut defended his thesis titled "Lidar Navigation for Non-Cooperative

Space Rendezvous" on 24.09.2025 successfully.

Robotics student Marawan Khalil from the University of Würzburg received an award for the best presentation at an international conference. He presented a spherical mapping robot.

Robotics engineers at the University of Würzburg have developed a novel 3D laser scanner system for precise plant analysis in the field for the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy in Potsdam.

Prof. Walter Baur worked with our space technology students to build and test model aeroplanes in the robotics hall and on our testing area for outdoor robots.

Raimund Edlinger defended his thesis titled "Robust Mobility and Manipulation for Flexible and Modular Robot Assistants" on 16.05.2025 successfully.

At this year's Computer In A Room Challenge (CIARC 3) hosted by the European Space Agency (ESA), the team from JMU Würzburg – consisting of Satellite Technology students Dennis Reimer, Matei Oana, and Paul Heinisch – secured first place.

At this year's Space Day in the robotics department, attendees were captivated by an impressive array of technological innovations designed to push the boundaries of space exploration.

Researchers at the University of Würzburg have developed a headset that astronauts can use to train for various missions. It has now been tested at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne.

Our paper titled "Deep learning on 3D point clouds for fast pose estimation during satellite rendezvous" will be published in Acta Astronautica, Volume 232, July 2025, Pages 231-243. On test data, the pose estimation is correct in 99.7% of the cases.

ENERGIEregion Nürnberg e.V. starts a network for the digitalization of planning, operation and maintenance of solar installations. Chair of Robotics is a partner!

Using AI to analyse images from colonoscopies and improve cancer screening: The Wittenstein Foundation is funding this project with a 50,000 euro prize

Our student David Baldsiefen wins the ‘AI Innovation in Space’ award at the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

On 26.07.2024 students from the Roentgen-Gymnasium in Wuerzburg visited our Robotics department.

Yijun Yuan defended his thesis titled "Incremental continuous scene modeling - Geometric, Color, Semantic representations and unified framework for robotic mapping" on 18.09.2024 successfully.

Prof. Walter Baur worked with our space technology students to build and test model aeroplanes in the robotics hall and on our testing area for outdoor robots.

The University of Würzburg (Chair of Robotics), will be hosting "Akademy 2024. Akademy is the annual world summit of KDE, one of the largest Free Software communities in the world. It is a free, non-commercial event organized by the KDE Community. Hundreds of attendees from the global KDE Community, the broad free and open-source software community, local organizations, and software companies will gather in Würzburg, Germany, and virtually from Saturday, September 7th, to Thursday, September 12th, for the annual conference 'Akademy 2024.'