Robotics and Biology Laboratory

Professor Dr. Oliver Brock

E-mail: oliver.brock(at)tu-berlin.de

Room: MAR 5.033
Telephone: +49.30.314-73110
Office hours: Friday 10-12, please make an appointment

Research Interests

My research is concerned with the algorithmic foundations required to enable robotic agents to autonomously perform complex tasks in dynamic and unstructured environments. Beyond the scope of robotics, I apply these algorithmic foundations to problems in structural molecular biology, such as protein structure prediction, protein folding, and protein docking.

Curriculum Vitae

CV 
  Professional and Academic Experience
since 2009Alexander von Humboldt Professor, TU Berlin
2008-2009Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst
2002-2008Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst
2001-2002Research Associate and Scientific Consultant, Stanford University
1999-2001Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, AllAdvantage.com
2000Lecturer and Research Scientist, Rice University
  Education
2000Ph.D., Computer Science, Stanford University
1994Master of Science, Computer Science, Stanford University
1993Diplom, Computer Science, TU Berlin
  Awards and Nominations
2016Best Systems Paper Award, RSS
2015First Place, Amazon Picking Challenge
2014Third Place, Protein Structure Prediction, CASP 11
2014Second Place, Contact Prediction, mid- and long-range contacts, CASP 11
2014Best Student Paper Award (with Raphael Deimel), RSS
2012Best Poster Award, CASP 10
2011IEEE Robotics and Automation Most Active Technical Committee Award, Technical Committee on Mobile Manipulation
2009Research Prize Alexander von Humboldt Professorship
2006NSF CAREER Award
  Professinal Memberships
since 2002IEEE Senior Member
since 2002IEEE Robotics and Automation Society
since 2002Association of Computing Machinery (ACM)
since 2006Protein Society
  Editorial Activities
since 2011Autonomous Robots
since 2010The Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR)
since 2010International Journal of Robotics and Research
2007-2009IEEE Transactions on Robotics
since 2007Foundations and Trends in Robotics
 Professional Service
since 2016Extended Academic Senate, TU Berlin
2014-2016Member IPODI Scholarschip Selection Committee, TU Berlin
since 2014Track Director, study program Cognitive Systems
2013-2015Department Chair, Department of Computer Engineering and Microelectronics, TU Berlin
since 2011Track Director, study program Science of Intelligence

Publication

2024

Vaish, Apoorv; Brock, Oliver
Co-designing Manipulation Systems Using Task-Relevant Constraints
Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA),
Mai 2024

2023

Stahl, Kolja; Brock, Oliver; Rappsilber, Juri; Dau, Therese; Graziadei, Andrea
Protein structure prediction with in-cell photo-crosslinking mass spectrometry and deep learning
Nature Biotechnology
März 2023
[en] Battaje, Aravind; Brock, Oliver; Rolfs, Martin
An interactive motion perception tool for kindergarteners (and vision scientists)
i-Perception, 14 (2) :20416695231159182
März 2023
ISSN: 2041-6695
Li, Xing; Baum, Manuel; Brock, Oliver
Augmentation Enables One-Shot Generalization In Learning From Demonstration for Contact-Rich Manipulation
Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
2023
Mengers, Vito; Battaje, Aravind; Baum, Manuel; Brock, Oliver
Combining Motion and Appearance for Robust Probabilistic Object Segmentation in Real Time
2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Seite 683--689
IEEE
2023
Sieler, Adrian; Brock, Oliver
Dexterous Soft Hands Linearize Feedback-Control for In-Hand Manipulation
Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
2023
Baum, Manuel; Froessl, Amelie; Battaje, Aravind; Brock, Oliver
Estimating the Motion of Drawers From Sound
2023 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
IEEE
2023
Patidar, Sumit; Sieler, Adrian; Brock, Oliver
In-Hand Cube Reconfiguration: Simplified
Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
2023
Wall, Vincent; Zöller, Gabriel; Brock, Oliver
Passive and Active Acoustic Sensing for Soft Pneumatic Actuators
The International Journal of Robotics Research, 42 :108-122
2023

2022

Wall, Vincent; Brock, Oliver
A Virtual 2D Tactile Array for Soft Actuators Using Acoustic Sensing
Proceedings of IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
Oktober 2022
Schneider, Michael; Rappsilber, Juri; Brock, Oliver
DomainRank: Improving Biological Data Sets With Domain Knowledge and Google's PageRank
September 2022
Pannen, Tessa J.; Puhlmann, Steffen; Brock, Oliver
A Low-Cost, Easy-to-Manufacture, Flexible, Multi-Taxel Tactile Sensor and its Application to In-Hand Object Recognition
Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Seite 10939--10944
Mai 2022
Baum, Manuel; Brock, Oliver
"The World Is Its Own Best Model": Robust Real-World Manipulation Through Online Behavior Selection
Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
2022
Li, Xing; Brock, Oliver
Learning From Demonstration Based on Environmental Constraints
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 7 (4) :10938-10945
2022
Battaje, Aravind; Brock, Oliver
One Object at a Time: Accurate and Robust Structure From Motion for Robots
Proceedings of IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
2022
Baum, Manuel; Schattenhofer, Lukas; R"ossler, Theresa; Osuna-Mascaró, Antonio; Auersperg, Alice; Kacelnik, Alex; Brock, Oliver
Yoking-Based Identification of Learning Behavior in Artificial and Biological Agents
Proceedings of the International Conference on the Simulation of Adaptive Behavior 2022 -From Animals to Animats 16, Seite 67–78
Herausgeber: Springer International Publishing, Cham
2022
ISBN
978-3-031-16770-6

2021

Pall, Elod; Brock, Oliver
Analysis of Open-Loop Grasping From Piles
:2591-2597
Oktober 2021
Bhatt, Aditya; Sieler, Adrian; Puhlmann, Steffen; Brock, Oliver
Surprisingly Robust In-Hand Manipulation: An Empirical Study
Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems
Herausgeber: Virtual
Juli 2021
Baum, Manuel; Brock, Oliver
Achieving Robustness in a Drawer Manipulation Task by using High-level Feedback instead of Planning
Proceedings of the DGR Days, Seite 29-29
DGR Days
2021
Battaje, Aravind; Brock, Oliver
Interconnected Recursive Filters in Artificial and Biological Vision
Proceedings of the DGR Days, Seite 32-32
2021

2020

Zöller, Gabriel; Wall, Vincent; Brock, Oliver
Active Acoustic Contact Sensing for Soft Pneumatic Actuators
Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Seite 7966-7972
Mai 2020
Negrello, Francesca; Friedl, Werner; Grioli, Giorgio; Garabini, Manolo; Brock, Oliver; Bicchi, Antonio; Roa, Máximo A.; Catalano, Manuel G.
Benchmarking Hand and Grasp Resilience to Dynamic Loads
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 5 (2) :1780-1787
April 2020

2019

Clement, Lee; Peretroukhin, Valentin; Giamou, Matthew; Leonard, John; Kress-Gazit, Hadas; How, Jonathan; Milford, Michael; Brock, Oliver; Gariepy, Ryan; Roy, Nicholas; Siegel, Hallie; Righetti, Ludovic; Billard, Aude; Kelly, Jonathan
Where Do We Go From Here? Debates on the Future of Robotics Research at ICRA 2019 [From the Field]
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 26 (3) :7-10
September 2019
Martín-Martín, Roberto; Brock, Oliver
Coupled recursive estimation for online interactive perception of articulated objects
The International Journal of Robotics Research, Volume 41 (Issue 8) :741 - 777
Mai 2019
ISSN: 0278-3649
Wall, Vincent; Brock, Oliver
Multi-Task Sensorization of Soft Actuators Using Prior Knowledge
Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Seite 9416–9421
Mai 2019