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New at the Department: Prof. Roderich Groß

Resilient Cyber-Physical Systems

2024/01/01 by

In January, Roderich Groß joined the Department of Computer Science as Professor of Resilient Cyber-Physical Systems. His area of research is robotics and artificial intelligence, and he considers his most important scientific milestone to date to be research into the simplest algorithmic solutions to canonical problems in swarm robotics (e.g. multi-robot rendezvous, cooperative transport). The 46-year-old scientist was previously Senior Lecturer in Robotics and Computational Intelligence at the University of Sheffield. We asked Professor Groß a few questions about his start at TU Darmstadt.

Why should students be interested in your topics? What makes your topics exciting?

We are studying the design and realization of self-organized robot systems that demonstrate a high degree of autonomy and adaptability. Examples of this are robot swarms that support humans in their tasks while needing only limited energy, as well as modular robots whose shapes dynamically adapt to their environments. The distributed intelligence of natural systems such as colonies of social insects serves as a source of inspiration.

Which TU department would you like to spend a day in? Why?

I would like to visit the Department of Human Sciences to learn how they study intelligent behaviour and ways for machines to interact with humans. Human factors will play an important role in the design of distributed systems.

The best balance to a stressful working day is …

… enjoying an afternoon tea.