Staff

DLR German Aerospace Center
Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics

I am a passionate researcher, lucky enough to be appointed leader of DLR's Legged Locomotion Team, a few years back.

My main fields of interest include planning and controls of humanoid and other legged robots' walking and running gaits, whole-body controls (WBC) and safe human-robot interaction (HRI), low-level controls (on actuator level) and more generic impedance-controls. More recently, I got infected with the AI and Machine Learning (ML) "fever". I hope to combine ML and WBC to achieve major breakthroughs regarding real-world deployability of humanoid robots. 

If you like to get in touch with me regarding possible collaborations or (student?) research projects, feel free to contact me: johannes.englsberger(at)dlr.de . 

Below, you find a short bio and an overview of my main scientific achievements. For a more complete list of publications, please refer to my Google Scholar page (‪Johannes Englsberger‬ - ‪Google Scholar‬). 

 

Short Biography

Johannes Englsberger received his Dipl.-Ing. degree (equivalent to Masters) in mechanical engineering from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in 2009. In 2010, he joined the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, as a research scientist. In 2016, he received the Dr.-Ing. degree (equivalent to PhD) again from TUM. His PhD thesis "Combining reduced dynamics models and whole-body control for agile humanoid locomotion" received the Georges Giralt PhD Award 2017 for the best European thesis in robotics. In 2019, he was appointed team leader of DLR's legged locomotion group. In addition to his scientific career at DLR, he joined team IHMC (Florida Institute of Human and Machine Cognition, USA) as a visiting researcher and successfully participated in the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC). 

 

Awards and Honors

• 2020 Winner of Best Paper Award IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (RAM).
• 2017 Winner of Georges Giralt PhD Award for the best PhD thesis in Europe in the field of robotics. 
• 2016 Winner of Best Paper Award of International Journal of Humanoid Robots 2016. 
• 2015 Second place at DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) Finals (as part of team IHMC). 
• 2014 Winner of Best Paper Award at HUMANOIDS 2014 (video category). 
• 2013 Second place at DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) Trials (as part of team IHMC). 
• 2013 Winner of the Virtual Robotics Challenge (as part of team IHMC). 

 

"My favorite" publications

• J. Englsberger, A. Dietrich, G. Mesesan, G. Garofalo, Ch. Ott, and A. Albu-Schäffer. MPTC - Modular Passive Tracking Controller for stack of tasks based control frameworks. Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), (2020). MPTC – Modular Passive Tracking Controller for stack of tasks based control frameworks · Robotics: Science and Systems (roboticsconference.org)
• J. Englsberger, G. Mesesan, A. Werner, and C. Ott. Torque-Based Dynamic Walking - A Long Way from Simulation to Experiment. ICRA, (2018). Torque-Based Dynamic Walking - A Long Way from Simulation to Experiment | IEEE Conference Publication | IEEE Xplore
• J. Englsberger, G. Mesesan, and C. Ott. Smooth trajectory generation and push-recovery based on Divergent Component of Motion. IROS, (2017). IEEE Xplore Full-Text PDF:
• J. Englsberger, P. Kozłowski, C. Ott, and A. Albu-Schäffer. Biologically Inspired Deadbeat Control for Running: From Human Analysis to Humanoid Control and Back. TRO, (2016). IEEE Xplore Full-Text PDF:
• T. Koolen, S. Bertrand, T. Gray, T d. Boer, T. Wu, J. Smith, J. Englsberger, and J. Pratt. Design of a Momentum-Based Control Framework and Application to the Humanoid Robot Atlas. Int. Journal of Humanoid Robotics (IJHR), (2016), Best Paper Award. Design of a Momentum-Based Control Framework and Application to the Humanoid Robot Atlas (researchgate.net)
• J. Englsberger, C. Ott, and A. Albu-Schäffer. Three-Dimensional Bipedal Walking Control Based on Divergent Component of Motion. IEEE Transactions on Robotics (TRO), (2015). IEEE Xplore Full-Text PDF:
• J. Englsberger, A. Werner, Ch. Ott, B. Henze, M. A. Roa, G. Garofalo, R. Burger, A. Beyer, O. Eiberger, K. Schmid, and A. Albu-Schäffer. Overview of the torque-controlled humanoid robot TORO. Humanoids, (2014). Overview of the torque-controlled humanoid robot TORO | IEEE Conference Publication | IEEE Xplore