Robert Katzschmann

Last updated
Robert Katzschmann
ETH-BIB-Katzschmann, Robert-Portr 17424.jpg
Citizenship Germany
Alma mater
Known for
  • SoFi (soft robotic fish)
  • Vision-controlled jetting for 3D printing
  • Soft robotic manipulators
Scientific career
Fields
Thesis Building and Controlling Fluidically Actuated Soft Robots: From Open Loop to Model-based Control  (2018)
Doctoral advisor Daniela Rus
Website robert.katzschmann.de

Robert K. Katzschmann is a German roboticist and professor of Robotics at ETH Zurich, where he heads the Soft Robotics Lab. [1] He led the development of SoFi, an autonomous soft robotic fish described in "Science Robotics" in 2018, which was covered by The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , Reuters, BBC, National Geographic , and other international outlets. [2] [3] [4] [5] He has been a TED Fellow since 2022. [6]

Contents

Education

Katzschmann received a Diplom-Ingenieur in Mechanical Engineering with a specialization in Mechatronics and Microsystems Technology from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in 2013. He completed his master's thesis at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Stanford University in 2012–2013. [1]

He earned his Ph.D. with the thesis "Building and controlling fluidically actuated soft robots: from open loop to model-based control" in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2018. [7] [8] [9]

Career

From 2012 to 2013, Katzschmann worked at Auris Surgical Robotics (now part of Johnson & Johnson), where he engineered robotic eye surgery and the first version of the MONARCH QUEST biopsy systems. [10] [11] After completing his doctorate, Katzschmann worked as an Applied Scientist at Amazon Robotics on Robin and later served as Chief Technology Officer at Dexai Robotics (now Sony AI). [12] [13]

In July 2020, Katzschmann joined ETH Zurich as Assistant Professor of Robotics in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering (D-MAVT), where he established the Soft Robotics Lab. [14]

He is also co-founder and scientific advisor of Mimic Robotics, a company developing autonomous dexterous manipulation solutions. [15]

Research

SoFi

During his doctoral research at MIT CSAIL, Katzschmann led the development of SoFi (Soft Robotic Fish), an autonomous underwater robot with a soft silicone body that uses hydraulic actuation to swim alongside real fish. [16] [17] During test dives at the Rainbow Reef in Fiji, SoFi swam at depths of more than 15 meters for up to 40 minutes, capturing high-resolution video of marine life. [2] [18]

The project was described by The New York Times as potentially providing "biologists a fish's-eye view of animal interactions in changing marine ecosystems." [2] The work was covered by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, Reuters, BBC, Wired, CNN, NPR, IEEE Spectrum , Scientific American , and other outlets. [2] [3] [16]

3D-printed robotic hand

In 2023, Katzschmann's team at ETH Zurich published a study in Nature journal describing a vision-controlled inkjet 3D printing system capable of printing a robotic hand with bones, ligaments, and tendons made of different polymers in a single process. [19] The work was covered by Nature News and other scientific outlets. [20]

Awards and honors

References

  1. 1 2 "Prof. Dr. Robert Katzschmann". ETH Zurich. Retrieved 2026-01-15.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Klein, JoAnna (21 March 2018). "Robotic Fish to Keep a Fishy Eye on the Health of the Oceans". The New York Times.
  3. 1 2 "MIT Unveils SoFi, the Most Advanced Robotic Fish of Its Kind". National Geographic. 2018.
  4. ↑ Toy, Sarah (2018-03-21). "If It Looks Like a Fish and Swims Like a Fish, It Might Just Be a Robot". Wall Street Journal. ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved 2026-02-23.
  5. ↑ "Meet Sofi the amazing robot fish". BBC Newsround. Retrieved 2026-02-23.
  6. 1 2 "Robert Katzschmann". TED.
  7. ↑ Katzschmann, Robert Kevin (2018). Building and controlling fluidically actuated soft robots : from open loop to model-based control (Thesis thesis). Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  8. ↑ "Building and Controlling Fluidically Actuated Soft Robots". MIT.
  9. ↑ "Über Wasswer, unter Wasser" (PDF). p. 22.
  10. ↑ "Robert Katzschmann". AI for Good. Retrieved 2026-02-26.
  11. ↑ "MONARCH™ Platform | Ethicon". J&J MedTech. Archived from the original on 2026-02-23. Retrieved 2026-02-26.
  12. ↑ Wessling, Brianna (2022-04-20). "How Amazon trained its robot Robin to sort packages". The Robot Report. Retrieved 2026-02-26.
  13. ↑ "Amazon's robot arms break ground in safety and technology". Amazon Science. 2021-04-06. Retrieved 2026-02-26.
  14. ↑ "Soft Robotics Lab Homepage". Soft Robotics Lab. 2025-12-11. Retrieved 2026-02-26.
  15. ↑ Garcia, David Cendon (2025-11-03). "Swiss startup mimic lands €13.8 million to deliver "robots that can finally do what people do"". EU-Startups. Retrieved 2026-02-26.
  16. 1 2 Katzschmann, Robert K.; DelPreto, Joseph; MacCurdy, Robert; Rus, Daniela (21 March 2018). "Exploration of Underwater Life with an Acoustically Controlled Soft Robotic Fish". Science Robotics. 3 (16). doi:10.1126/scirobotics.aar3449.
  17. ↑ Dunham, Will (18 March 2018). "If you want to find Nemo, you may need SoFi, the robotic fish".
  18. ↑ Dunham, Will (21 March 2018). "Soft robotic fish can swim alongside real ones in coral reefs". Reuters.
  19. ↑ Buchner, Thomas J. K.; et al. (2023). "Vision-controlled jetting for composite systems and robots". Nature. 623 (7987): 522–530. doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06684-3.
  20. ↑ "How to 3D print fully formed robots". Nature. 2023.
  21. ↑ RAS, IEEE (2025-06-17). "RAS Recognizes 2025 Award Recipients at ICRA". IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Website. Retrieved 2026-02-23.
  22. ↑ "Turning a new LEAF for lab sustainability - ETH Ambassadors". ethambassadors.ethz.ch. 2024-05-23. Retrieved 2026-02-23.
  23. ↑ "Meet the 2022 class of TED Fellows". TED Blog. 2022.
  24. ↑ "Robert Katzschmann CV". ETH Zurich.
  25. ↑ "Award Archive - IEEE Robotics and Automation Society". www.ieee-ras.org. Archived from the original on 2024-07-27. Retrieved 2026-02-23.
  26. ↑ "Robert Katzschmann | European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems". ellis.eu. Retrieved 2026-02-23.
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