
Auke Ijspeert
EPFL STI IBI-STI BIOROB
MED 1 1226 (Bâtiment MED)
Station 9
1015 Lausanne
+41 21 693 26 58
+41 21 693 26 40
Office: MED 1 1226
EPFL › STI › IBI-STI › BIOROB
Website: https://biorob.epfl.ch/
EPFL STI IGM-GE
MED 1 1226 (Bâtiment MED)
Station 9
1015 Lausanne
+41 21 693 26 58
Office: MED 1 1226
EPFL › STI › IGM › IGM-GE
+41 21 693 26 58
EPFL › SV › SV-SSV › SSV-ENS
Website: https://sv.epfl.ch/education
+41 21 693 26 58
EPFL › STI › STI-SMT › SMT-ENS
+41 21 693 26 58
EPFL › STI › STI-SGM › SGM-ENS
+41 21 693 26 58
EPFL › STI › STI-DEC › STI-DIR
+41 21 693 26 58
EPFL › CDH › CDH-DIR › CDH-CEA
+41 21 693 26 58
EPFL › STI › STI-DEC › STI-CEA
+41 21 693 26 58
EPFL › VPA › VPA-AVP-DLE › AVP-DLE-EDOC › EDRS-GE
Website: https://go.epfl.ch/phd-edrs
Expertise
His research interests are at the intersection between robotics, computational neuroscience, nonlinear dynamical systems, and machine learning. He is interested in using numerical simulations and robots to get a better understanding of sensorimotor coordination in animals, and in using inspiration from biology to design novel types of robots and adaptive controllers (see for instance Ijspeert et al Science 2007, Ijspeert Science 2014, and Nyakatura et al Nature 2019). He is also investigating how to assist people with limited mobility using exoskeletons and assistive furniture. He is regularly invited to give talks on these topics (e.g. TED talk given at TED Global Geneva, Dec 8 2015). With his colleagues, he has received paper awards at ICRA2002, CLAWAR2005, IEEE Humanoids 2007, IEEE ROMAN 2014, CLAWAR 2015, SAB2018, CLAWAR 2019, and ICRA 2024.
He is an IEEE Fellow, member of the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science magazine, and associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics. He has acted as an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Robotics (2009-2013), Soft Robotics (2018-2021), and the International Journal of Humanoids Robotics (2017-2022). He was a guest editor for the Proceedings of IEEE, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Autonomous Robots, IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, and Biological Cybernetics. He has been the organizer of 7 international conferences (BioADIT2004, SAB2004, AMAM2005, BioADIT2006, LATSIS2006, SSRR2016, AMAM2019), and a program committee member of over 50 conferences.
Main Publications
Reverse-engineering the locomotion of a stem amniote
Nature. 2019-01-16. DOI : 10.1038/s41586-018-0851-2.Oncilla Robot: A Versatile Open-Source Quadruped Research Robot With Compliant Pantograph Legs
Frontiers in Robotics and AI. 2018. DOI : 10.3389/frobt.2018.00067.From cineradiography to biorobots: an approach for designing robots to emulate and study animal locomotion
Journal of The Royal Society Interface. 2016. DOI : 10.1098/rsif.2015.1089.Biorobotics: Using robots to emulate and investigate agile animal locomotion
Science magazine. 2014. DOI : 10.1126/science.1254486.Roombots: A Hardware Perspective on 3D Self-Reconfiguration and Locomotion with a Homogeneous Modular Robot
Robotics and Autonomous Systems. 2014. DOI : 10.1016/j.robot.2013.08.011.From lamprey to salamander: an exploratory modeling study on the architecture of the spinal locomotor networks in the salamander
Biological Cybernetics. 2013. DOI : 10.1007/s00422-012-0538-y.Adaptive Frequency Oscillators and Applications
The Open Cybernetics and Systemics Journal. 2009. DOI : 10.2174/1874110X00903020064.Central pattern generators for locomotion control in animals and robots: a review
Neural Networks. 2008. DOI : 10.1016/j.neunet.2008.03.014.From swimming to walking with a salamander robot driven by a spinal cord model
Science. 2007. DOI : 10.1126/science.1138353.Dynamical principles in neuronal systems and robotics
Biological Cybernetics. 2006. DOI : 10.1007/s00422-006-0130-4.Dynamic hebbian learning in adaptive frequency oscillators
Physica D. 2006. DOI : 10.1016/j.physd.2006.02.009.A connectionist central pattern generator for the aquatic and terrestrial gaits of a simulated salamander
Biological Cybernetics. 2001. DOI : 10.1007/s004220000211.From swimming to walking with a salamander robot driven by a spinal cord model
Science. 2007. DOI : 10.1126/science.1138353.Dynamic hebbian learning in adaptive frequency oscillators
Physica D. 2006. DOI : 10.1016/j.physd.2006.02.009.Learning Attractor Landscapes for Learning Motor Primitives
2002. p. 1547-1554.A connectionist central pattern generator for the aquatic and terrestrial gaits of a simulated salamander
Biological Cybernetics. 2001. DOI : 10.1007/s004220000211.PhD Students
Javier Jia Jie Pey, Alessandro Pazzaglia, Louis Marie C Gevers, Chuanfang Ning, Alexandros Anastasiadis, Lixuan Tang, Astha Gupta, Amirreza Razmjoo Fard, Giulia Ramella
Past EPFL PhD Students
Mostafa Ajallooeian, Pierre-André Mudry, Laura Isabel Paez Coy, Mehmet Hasan Mutlu, Joël Rossier, Jérémie Knüsel, Alexandre Tuleu, Miroslav Caban, Simon Lukas Hauser, Jonas Buchli, Massimo Vespignani, Alexander Spröwitz, Florin Dzeladini, Alice Julie Bruel, Shravan Tata Ramalingasetty, Milad Shafiee Ashtiani, Konstantinos Karakasiliotis, Nicolas Benoît Dominique Van der Noot, Jonathan Patrick Arreguit O'Neill, Salman Faraji, Jesse van den Kieboom, Ludovic Daler, Soha Pouya, Romain Pierre François Baud, Alessandro Crespi, Zeynep Özge Orhan, Peter Eckert, Ludovic Righetti, Stéphane Bonardi, Andrea Di Russo, Tomislav Horvat, Robin Thandiackal, Pembe Gizem Ozdil, Sébastien Gay, Andrej Bicanski, Sarah Dégallier Rochat, Ali Reza Manzoori, Jessica Lanini
Courses
Topics in Autonomous Robotics
Students will be introduced to modern approaches in control and design of autonomous robots through lectures and exercises.
Legged robots
The course presents the design, control, and applications of legged robots. It gives a review of different types of legged robots (including two-, four- and multi-legged robots), and analysis of different control methods for legged locomotion. It also trains students in making critical analysis of key articles in the field, and in designing their own models and locomotion controllers for legged
Computational motor control
The course gives (1) a review of different types of numerical models of control of locomotion and movement in animals, (2) a presentation of different techniques for designing models, and (3) an analysis of the use and testing of those models in robotics and neuroprosthetics.