Niklas Funk

On the Importance of Tactile Sensing for Imitation Learning: A Case Study on Robotic Match Lighting

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I am thrilled to share that two co-authored papers have been accepted for presentation at the 2026 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I recently defended my PhD thesis. A big thank you to everyone who supported me throughout this journey.

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

SE(3)-PoseFlow: Estimating 6D Pose Distributions for Uncertainty-Aware Robotic Manipulation

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Tactile-Conditioned Diffusion Policy for Force-Aware Robotic Manipulation

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

It was my honour to deliver an invited talk at the CVPR2025 Workshop on Event-based Vision in Nashville about Event-based Optical Tactile Sensing for Robotic Manipulation!

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Learning Force Distribution Estimation for the GelSight Mini Optical Tactile Sensor based on Finite Element Analysis

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Particle-based 6D Object Pose Estimation from Point Clouds using Diffusion Models

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Our work on summarizing the robot air hockey challenge was accepted to Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 2024!

Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A Retrospective on the Robot Air Hockey Challenge: Benchmarking Robust, Reliable, and Safe Learning Techniques for Real-world Robotics

Sun, 01 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

ActionFlow: Equivariant, Accurate, and Efficient Policies with Spatially Symmetric Flow Matching

Fri, 06 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Our paper - ActionFlow: Efficient, Accurate, and Fast Policies with Spatially Symmetric Flow Matching - wins the best paper award in the RSS 2024 workshop on Priors4Robots!

Sat, 20 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Our journal article Evetac: An Event-based Optical Tactile Sensor for Robotic Manipulation has been accepted for publication at the IEEE Transactions on Robotics!

Wed, 12 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Evetac: An Event-based Optical Tactile Sensor for Robotic Manipulation

Sat, 02 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Our work on Placing by Touching was accepted at IROS 2023, and nominated as finalist for the Best Paper Award on Mobile Manipulation!

Sun, 01 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Placing by Touching: An empirical study on the importance of tactile sensing for precise object placing

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

We are very happy to receive the best paper award for our work on SE(3)-DiffusionFields at the workshop on Geometric Representations - The Role of Screw Theory, Lie Algebra and Geometric Algebra at ICRA 2023.

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

High-Resolution Pixelwise Contact Area and Normal Force Estimation for the GelSight Mini Visuotactile Sensor Using Neural Networks

Thu, 25 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Paper Pixelwise Contact Area and Normal Force Estimation for the GelSight Mini Visuotactile Sensor accepted at the ICRA 2023 workshop on Embracing Contacts.

Tue, 23 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Paper on Grasp and Motion Generation using Diffusion Models accepted at ICRA 2023

Sat, 01 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Auto(mated)nomous Assembly

Sat, 10 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Graph-based Reinforcement Learning meets Mixed Integer Programs: An application to 3D robot assembly discovery

Sat, 10 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Launched new website!

Sat, 10 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

SE(3)-DiffusionFields: Learning smooth cost functions for joint grasp and motion optimization through diffusion

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Graph-based Reinforcement Learning meets Mixed Integer Programs: An application to 3D robot assembly discovery

Sun, 08 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Reinforcement Learning for Assembly with Structured Graph Representations and Search

Mon, 28 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Graph-based Reinforcement Learning meets Mixed Integer Programs: An application to 3D robot assembly discovery

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Real Robot Challenge: A Robotics Competition in the Cloud

Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Learn2Assemble with structured representations and search for robotic architectural construction

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Reinforcement Learning for Sequential Assembly of SL-Blocks-Self-interlocking combinatorial design based on Machine Learning

Sat, 01 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Benchmarking Structured Policies and Policy Optimization for Real-World Dexterous Object Manipulation

Mon, 01 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Learning event-triggered control from data through joint optimization

Sat, 01 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Slides

Tue, 05 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

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Documentation

Building a bacteria-based smelling mobile robot

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Cell-based biosensors allow to simply and selectively sense diverse chemical signals; yet their applications are limited by the minutes-to-hours timescale of gene transcription and translation. To generate a real-time output, we exploit the much faster changes in protein interaction and bacterial movement. Based on the E. coli Tar chemotaxis receptor, we developed two sensing systems: detecting DNA binding of a transcription factor via split luciferase complementation, and imaging the movement of bacteria at the single-cell level. The sensory domain of Tar can be modified to recognize different molecules, extending the applicability of the sensor. To show the advances brought by our system we built AROMA, an autonomous robot that is directly driven by the onboard biosensor. The robot detects the concentration of volatile compounds in air by imaging the bacterial response with a microscope built in-house. This enables our device to locate the source of pollutants or chemical hazards.

Autonomous Electric Race Car Design

Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000