Gerd Hirzinger

Who is Gerd Hirzinger?

Gerd Hirzinger received his Dipl.-Ing. degree and the doctor’s degree from the Technical University of Munich, in 1969 and 1974 respectively. In 1969 he joined DLR where he first worked on fast digital control systems. 1976 he became head of the automation and robotics laboratory of DLR, where he and his co-workers soon got several awards for innovative technology transfer from robotics research to applications. In 1991 he received a joint professorship from the Technical University of Munich, and in 2003 an honorary professorship at the Harbin Institute of Technology in China.

He has been since 1992 director at the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the DLR German Aerospace Center which is one of the largest and most acknowledged institutes in the field worldwide, including not only robot development for space and terrestrial applications, but also aircraft control and optimization, vehicle technology and medical technology. He has published more than 600 papers in robotics, mainly on robot sensing, sensory feedback, mechatronics, man-machine interfaces, telerobotics and space robotics. He was prime investigator of the space robot technology experiment ROTEX, the first remotely controlled robot in space, which flew onboard shuttle COLUMBIA in April 93. For many years he has been chairman of the German council on robot control and administrative committee member of the IEEE Society on Robotics and Automation. He is now member of the IEEE fellow award committee.