Group van de Molengraft focusses on the design of autonomous systems that are robust-by-design against the variations that can occur during task execution.

Design of autonomous systems that can deal with the variations in their surrounding world by exploiting models. Develop world modelling and control methods at all task-relevant levels, from multi-robot collaboration to low-level motion control of drive wheels.

Group van de Molengraft focusses on the design of autonomous systems that are robust-by-design against the variations that can occur during task execution. The research aims at developing methods for world modelling that exploit the available prior knowledge on task, environment and robot. Such world models allow for robust decision making and control during task execution. A specific aspect of our approach is “laziness”: use feedforward control when possible, use feedback control when needed. Open-loop guarded motion is used where world-model based monitors guard the important conditions and trigger transition events.

The group closely collaborates with national and international industrial and academic partners with demonstrators in different domains such as warehouse robotics, farm and agri-robotics, healthcare, autonomous driving, and the RoboCup competitions (MSL soccer and @Home, eightfold and twofold world champion, respectively).