Biographical note

Dr. Qiang Li received his PhD in Pattern Recognition and Intelligence Systems from Shenyang Institute of Automation(SIA), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2010. He was awarded the stipend from the Honda Research Institute and started his postdoctoral researching at CoR-Lab of Bielefeld University from 2009 to 2012. Currently, he is a Project Investigator of ”DEXMAN” sponsored by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft(DFG) and working in the neuroinformatics group at Bielefeld University. His research interests include: tactile servoing and recognition, sensory-based robotic dexterous manipulation and robotic calibration and dynamic control. He serves as Associate Editor in International Journal of Humanoid Robotics (Robotics) and Complex & Intelligent Systems (AI) and Associated Editor for top level robotics conferences—ICRA, IROS, Humanoids. Dr Shan Luo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering at King’s College London, where he leads the Robot Perception Lab (RPL). Shan received a Ph.D. from King’s College London for his work on robotic perception through tactile images. In 2016, he visited the MIT Computer and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). He worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Leeds and Harvard University, followed by a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) position at the University of Liverpool from 2018 to 2021. His current research focuses on developing intelligent robots capable of safe and agile interaction with the physical environment. His primary interests lie in visuo-tactile sensors, machine learning models for visual and tactile representation learning, and robotic manipulation of challenging objects like deformable and transparent items. He received the EPSRC New Investigator Award in 2021 and a UK-RAS Early Career Award in 2023. Prof. Dr. Zhaopeng Chen is CEO and founder of Agile Robots AG, which is one of the fastest growing high-tec robotics companies in Germany. He is also a professor in Department of Informatics, University of Hamburg, serving as part of the faculty of Mathematics, Informatics, and Natural Sciences. He was working as Lab Deputy Head in Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, German Aerospace Center (DLR) for over 10 years. He was leading and working on many robotics projects, including DLRESA Mars rover ground test robotic system, DLR/HIT II dexterous robotic hand system, DLR robot astronaut Rollin’ Justin, et al. The robot he designed has been sent to the space station and is working till now. Prof. Dr. Chen has published over 30 academic papers, and received 2 best paper rewards. He is currently leading 2 European Projects, and 1 DFG projects, and supervising PhD students. Dr. Chenguang Yang is a Professor of Robotics with University of the West of England, and leader of Robot Teleoperation Group at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. degree in control engineering from the National University of Singapore in 2010, and postdoctoral training in human robotics from Imperial College London, U.K. His research interests lie in human–robot interaction and intelligent system design. Dr. Yang was awarded the EU Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship, the U.K. EPSRC UKRI Innovation Fellowship, and the Best Paper Award of IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS as well as over ten international conference best paper awards. He is a Co-Chair of the Technical Committee on Bio-Mechatronics and Bio-Robotics Systems, IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society; and a Co-Chair of the Technical Committee on Collaborative Automation for Flexible Manufacturing, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. He serves as an Associate Editor of a number of IEEE Transactions and other international leading journals. Jianwei Zhang is professor and director of TAMS, Department of Informatics, Universität Hamburg, Germany. He is Distinguised Visiting Professor of Tsinghua University, China. He received both his Bachelor of Engineering (1986, with Distinction) and Master of Engineering (1989) at the Department of Computer Science of Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, his PhD (1994) at the Institute of Real-Time Computer Systems and Robotics, Department of Computer Science, University of Karlsruhe, Germany, and Habilitation (2000) at the Faculty of Technology, University of Bielefeld, Germany. His research interests are sensor fusion, intelligent robotics and multimodal machine learning, cognitive computing of Industry4.0, etc. In these areas he has published about 400 journal and conference papers, technical reports, six book chapters and three research monographs. He is the coordinator of the DFG/NSFC Transregional Collaborative Research Centre SFB/TRR169 “Crossmodal Learning”, and several EU robotics projects. He has received multiple best paper awards. He is the General Chairs of IEEE MFI 2012, IEEE/RSJ IROS 2015, and the International Symposium of Human-Centered Robotics and Systems 2018. Jianwei Zhang is life-long Academician of Academy of Sciences in Hamburg.