Alexander Bierbaum
Papers
13
Total Citations
821
H-Index
9
About
Alexander Bierbaum is a leading figure in humanoid robotics, whose work centers on enabling robots to operate dexterously and autonomously within human-centered environments. His major contributions lie at the intersection of anthropomorphic hand design, sensory-motor control, and haptic exploration. He was instrumental in developing the ARMAR-III humanoid platform (387 citations) and the FRH-4 hand (100 citations), a novel hybrid that combines a humanoid appearance with the precision of a robotic gripper. Bierbaum pioneered tactile exploration strategies using dynamic potential fields, allowing five-fingered hands to recover 3D shapes and extract grasp affordances from sparse, noisy contact data—a critical step toward robust object manipulation. He also co-created the OpenGRASP benchmarking suite, a standardized software environment for reproducible evaluation of grasping algorithms. With over 800 total citations across his most-cited works, Bierbaum’s research has laid essential groundwork for humanoid robots to perceive, touch, and manipulate objects as naturally as humans do.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1ARMAR-III: An Integrated Humanoid Platform for Sensory-Motor Control387 citations · 2006
- 2Toward humanoid manipulation in human-centred environments117 citations · 2007
- 3A new anthropomorphic robotic hand100 citations · 2008
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- 8Force position control for a pneumatic anthropomorphic hand19 citations · 2009
- 9Haptic exploration for 3D shape reconstruction using five-finger hands14 citations · 2007
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