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About

Hendrik Kolvenbach is a leading researcher in legged robotics, with a particular focus on autonomous locomotion in extreme and unstructured environments, planetary exploration, and haptic sensing. His most celebrated contribution is the ANYmal robot platform, a rugged quadrupedal system designed for harsh environments that has accumulated over 330 citations and become a landmark reference in field robotics. Building on this foundation, Kolvenbach pioneered the SpaceBok project, developing a quadrupedal robot purpose-built for low-gravity celestial exploration, with follow-on work investigating jumping locomotion on the Moon and Mars — an innovative approach to overcoming the mobility limitations that have long constrained wheeled planetary rovers. His research spans an impressive breadth: from applying deep reinforcement learning for cat-like aerial reorientation in low gravity, to developing haptic soil inspection methods for planetary surfaces, to enabling legged robots to autonomously assess sewer deterioration. His open-source Vitruvio toolbox further reflects a commitment to community-driven progress in robot design optimization. With his ten most-cited papers collectively amassing nearly 1,000 citations, Kolvenbach's work has profoundly shaped how the robotics community envisions deploying autonomous legged systems in environments — whether subterranean, extraterrestrial, or otherwise — where conventional robots simply cannot venture.