Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Jan Stumpf is a pioneering roboticist whose work has fundamentally advanced autonomous aerial and underwater systems. His research centers on the design, control, and navigation of micro flying robots and underwater vehicles, with a particular focus on vision-based autonomy in GPS-denied environments. Stumpf’s landmark contributions include the development of the first vision-controlled micro helicopters capable of autonomous navigation and mapping without GPS, a breakthrough documented in his most-cited paper (297 citations). He also achieved a critical milestone in quadcopter performance by designing a platform that broke the micro aerial vehicle endurance record using laser power beaming. His work on the AMOUR V underwater robot (71 citations) demonstrated novel hovering capabilities and dynamic payload handling for marine missions. As a key contributor to the EU-funded SFly project, Stumpf advanced swarm robotics by enabling multiple micro aerial vehicles to collaboratively map unknown environments. His 2007 paper on a 1 kHz-controlled quadcopter (244 citations) set new standards for stability and energy efficiency in small-scale flight. Stumpf’s innovations continue to influence search and rescue, environmental monitoring, and security surveillance applications.