Matthias Luber

About

Matthias Luber is a leading researcher in human-aware robotics, with his work fundamentally shaping how robots perceive, track, and interact with people in shared spaces. His core research areas span people tracking, socially-aware navigation, and human-robot interaction. Luber’s most influential contribution is his pioneering application of social force models to human motion prediction for people tracking, detailed in his 2010 paper (326 citations), which enabled robots to anticipate complex pedestrian behaviors rather than assuming simple constant velocity. He further advanced the field through innovative multi-sensor fusion, developing robust 3D people detection and tracking methods using RGB-D data (172 citations) and laser range data with multi-hypothesis leg-tracking (147 citations). His work on socially-aware robot navigation (165 citations) established learning-based approaches that balance objective travel efficiency with subjective social comfort. Luber also explored robot-specific emotional body language (70 citations) and place-dependent tracking (62 citations), demonstrating how environmental context influences human motion patterns. With over 1,100 total citations across his top papers, Luber’s research has become foundational for service robots, autonomous vehicles, and any system requiring safe, socially competent navigation in human environments.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   People tracking with human motion predictions from social forces

   326 citations · 2010
2. 2
   People tracking in RGB-D data with on-line boosted target models

   172 citations · 2011
3. 3
   Socially-aware robot navigation: A learning approach

   165 citations · 2012
4. 4
   Efficient people tracking in laser range data using a multi-hypothesis leg-tracker with adaptive occlusion probabilities

   147 citations · 2008
5. 5
   Tracking people in 3D using a bottom-up top-down detector

   104 citations · 2011
6. 6
   Robot-specific social cues in emotional body language

   70 citations · 2012
7. 7
   Place-dependent people tracking

   62 citations · 2011
8. 8
   Multi-Hypothesis Social Grouping and Tracking for Mobile Robots

   32 citations · 2013
9. 9
   Range-Based People Detection and Tracking for Socially Enabled Service Robots

   30 citations · 2012
10. 10
    Classifying dynamic objects

    21 citations · 2009

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links