Hermann Wagner

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About

Hermann Wagner is a leading researcher in biologically inspired robotics, with a primary focus on sound localization and active vision systems. His work bridges the gap between neuroethology and engineering, drawing heavily from the barn owl’s remarkable auditory and visual systems. Wagner’s major contributions include developing a real-time algorithm for azimuthal sound localization using two microphones, inspired by the barn owl’s computation of interaural time differences (26 citations). This work, published in 2007, demonstrated a practical, biologically plausible method for robots to localize sound sources in dynamic environments. He further advanced the field by combining sound localization with laser-based object recognition for mobile service robots (9 citations). Wagner also led the development of the Video Conference Tool Robot (ViCToR), a telepresence platform that integrates these sensory capabilities (11 citations). More recently, his research has explored biokinematics, using the barn owl’s distinctive head movements—side-to-side peering motions that compensate for their fixed eyes—as a model for robotic active vision systems (7 citations). Through these contributions, Wagner has established himself as a key figure in creating more perceptive, autonomous robots for human environments.