Papers
12
Total Citations
342
H-Index
8
About
Marcel Kaufmann is a leading roboticist whose research focuses on multi-robot autonomy, swarm intelligence, and resilient exploration in extreme environments. He is best known for his pivotal role in Team CoSTAR, which won Phase II of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge—a competition demanding robust autonomy in GPS-denied, hazardous tunnels and urban ruins. His highly cited work on the NeBula architecture (over 150 combined citations) integrates advanced perception, planning, and communication algorithms to enable teams of robots to operate without human intervention. Kaufmann has also made foundational contributions to connectivity maintenance in robot swarms, developing control laws that keep fallible robots linked while covering large areas—work cited over 100 times. Beyond subterranean challenges, he has applied swarm intelligence to planetary exploration, proposing autonomous teams for Martian cave surveys. His recent innovations include ROSA, an AI-powered agent that simplifies robot operation for non-experts, and Copilot MIKE, an autonomous assistant for multi-robot cave exploration. With a publication record spanning top venues in robotics and space science, Kaufmann’s work is shaping the future of autonomous exploration in the most inaccessible places on Earth and beyond.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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- 3Robust Area Coverage with Connectivity Maintenance48 citations · 2019
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- 5Robust connectivity maintenance for fallible robots30 citations · 2018
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- 7Self-optimization of resilient topologies for fallible multi-robots17 citations · 2019
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