Volker Grabe
Papers
3
Total Citations
249
H-Index
3
About
Volker Grabe is a leading researcher in aerial robotics, specializing in vision-based control and multi-robot coordination for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). His work focuses on enabling autonomous flight without reliance on external infrastructure, using on-board sensors for real-time navigation. Grabe made foundational contributions to optical-flow-based velocity estimation and closed-loop control of quadrotors, demonstrating that small UAVs could achieve full autonomy using only on-board computational power—a breakthrough that reduced dependence on ground stations. His 2012 paper on this topic has garnered 88 citations, while his robust self-motion estimation work (50 citations) further advanced visual odometry for agile flight. In multi-robot systems, Grabe pioneered the modeling and control of bearing formations, where UAVs maintain relative-angle constraints without explicit position data, a critical capability for scalable swarms (111 citations). Collectively, his work bridges computer vision and control theory, enabling lightweight, independent aerial robots for applications in search-and-rescue, environmental monitoring, and infrastructure inspection. Grabe’s research remains highly influential in the push toward fully autonomous, vision-guided micro aerial vehicles.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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- 3Robust optical-flow based self-motion estimation for a quadrotor UAV50 citations · 2012