Wolfram Burgard
University of Freiburg, University of Bonn, SRI International, Lutheran University of Applied Sciences Nuremberg, Toyota Research Institute, Intelligent Systems Research (United States), Imperial College London, Georg Simon Ohm University of Applied Sciences Nuremberg, University of Education Freiburg, University of Technology Nuremberg, Yonsei University, Carnegie Mellon University, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Brain (Germany), Toyota Motor Corporation (Switzerland), Protestant University of Applied Sciences Freiburg
Papers
502
Total Citations
61,287
H-Index
106
About
Wolfram Burgard is a preeminent figure in autonomous robotics, whose research has fundamentally shaped how mobile robots perceive, navigate, and map their environments. His work spans probabilistic robotics, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), collision avoidance, and multi-robot coordination — areas in which he has produced some of the most influential contributions in the field. Burgard's impact is perhaps best captured through his co-authorship of *Probabilistic Robotics* (2005), a foundational text that unified stochastic approaches to robot perception and control. His pioneering work on Monte Carlo localization gave robots a robust, real-time method for self-positioning in complex environments, accumulating nearly 3,400 combined citations across related publications. The dynamic window approach to collision avoidance, with over 3,600 citations, remains a cornerstone of real-time motion planning. His RGB-D SLAM benchmark (3,918 citations) and the OctoMap framework (2,827 citations) have become indispensable tools for 3D environment modeling. Through graph-based SLAM tutorials, the widely adopted g2o optimization framework, and research into coordinated multi-robot exploration, Burgard has consistently bridged theoretical rigor with practical robotics applications, cementing his legacy as one of the discipline's most consequential researchers.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1A benchmark for the evaluation of RGB-D SLAM systems3,918 citations · 2012
- 2The dynamic window approach to collision avoidance3,622 citations · 1997
- 3OctoMap: an efficient probabilistic 3D mapping framework based on octrees2,827 citations · 2013
- 4Improved Techniques for Grid Mapping With Rao-Blackwellized Particle Filters2,412 citations · 2007
- 5G<sup>2</sup>o: A general framework for graph optimization1,966 citations · 2011
- 6Robust Monte Carlo localization for mobile robots1,803 citations · 2001
- 7Monte Carlo localization for mobile robots1,613 citations · 2003
- 8Probabilistic Robotics (Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Agents)1,451 citations · 2005
- 9A Tutorial on Graph-Based SLAM1,300 citations · 2010
- 10Coordinated multi-robot exploration1,146 citations · 2005