Gerhard Tröster

Gerhard Tröster is an electrical engineer whose research connects activity recognition and medical monitoring with wearable systems. He studied electrical engineering in Darmstadt and Karlsruhe, earned a doctorate at TU Darmstadt in 1984, and spent eight years at Telefunken researching components for ISDN and digital phones. At ETH Zurich, he became a professor of electronics in 1993 and led research on context detection, wearable sensor networks and smart textiles; he coauthored the AMON medical monitor and a 2009 eye-movement activity-recognition study. He served as an ETH ombudsperson from April 2018 to March 2022, retired in July 2018 after 25 years as a professor, and mentored a Swiss Study Foundation group in May 2022. As of October 2026, he is Professor Emeritus at ETH Zurich and D-ITET Research Integrity Advisor.

Now at: ETH Zurich
Born: 1953
Works: 793
Citations: 29,785
h-index: 86
Badges: Bridge
Loyal

Years link to their sources. Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

By 1993

Electrical engineering and Telefunken

He studies electrical engineering in Darmstadt and Karlsruhe and earns a doctorate in analog integrated-circuit design at TU Darmstadt in 1984. He spends eight years at Telefunken in Heilbronn researching components for ISDN and digital mobile phones.
1993–2018

Professor at ETH Zurich

He becomes a Full Professor of Electronics at ETH Zurich in 1993 and heads its Digital Systems & Wearable Computing Lab through July 2018. His group develops methods to detect physical, mental and social context, tests wearable sensor networks and models smart textiles.
2004

AMON's medical monitor

In 2004, he coauthors the AMON paper on a wearable telemedical monitor for high-risk cardiac and respiratory patients. The system collects and evaluates vital signs, detects medical emergencies and connects to a medical center.
2009

Eye movement activity recognition

In 2009, he coauthors “Eye Movement Analysis for Activity Recognition,” which uses 90 features from wearable eye-movement data and combines feature selection with a support vector machine. An eight-person office study reports 76.1% average precision and 70.5% recall.
April 2018–March 2022

ETH ombudsperson

He serves a four-year term as an ETH ombudsperson from April 2018 through March 2022.
July 2018

Retiring after 25 years

He retires in July 2018 after 25 years as a professor, having graduated 61 PhD students.
May 2022

Mentoring at the Swiss Study Foundation

In May 2022, he mentors a group at the Swiss Study Foundation.
As of October 2026

Research integrity advisor

He is Professor Emeritus at ETH Zurich and D-ITET Research Integrity Advisor, where he advises on authorship, plagiarism and good scientific practice.