Hendrik Van Brussel

Timeline

1. 1944–1973

   Leuven doctorate and Bandung

   Born in Ypres in 1944, he earns a technical engineering degree in mechanical engineering in Ostend in 1965, then a master's in electronic engineering in 1968 and a PhD in 1971 at KU Leuven, with a thesis on the dynamics of the cutting process. From 1971 to 1973, he works at the Metal Industries Development Centre in Bandung, Indonesia, and is an associate professor at Institut Teknologi Bandung.

2. 1978–1979

   An active compliant wrist

   Back at KU Leuven, he takes up force-controlled robotics and develops the active adaptive compliant wrist in 1978, presenting it at the ISIR conference in Washington in 1979. With Joris De Schutter, he develops active force feedback for robotic assembly, and the work leads to the active adaptive compliant robot, an early form of impedance control.

3. 1980–2010

   Leading Leuven's PMA division

   He becomes a full professor in 1980 and heads KU Leuven's PMA division (Production Engineering, Machine Design and Automation) from 1980 to 1993 and from 2001 to 2003, then chairs it from 2003 to 2010. He chairs the Department of Mechanical Engineering from 1993 to 2001 and leads Interuniversity Attraction Pole projects on advanced mechatronic systems from 1987 to 2006. From 2007 to 2009, he is president of euspen, the European Society for Precision Engineering and Nanotechnology.

4. 1990–1995

   Robots without artificial landmarks

   In 1990, he starts a project with an Antwerp maker of warehouse AGVs on mobile robots that navigate without artificial landmarks, and his lab has a freely navigating robot by 1995. His group extends the work to behaviour-based mobile manipulation and to intelligent wheelchairs that use Bayesian methods to infer the driver's intention and share autonomy with the driver.

5. 1990–1998

   The PROSA holonic architecture

   His group takes part in Japan's Intelligent Manufacturing Systems programme, launched in 1990, with a project on holonic manufacturing systems, in which autonomous agents called holons cooperate toward a shared goal. In 1998, he and his coauthors publish PROSA, a reference architecture built from product, resource, order and staff holons. He also applies biologically inspired control, such as pheromones in ant colonies, to complex manufacturing systems.

6. 2008–2018

   Engelberger, NAE and euspen honours

   He receives the IFR's Joseph Engelberger Award in 2008. In 2009, the US National Academy of Engineering elects him a foreign associate for research in mechatronics and robotics applied to manufacturing and medical surgery and for designing holonic manufacturing systems. In 2018, euspen gives him a Lifetime Achievement Award at its 18th International Conference in Venice.

7. 2015–2017

   Design for the Unexpected

   In November 2015, he and Paul Valckenaers publish Design for the Unexpected, a book that presents holonic manufacturing as a decentralized multi-agent control framework and extends it to traffic, transport, services and health care. In 2017, the two describe how the PROSA architecture combines with a biologically inspired Delegate Multiagent System to coordinate holonic manufacturing execution systems.

8. As of October 2026

   Emeritus professor at KU Leuven

   In 2023, he coauthors a chapter on digital transformation, big data and artificial intelligence for the Academie Royale de Belgique book Serving Society. He is an emeritus professor with formal duties in KU Leuven's Robotics, Automation and Mechatronics unit and the founder of its robotics research group.