Joachim Hertzberg

Timeline

1. 1977–1986

   Computer science at Bonn

   Born in Kiel in 1958, he studies computer science, with law as a secondary subject, at the Technical University of Braunschweig and the University of Bonn from 1977 to 1982. He earns a doctorate (Dr. rer. nat.) in computer science at Bonn in 1986.

2. 1986–1992

   Planning research at GMD

   He joins GMD, the German National Research Center for Information Technology, as a research scientist in 1986. In 1989, he publishes Planen, a German-language introduction to the plan-generation methods of AI, and an IJCAI-89 paper with A. Horz on detecting and resolving conflicts in nonlinear plans. GMD gives him its ICSI Award for outstanding scientific research in 1992.

3. 1993–1999

   Berkeley, Dortmund and sewer robots

   In 1993, he is a guest researcher at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, and from 1993 to 1994 he is a substitute professor in the Computer Science Faculty at Dortmund University. He completes his habilitation in computer science at Hamburg University in 1995, and in 1999 he coauthors a journal paper on MAKRO, a project on autonomous sewer robots.

4. 1999–2004

   Robot control at Fraunhofer AIS

   From 1999 to 2004, he heads the Robot Control Architectures department at AIS, and after GMD merges with the Fraunhofer Society in 2001 he works at the Fraunhofer Institute for Autonomous Intelligent Systems. He co-chairs the AIPS 2002 planning conference in Toulouse in April 2002 and coedits its proceedings with Malik Ghallab and Paolo Traverso. In October 2003, he and Hartmut Surmann, Andreas Nüchter and Kai Lingemann describe Kurt3D, an autonomous mobile robot whose 3D laser scanner produces geometric 3D maps with semantic information.

5. 2004–2009

   Professor at Osnabrück

   In September 2004, he becomes professor of computer science for knowledge-based systems at the University of Osnabrück. He is dean of the School of Mathematics and Computer Science from 2007 to 2009, and in 2008 he shares in the Award for Excellence for the Springer Handbook of Robotics as a chapter coauthor.

6. 2011–2022

   Building DFKI Niedersachsen

   In 2011, a new branch of the DFKI Robotics Innovation Center Bremen opens at the University of Osnabrück under his direction, and his group's research on plan-based robot control gives its research department its name. DFKI Niedersachsen becomes a permanent DFKI location in July 2022, and he becomes its inaugural managing director.

7. 2014

   A EurAI fellowship

   He becomes a fellow of the European Association for Artificial Intelligence (EurAI, formerly ECCAI) in 2014, a lifetime award. The fellows program honors up to 3% of the total membership of EurAI's member societies.

8. Since October 2024

   Retirement from Osnabrück

   He retires from his Osnabrück professorship in October 2024, after heading DFKI's Plan-Based Robot Control department from 2011 to 2024, and becomes a retired professor of computer science at the university. In 2025, he coauthors a study of acting and planning with hierarchical operational models on a mobile robot, with Malik Ghallab, Dana Nau and Paolo Traverso among the coauthors.