Dr. Matthias Max Hofer

Short Academic Biography

Matthias received his Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering and his Master degree in Robotics, Systems and Control from ETH in 2013 and 2015, respectively. In his Master thesis, he worked on Approximative Model Predictive Control of an aerial vehicle, which was awarded an ETH medal 2016. After two temporary employments as a research assistant at EPFL and EMPA Dübendorf, he is now pursuing a PhD at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control under the supervision of Professor Raffaello D'Andrea. His main research interests include the design and development of soft robotic systems, black-box system identification, learning control and vision-based state estimation.

Student Supervision

• Yaohui Huang: Learning-based Model Predictive Control (Master Thesis, 2020), Awarded ETH medal, Willi Studer Prize for the Best Master’s Degree, ETEL Master Award and SGA (Swiss Society for Automatic Control) prize
• Jasan Zughaibi: Design Modeling and Control of a Spherical Soft Robotic Arm for Pick and Place Applications (Master Thesis, 2020), Awarded ETEL Master Award and Hans-Eggenberger prize
• Thomas van de Wiel: Sim-to-Real Transfer Approaches for a Soft Inflatable Robotic Arm (Semester Project, 2019)
  
• Niklas Funk: Grey and Black Box Model Identification for Control (Semester Project, 2019)
• Peter Werner: Time of Flight and Camera Based Sensing for an Air driven Linear Soft Actuator (Bachelor Thesis, 2019, jointly supervised with Carlo Sferrazza), Awarded SGA (Swiss Society for Automatic Control) prize
• Peter Werner: Sensing Solutions for Soft Robotics (Studies on Mechatronics, 2019, jointly supervised with Carlo Sferrazza)
• Hong Fai Lau: 3D-Printed Inflatable Actuators (Semester Project, 2018)
  
• Lukas Spannagl: Iterative Learning Control for Accurate Position Tracking with a Soft Robotic Arm (Bachelor Thesis, 2018), Awarded SGA (Swiss Society for Automatic Control) prize
  
• Andrea Buono: Hardware Integration and System Identification (Internship, 2017)

Teaching

• Recursive Estimation, Spring 2021, teaching assistant
  
• Recursive Estimation, Spring 2020, teaching assistant
  
• Recursive Estimation, Spring 2019, teaching assistant
  
• Recursive Estimation, Spring 2018, teaching assistant

Journal Publications

• M. Hofer, J. Zughaibi and R. D’Andrea, Design and control of an inflatable spherical robotic arm for pick and place applications, 2021, external page link
• M. Hofer, C. Sferrazza, R. D'Andrea, A Vision-based Sensing Approach for a Spherical Soft Robotic Arm, 2021, external page link
• M. Hofer, R. D'Andrea, Design, fabrication, modeling and control of a fabric-based spherical robotic arm, Mechatronics 2020, external page link
• Wenbo Ju, Meike V. F. Heinz, Lorenzo Pusterla, Matthias Hofer, Benjamin Fumey, Roberto Castiglioni, Marco Pagani, Corsin Battaglia, and Ulrich F. Vogt, "Lab-Scale Alkaline Water Electrolyzer for Bridging Material Fundamentals with Realistic Operation", ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering 2018, Download link (PDF, 2.5 MB)
  

Conference Publications

• Y. Huang, M. Hofer and R. D'Andrea, Offset-free Model Predictive Control: A Ball Catching Application with a Spherical Soft Robotic Arm, 2021, external page link
• J. Zughaibi, M. Hofer and R. D'Andrea, A Fast and Reliable Pick-​and-Place Application with a Spherical Soft Robotic Arm, 2020, external page link
  
• P. Werner, M. Hofer, C. Sferrazza and R. D'Andrea, Vision-​Based Proprioceptive Sensing: Tip Position Estimation for a Soft Inflatable Bellow Actuator, Proceedings of the Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2020, Download pdf (PDF, 5.2 MB)
  
• M. Hofer, L. Spannagl, and R. D'Andrea, Iterative Learning Control for Fast and Accurate Position Tracking with a Soft Robotic Arm, Proceedings of the Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2019, Download link (PDF, 5 MB)
• M. Hofer, and R. D'Andrea, Design, Modeling and Control of a Soft Robotic Arm, Proceedings of the Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2018, pdfDownload (PDF, 3.2 MB)
• M. Hofer, M. Muehlebach, and R. D'Andrea, Application of an Approximate Model Predictive Control Scheme on an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Proceedings of the Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2016, Download link (PDF, 661 KB)

Miscellaneous

• M. Hofer, Public Speaking to Get New Perspective on Your Research, ETH Ambassadors Blog, 2022, link
• M. Hofer, speaker, TEDxZurich, 2021, external page link
  
• M. Hofer, Autonomy Talks (ETH Zurich), 2021, external page link
• Beyond Soft Robotics Workshop at ICRA 2020, Futuristic Demo, Download link (PDF, 4.1 MB)