About

Marko Bjelonic (born 1990 in Banja Luka, Yugoslavia) is an enthusiastic roboticist and future entrepreneur. During his doctoral degree at ETH Zurich under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Marco Hutter (ETH Zurich, Prof. Dr. Stelian Coros (ETH Zurich), and Prof. Dr. Sangbae Kim (MIT in Boston), Marko developed optimization-based methods focusing on motion control and planning for wheeled-legged robots over challenging terrain (2017 - 2021), which has more than a million views through prestigious news articles like Reuters, CNN, BBC News, IEEE Spectrum and more. Marko holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from TU Darmstadt, Germany (2010 - 2013, 2013 - 2016). He spent the first year of his Master's degree at the Cybernetics department of NTNU in Trondheim, Norway (2013 - 2014). During his studies, he worked at the Mercedes-AMG GmbH in Affalterbach (Germany), Fraunhofer LBF in Darmstadt (Germany), and most notably at CSIRO in Brisbane (Australia) with Dr. Alberto Elfes and Dr. Navinda Kottege on multi-legged robots. Previous work during his Master's thesis consists of the development of the hexapod robot, Weaver, including its state estimation, perception, autonomy, and control algorithms. In 2020, he managed his family owned business with an annual sales of 350K USD and negotiated a company sale in 2021.

Education

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Mar 2021 - Ongoing

Postdoc in Robotics, ETH Zurich (Switzerland)

Mar 2017 - Mar 2021

PhD in Robotics, ETH Zurich (Switzerland)

Jul 2014 - Aug 2016

M. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Darmstadt (Germany)

Aug 2013 - July 2014

M. Sc. in Engineering (Exchange), NTNU in Trondheim (Norway)

Oct 2010 - Oct 2013

B. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Darmstadt (Germany)

Professional Career

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Sep 2016 - Ongoing

Roboticist, ETH Zurich (Switzerland)

Jul 2020 - Jul 2021

Entrepreneur (annual sales of 350K USD and company sale), Mannheim (Germany)

Mar 2017 - Mar 2021

Researcher, NCCR Digital Fabrication (Switzerland)

Mar 2017 - Mar 2021

Researcher, NCCR Robotics (Switzerland)

Nov 2015 - Aug 2016

Postgraduate Student at Autonomous Systems Lab of CSIRO in Brisbane (Australia)

May 2015 - Oct 2015

Research Assistant at Fraunhofer LBF in Darmstadt (Germany)

Jun 2014 - Feb 2015

Engineering Intern at Mercedes-AMG GmbH in Affalterbach (Germany)

Oct 2008 - Oct 2012

Summer Job at Daimler AG, PKI Zerspanungstechnik GmbH, Kantwerg Isoliertechnik GmbH and Unilever GmbH in Mannheim (Germany)

Talks, Presentations and Media Coverage

June 2021

Workshop on "Legged Robots" at ICRA 2021, Xi' an, China

Nov 2020

Podcast about "Wheeled-legged Robots" by Marwa ElDiwiny featured at the Soft Robotic Podcast: Soundcloud, iTunes, Google Podcast, Spotify

Oct 2020

Media coverage of our new RA-L publication at Reuters, IEEE Spectrum, CNN, yahoo! news, Hackaday, Interesting Engineering, cnBeta, NEW ATLAS, Inceptive Mind, KIJK, La Presse, World Energy Trade, whatnext, Ridus, Pop Mech, Nacional, Finance Sina

July 2020

Workshop on "Real-world Deployment of Legged Robots" at ICRA 2020, Paris, France

May 2020

Live presentation at ICRA 2020 "Hybrid Locomotion for Wheeled-Legged Robots", Paris, France

Sep 2019

Live demonstration "Roller-Walking ANYmal" at Digital Day 2019, Zurich, Switzerland

Sep 2019

ANYmal on wheels with arm featured on armasuisse promotion video, Zurich, Switzerland

July 2019

Talk at Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at University of Washington, invited by Dieter Fox, Seattle, USA

May 2019

Talk at Robotics at Google, invited by Ken Caluwaerts, New York, USA

May 2019

Talk at Boston Dynamics, invited by Kevin Blankespoor, Waltham, USA

May 2019

Talk at Biomimetics Robotics Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), invited by Sangbae Kim, Cambridge, USA

Jan 2019

Talk at Autonomous Systems Group at Apple, invited by Juergen Wiest, Zurich, Switzerland

May 2019

Organizer of workshop “Towards Real-World Deployment of Legged Robots” at ICRA 2019, Montreal, Canada

May 2019

Presenting paper “Keep Rollin'- Whole-Body Motion Control and Planning for Wheeled Quadrupedal Robots” at IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Montreal , Canada

Dec 2018

Interview with RTL Aktuell “ANYmal shows its skills on TV”, Zurich, Switzerland

Oct 2018

Presenting paper “Skating with a force controlled quadrupedal robot” at IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Madrid , Spain

Oct 2018

Presenting paper “An Adaptive Landing Gear for Extending the Operational Range of Helicopters” at IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Madrid , Spain

Mar 2018

Interview with BBC News about “Rollerskating robot to the rescue”, Zurich, Switzerland

May 2017

Presenting paper “Autonomous Navigation of Hexapod Robots with Vision-based Controller Adaptation” at IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Marina Bay Sands , Singapore

Oct 2016

Presenting paper “Terrain-dependant Control of Hexapod Robots using Vision” at International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER), Tokyo, Japan

Oct 2016

Presenting paper “Proprioceptive control of an over-actuated hexapod robot in unstructured terrain” at IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Deajeon, South Korea

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Made by Marko Bjelonic