Wolfgang Hönig

Robotics Researcher

Wolfgang Hoenig (Copyright: Christian Kielmann)

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I am an assistant professor (tenure-track) at TU Berlin heading the Intelligent Multi-Robot Coordination Lab. Previously, I was an independent junior research group leader at TU Berlin and before that I was a postdoctoral scholar at the Department of Aerospace, California Institute of Technology, advised by Soon-Jo Chung. I hold a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the the University of Southern California, where I was advised by Nora Ayanian. My research focuses on enabling large teams of physical robots to collaboratively solve real-world tasks, using tools from informed search, optimization, and machine learning.

In my free time, I enjoy hiking, hanging out in a hammock, and playing the ukulele.

Academic Experience

Assistant Professor, Computer Science, TU Berlin 2023 - now.
Independent Junior Research Group Leader, Computer Science, TU Berlin 2021 - 2023.
Postdoc, Aerospace, Caltech 2019 - 2020.
Ph.D. Student, Computer Science, USC 2014 - 2019.
Diploma Student (M.S. equivalent), Computer Science, TU Dresden 2006 - 2012.

Industrial Experience

Visiting Research Scientist, Bitcraze AB 2021.
Research Scientist Intern, Amazon Robotics 2017.
Senior Software Engineer, NVIDIA 2012 - 2014.

Open-Source Code

Crazyswarm2

2021 - now

Co-author (with Kimberly McGuire) and maintainer

Framework to control Crazyflie 2.x quadrotors. The Crazyswarm is used at many universities worldwide to experimentally validate multi-robot systems algorithms. Written in C++ and Python and based on Crazyswarm.

Crazyswarm

2016 - 2021

Co-author (with J. A. Preiss) and maintainer

Framework to control 50+ Crazyflie 2.x quadrotors from a single PC. The Crazyswarm is used at many universities worldwide to experimentally validate multi-robot systems algorithms. Written in C++ and Python and based on crazyflie_ros.

libMultiRobotPlanning

2017 - now

Author and maintainer

Library and example applications for multi-robot path planning (CBS, ECBS, SIPP, and variants) and task assignment. Written in C++ (templated state/actions).

crazyflie_ros

2015 - 2021 (now integrated in Crazyswarm)

Author and maintainer

Robot Operating System (ROS) stack for the Crazyflie 1 and 2.x quadrotors. The stack provides low- and high-level interfaces, includes examples, and is described in a tutorial-style book chapter in detail. Written in C++ and Python.

Publications

Book Chapters and Journals

Efficient Optimization-based Cable Force Allocation for Geometric Control of Multiple Quadrotors Transporting a Payload

IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 2024

Khaled Wahba, Wolfgang Hönig

RLSS: real-time, decentralized, cooperative, networkless multi-robot trajectory planning using linear spatial separations

Autonomous Robots (AuRo), Special Issue "Robot Swarms in the Real World: from Design to Deployment", 2023

Baskın Şenbaşlar, Wolfgang Hönig, Nora Ayanian

Neural-Swarm2: Planning and Control of Heterogeneous Multirotor Swarms using Learned Interactions

IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 2021

Guanya Shi, Wolfgang Hönig, Xichen Shi, Yisong Yue, Soon-Jo Chung

Neural Tree Expansion for Multi-Robot Planning in Non-Cooperative Environments

IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 2021

Benjamin Rivière, Wolfgang Hönig, Matthew Anderson, Soon-Jo Chung

Hierarchical Task Assignment and Path Finding with Limited Communication for Robot Swarms

Applied Sciences, 2021

Dario Albani, Wolfgang Hönig, Daniele Nardi, Nora Ayanian, Vito Trianni

GLAS: Global-to-Local Safe Autonomy Synthesis for Multi-Robot Motion Planning with End-to-End Learning

IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 2020 Honorable Mention for Best RA-L paper in 2020.

Benjamin Rivière, Wolfgang Hönig, Yisong Yue, Soon-Jo Chung

Persistent and Robust Execution of MAPF Schedules in Warehouses

IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 2019

Wolfgang Hönig, Scott Kiesel, Andrew Tinka, Joseph W. Durham, Nora Ayanian

Trajectory Planning for Quadrotor Swarms

IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), Special Issue on Aerial Swarm Robotics, 2018

Wolfgang Hönig, James A. Preiss, T. K. Satish Kumar, Gaurav S. Sukhatme, Nora Ayanian

Flying Multiple UAVs Using ROS

Chapter in Robot Operating System (ROS): The Complete Reference (Volume 2), 2017

Wolfgang Hönig, Nora Ayanian

Overview: A Hierarchical Framework for Plan Generation and Execution in Multirobot Systems

IEEE Intelligent Systems, 2017

Hang Ma, Wolfgang Hönig, Liron Cohen, Tansel Uras, Hong Xu, T. K. Satish Kumar, Nora Ayanian, Sven Koenig

PIConGPU: A Fully Relativistic Particle-in-Cell Code for a GPU Cluster

IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, 2010

Heiko Burau, Renée Widera, Wolfgang Hönig, Guido Juckeland, Alexander Debus, Thomas Kluge, Ulrich Schramm, Tomas E Cowan, Roland Sauerbrey, Michael Bussmann

Conferences

db-CBS: Discontinuity-Bounded Conflict-Based Search for Multi-Robot Kinodynamic Motion Planning

Accepted at ICRA, 2024

Akmaral Moldagalieva, Joaquim Ortiz-Haro, Marc Toussaint, Wolfgang Hönig

Effort Level Search in Infinite Completion Trees with Application to Task-and-Motion Planning

Accepted at ICRA, 2024

Marc Toussaint, Joaquim Ortiz-Haro, Valentin N. Hartmann, Erez Karpas, Wolfgang Hönig

Model AI Assignment: Collective Intelligence from a Synthetic and Biological Perspective

Accepted at Symposium on Educational Advances in Artificial Intelligence (EAAI), 2024

Pia Bideau, David Bierbach, Wolfgang Hönig

Kidnapping Deep Learning-based Multirotors using Optimized Flying Adversarial Patches

International Symposium on Multi-Robot and Multi-Agent Systems (MRS), 2023

Pia Hanfeld, Khaled Wahba, Marina M.-C. Höhne, Michael Bussmann, Wolfgang Hönig

Virtual Omnidirectional Perception for Downwash Prediction within a Team of Nano Multirotors Flying in Close Proximity

International Symposium on Multi-Robot and Multi-Agent Systems (MRS), 2023

Akmaral Moldagalieva, Wolfgang Hönig

Sequence-of-Constraints MPC: Reactive Timing-Optimal Control of Sequential Manipulation

IEEE/RSJ international conference on intelligent robots and systems (IROS), 2022

Marc Toussaint, Jason Harris, Jung-Su Ha, Danny Driess, Wolfgang Hönig

db-A*: Discontinuity-bounded Search for Kinodynamic Mobile Robot Motion Planning

IEEE/RSJ international conference on intelligent robots and systems (IROS), 2022

Wolfgang Hönig, Joaquim Ortiz Haro, Marc Toussaint

Information-Based Guidance and Control Architecture for Multi-Spacecraft On-Orbit Inspection

AIAA Scitech 2021 Forum, 2021 Awarded best AIAA GNC Graduate Student Paper.

Yashwanth Kumar K. Nakka, Wolfgang Hönig, Changrak Choi, Alexei Harvard, Amir Rahmani, Soon-Jo Chung

Neural-Swarm: Decentralized Close-Proximity Multirotor Control Using Learned Interactions

IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2020

Guanya Shi, Wolfgang Hönig, Yisong Yue, Soon-Jo Chung

A Project on Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF)

AAAI Symposium on Educational Advances in Artificial Intelligence (EAAI-20), 2020

Paper with other AI assignments.

Wolfgang Hönig, Jiaoyang Li, Sven Koenig

Lifelong Path Planning with Kinematic Constraints for Multi-Agent Pickup and Delivery

AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 2019

Hang Ma, Wolfgang Hönig, T. K. Satish Kumar, Nora Ayanian, Sven Koenig

Sim-to-(Multi)-Real: Transfer of Low-Level Robust Control Policies to Multiple Quadrotors

IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2019

Artem Molchanov*, Tao Chen*, Wolfgang Hönig, James A. Preiss, Nora Ayanian, Gaurav S. Sukhatme

Summary: Distributed Task Assignment and Path Planning with Limited Communication for Robot Teams

International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS), 2019

Dario Albani*, Wolfgang Hönig*, Nora Ayanian, Daniele Nardi, Vito Trianni

Conflict-Based Search with Optimal Task Assignment

International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS), 2018

Wolfgang Hönig, Scott Kiesel, Andrew Tinka, Joseph W. Durham, Nora Ayanian

Trajectory Planning for Heterogeneous Robot Teams

IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2018

Mark Debord, Wolfgang Hönig, Nora Ayanian

Robust Trajectory Execution for Multi-robot Teams Using Distributed Real-time Replanning

International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS), 2018

Baskın Şenbaşlar, Wolfgang Hönig, Nora Ayanian

Crazyswarm: A large nano-quadcopter swarm

IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2017

James A. Preiss*, Wolfgang Hönig*, Gaurav S. Sukhatme, Nora Ayanian

Summary: Multi-Agent Path Finding with Kinematic Constraints

International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), 2017

Wolfgang Hönig, T. K. Satish Kumar, Liron Cohen, Hang Ma, Hong Xu, Nora Ayanian, Sven Koenig

Downwash-aware trajectory planning for large quadrotor teams

IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2017

James A. Preiss, Wolfgang Hönig, Nora Ayanian, Gaurav S. Sukhatme

Formation change for robot groups in occluded environments

IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2016

Wolfgang Hönig, T. K. Satish Kumar, Hang Ma, Sven Koenig, Nora Ayanian

Dynamic multi-target coverage with robotic cameras

IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2016

Wolfgang Hönig, Nora Ayanian

Multi-Agent Path Finding with Kinematic Constraints

International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS), 2016 Awarded best paper in robotics track.

Wolfgang Hönig, T. K. Satish Kumar, Liron Cohen, Hang Ma, Hong Xu, Nora Ayanian, Sven Koenig

Mixed reality for robotics

IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2015

Wolfgang Hönig, Christina Milanes, Lisa Scaria, Thai Phan, Mark T. Bolas, Nora Ayanian

Workshops, Symposia, and Extended Abstracts

Motion Planning for Cable-Suspended Payload Transportation with a Team of Multirotors in Cluttered Environments, Future of Construction Workshop at ICRA, 2023, K. Wahba, W. Hönig
[ PDF, Video, Talk ]
Flying Adversarial Patches: Manipulating the Behavior of Deep Learning-based Autonomous Multirotors, Multi-Robot Learning Workshop at ICRA, 2023, P. Hanfeld, M. M.-C. Höhne, M. Bussmann, W. Hönig
[ Arxiv, GitHub ]
Comparison of Optimization-Based Methods for Energy-Optimal Quadrotor Motion Planning, Energy Efficient Aerial Robotic Systems Workshop at ICRA, 2023, W. Rehberg, J. Ortiz-Haro, M. Toussaint, W. Hönig
[ Arxiv, GitHub ]
Distributed Geometric and Optimization-based Control of Multiple Quadrotors for Cable-Suspended Payload Transport, Decision Making in Multi-Agent Systems Workshop at IROS, 2022, K. Wahba, W. Hönig
[ PDF, Video, GitHub ]
Benchmarking Sampling-, Search-, and Optimization-based Approaches for Time-Optimal Kinodynamic Mobile Robot Motion Planning, Evaluating Motion Planning Performance: Metrics, Tools, Datasets, and Experimental Design Workshop at IROS, 2022, W. Hönig, J. Ortiz-Haro, and M. Toussaint
[ PDF, GitHub ]
Lighthouse Positioning System: Dataset, Accuracy, and Precision for UAV Research, Robot Swarms in the Real World Workshop at ICRA, 2021, A. Taffanel, B. Rousselot, J. Danielsson, K. McGuire, K. Richardsson, M. Eliasson, T. Antonsson, and W. Hönig
[ PDF, Poster, GitHub ]
RLSS: Real-time Multi-Robot Trajectory Replanning using Linear Spatial Separations (Short Version), Robot Swarms in the Real World Workshop at ICRA, 2021, B. Senbaslar, W. Hönig, and N. Ayanian
[ PDF, Video, Poster, GitHub ]
GLAS: Global-to-Local Safe Autonomy Synthesis for Multi-Robot Motion Planning with End-to-End Learning (Short Version), Workshop on Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Task Allocation and Coordination at RSS, 2020, B. Rivière, W. Hönig, Y. Yue, and S.-J. Chung
[ PDF, Video, Talk, GitHub ]
Sim-to-(Multi)-Real: Transfer of Low-Level Robust Control Policies to Multiple Quadrotors (Extended Abstract), Southern California Robotics Symposium (SCR), 2019, A. Molchanov*, T. Chen*, W. Hönig, J.A. Preiss, N. Ayanian, and G.S. Sukhatme
[ PDF, Video, GitHub ]
Robust Trajectory Execution for Multi-robot Teams Using Distributed Real-time Replanning (Extended Abstract), Southern California Robotics Symposium (SCR), 2019, B. Şenbaşlar, W. Hönig, and N. Ayanian
[ PDF, Video ]
Robust Trajectory Execution for Multi-Robot Teams Using Distributed Real-time Replanning (Extended Abstract), IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (Late Breaking), 2018, B. Şenbaşlar, W. Hönig, and N. Ayanian
[ PDF, Video ]
Trajectory Planning for Heterogeneous Robot Teams, International Symposium on Aerial Robotics (ISAR), 2018, M. Debord, W. Hönig, and N. Ayanian
[ PDF, Video ]
Scalable Task and Motion Planning for Multi-Robot Systems in Obstacle-Rich Environments (Doctoral Consortium), International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS), 2018, W. Hönig
[ PDF, ACM ]
Mixed Reality Collaboration between Human-Agent Teams (Extended Abstract), IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (IEEE VR) (Poster), 2018, T. Phan, W. Hönig, and N. Ayanian
[ PDF, Video, DOI ]
Downwash-Aware Trajectory Planning for Quadrotor Swarms, International Symposium on Aerial Robotics (ISAR), 2017, J. A. Preiss, W. Hönig, G. S. Sukhatme, and N. Ayanian
[ PDF ]
Downwash-Aware Trajectory Planning for Large Quadcopter Teams, Southern California Robotics Symposium (SCR), 2017, J. A. Preiss, W. Hönig, G. S. Sukhatme, and N. Ayanian
[ PDF ]
Crazyswarm: A Large Nano-Quadcopter Swarm (Extended Abstract), IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (Late Breaking), 2016 J. A. Preiss, W. Hönig, G. S. Sukhatme, and N. Ayanian
[ PDF, Video ]
Seamless Robot Simulation Integration for Education: A Case Study, Workshop on the Role of Simulation in Robot Programming at SIMPAR, 2016, W. Hönig, A. Tavakoli, and N. Ayanian
[ PDF, GitHub ]
Overview: Generalizations of Multi-Agent Path Finding to Real-World Scenarios, Workshop on Multi-Agent Path Finding (WOMPF) at IJCAI, 2016, H. Ma, S. Koenig, N. Ayanian, L. Cohen, W. Hönig, T. K. S. Kumar, T. Uras, H. Xu, C. Tovey, and G. Sharon
[ PDF ]
Path Planning With Kinematic Constraints For Robot Groups, Southern California Robotics Symposium (SCR), 2016, W. Hönig, T. K. S. Kumar, L. Cohen, H. Ma, S. Koenig, and N. Ayanian
[ PDF ]

Theses

Motion Coordination for Large Multi-Robot Teams in Obstacle-Rich Environments, PhD Thesis, University of Southern California, 2019, W. Hönig, Supervisors: Nora Ayanian, Gaurav S. Sukhatme, Sven Koenig, Vijay Kumar.
Best Dissertation Award in Computer Science at USC
[ PDF ]
Towards Source-Level CUDA Kernel Profiling, Diploma Thesis, Technical University Dresden, 2012, W. Hönig, Supervisors: Prof. Nagel, Prof. Hochberger, Dr. Strengert, Guido Juckeland, Robert Dietrich. In cooperation with NVIDIA.
Porting a Ptychography Application to the CUDA GPU-Model, Bachelor Thesis, Technical University Dresden, 2010, W. Hönig, Supervisors: Prof. Nagel, Prof. Schroer, Dr. Knüpfer, Dr. Schropp, Guido Juckeland. In German.