Erik B.

PhD Student in Computer Science, building more intelligent robots

Research on cross-embodiment learning with different robots and humans in a unified latent action space. Research on scalable data collection for dexterous manipulation via wearable devices. Investigating data scaling laws for dexterous manipulation.

RAPTOR is a novel flying drone, which can rapidly pick and place different objects using a soft gripper. I am a systems engineer, with my main focus these days lying on the perception systems for autonomously detecting target objects and planning grasps and self-localization. We published papers at IROS 2022, IROS 2023 and CoRL 2024 about our platform! Furthermore, we've been featured in: - IROS 2022 - Swiss Drone Days 2022 - Swiss Robotics Days 2022 - RobotX Innovation Day 2022 - PX4 Developer Conference 2022 - VIScon 2022 - IIT Bombay Techfest 2022 - IROS 2023 - IEEE Spectrum Video Friday, Sept. 2024 - CoRL 2024

I have completed an internship in autonomous driving with focus on test and validation with BMW. My main focus was working on a research project about evaluating multi-object-tracking pipelines with respect to latency. To this end, I developed a comprehensive framework for evaluating state-of-the-art object detection and tracking pipelines with a performance dashboard that visualized the results. Furthermore, we developed a novel probabilistic evaluation metric for tracking systems with respect to latency. Paper is accepted at the IEEE ITSC 2024 conference! The secondary focus of the internship was the development of an internal process automation tool, for which I developed a web application that allows creating flexible workflow automations, leading to significant time savings in everyday operations.

I turned my hobby of designing and building custom mechanical keyboard cases into a small business, bringing my designs for custom keyboards to the enthusiast community. As sole proprietor of this business, I did product design, engineering, manufacturing with a laser cutter, sales through e-commerce channels and fulfillment. In total, I manufactured and shipped out over 50 keyboards to customers in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Founded a company to do freelance software consulting work. Our main project was the creation of a software system for custom-built inflight entertainment systems for a startup. This includes basic content playback and management using a central control interface for distributed systems with 150+ different clients. Particular focus was placed on robustness and resilience in the aerospace setting while maintaining high system scalability.

Teaching assistant at the High Voltage Lab and High Power Electronics Lab at ETH Zurich for: - Networks and Circuits 1 - Networks and Circuits 2 - Creating digital course content on Moodle - Lab Class: Introduction to Superconductors - Lab Class: Renewable Energy in Switzerland