Kay Pompetzki (fmr Hansel)

Kay joined the Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS) Lab as a Ph.D. student in May 2021. He is interested in experimenting and researching with robots, exploring new concepts in artificial intelligence such as machine learning, reinforcement learning or deep learning, and thereby discovering interdisciplinary connections between various academic disciplines.

Before starting his Ph.D., Kay completed his Bachelor's degree in Applied Mathematics at the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences and his Master's degree in Autonomous Systems at the TU Darmstadt. His thesis, "Probabilistic Dynamic Mode Primitives", was written under the supervision of Svenja Stark and Hany Abdulsamad.

During his academic research, Kay had the invaluable opportunity to visit the Intelligent Robotics and Biomechatronics Laboratory led by Prof. Hasegawa as a visiting scholar from May 2023 to July 2023. Part of the Department of Micro-Nano Mechanical Science and Engineering at Nagoya University, the lab is renowned for its fundamental and applied studies on mechatronics technologies for advanced human assistance systems. In November 2024, Kay joined the German delegation for the Junior Expert Exchange (JEX) program, engaging in high-level discussions on robotics and AI policy with Japanese ministries and academic institutions. Building on these experiences, he served as lecturer in the Physical AI lecture series, sharing insights on machine learning in robotics at the Matsuo-Iwasawa Lab of the University of Tokyo in spring 2025.

Recent Publications

Robot Control and Motion Planning

1. •     Bib
     Le, A. T.; Hansel, K.; Carvalho, J.; Watson, J.; Urain, J.; Biess, A.; Chalvatzaki, G.; Peters, J. (2025). Global Tensor Motion Planning, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 10, 7, pp.7302-7309.
   •   Bib
     Le, A. T.; Hansel, K.; Carvalho, J.; Urain, J.; Biess, A.; Chalvatzaki, G.; Peters, J. (2024). Global Tensor Motion Planning, CoRL 2024 Workshop on Differentiable Optimization Everywhere.
2. •       Bib
     Hansel, K.; Urain, J.; Peters, J.; Chalvatzaki, G. (2023). Hierarchical Policy Blending as Inference for Reactive Robot Control, 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), IEEE.
3. •       Bib
     Le, A. T.; Hansel, K.; Peters, J.; Chalvatzaki, G. (2023). Hierarchical Policy Blending As Optimal Transport, 5th Annual Learning for Dynamics & Control Conference (L4DC), PMLR.

Goal Inference

1. •     Bib
     Pompetzki, K.; Le, A. T.; Gruner, T.; Watson, J.; Chalvatzaki, G.; Peters, J. (2025). Geometrically-Aware Goal Inference: Leveraging Motion Planning as Inference, German Robotics Conference (GRC).
   •     Bib
     Pompetzki, K.; Le, A. T.; Gruner, T.; Watson, J.; Chalvatzaki, G.; Peters, J. (2025). Geometrically-Aware Goal Inference: Leveraging Motion Planning as Inference, Multi-disciplinary Conference on Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making (RLDM).

Telerobotics

1. •     Bib
     Zhu, Y.; Nazirjonov, S.; Jiang, B.; Colan, J.; Aoyama, T.; Hasegawa, Y.; Belousov, B.; Hansel, K.; Peters, J. (2023). Visual Tactile Sensor Based Force Estimation for Position-Force Teleoperation, IEEE International Conference on Cyborg and Bionic Systems (CBS), pp.49-52.
   --- Best Paper Award Finalist ---
2. •     Bib
     Chen, Q.; Zhu, Y.; Hansel, Kay.; Aoyama, T.; Hasegawa, Y. (2023). Human Preferences and Robot Constraints Aware Shared Control for Smooth Follower Motion Execution, IEEE International Symposium on Micro-NanoMechatronics and Human Science (MHS), IEEE.
   --- Best Paper Award ---
3. •       Bib
     Becker, N.; Gattung, E.; Hansel, K.; Schneider, T.; Zhu, Y.; Hasegawa, Y.; Peters, J. (2024). Integrating Visuo-tactile Sensing with Haptic Feedback for Teleoperated Robot Manipulation, IEEE ICRA 2024 Workshop on Robot Embodiment through Visuo-Tactile Perception.
4. •     Bib
     Becker, N.; Sovailo, K.; Zhu, C.; Gattung, E.; Hansel, K.; Schneider, T.; Zhu, Y.; Hasegawa, Y.; Peters, J. (2024). Integrating and Evaluating Visuo-tactile Sensing with Haptic Feedback for Teleoperated Robot Manipulation, 40th Anniversary of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA@40).
5. •     Bib
     Moyen, S. B.; Krohn, R.; Lueth, S.; Pompetzki, K.; Chalvatzaki, G. (2025). Intuitive User Interfaces for Mobile Manipulation, German Robotics Conference (GRC).

Robot Learning

1. •       Bib
     Hansel, K.; Moos, J.; Abdulsamad, H.; Stark, S.; Clever, D.; Peters, J. (2022). Robust Reinforcement Learning: A Review of Foundations and Recent Advances, Machine Learning and Knowledge Extraction (MAKE), 4, 1, pp.276--315, MDPI.
2. •     Bib
     Hansel, K.; Moos, J.; Derstroff, C. (2021). Benchmarking the Natural Gradient in Policy Gradient Methods and Evolution Strategies, Reinforcement Learning Algorithms: Analysis and Applications, pp.69--84, Springer.
3. •     Bib
     Belousov, B.; Abdulsamad H.; Klink, P.; Parisi, S.; Peters, J. (2021). Reinforcement Learning Algorithms: Analysis and Applications, Studies in Computational Intelligence, Springer International Publishing.
4. •     Bib
     Hansel, K. (2021). Probabilistic Dynamic Mode Primitives, Master Thesis.

Others

1. •     Bib
     Watson, J.; Song, C.; Weeger, O.; Gruner, T.; Le, A.T.; Hansel, K.; Headway, A.; Arenz, O.; Trojak, W.; Cranmer, M.; D’Eramo, C.; Bülow, F.; Goyal, T.; Peters, J.; Hoffman, M.W.; (submitted). Machine Learning with Physics Knowledge for Prediction: A Survey, Transactions on Machine Learning Research (TMLR).
2. •     Bib
     Le, A.T.; Pompetzki, K.; Peters, J.; Biess, A. (2025). Kinematics Correspondence As Inexact Graph Matching, German Robotics Conference (GRC).
   •     Bib
     Le, A.T.; Pompetzki, K.; Peters, J.; Biess, A. (2025). Kinematics Correspondence As Inexact Graph Matching, Multi-disciplinary Conference on Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making (RLDM).