Tim Schneider
Research Interests
Robotics, Reinforcement Learning, Manipulation, Intrinsic Motivation, Machine Learning
Affiliation
1. TU Darmstadt, Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Computer Science Department
2. Ecole Centrale de Lyon, LIRIS, Mathematics and Computer Science Department
Contact Information
tim.schneider1@tu-darmstadt.de
Room E304, Building S2|02, TU Darmstadt, FB-Informatik, FG-IAS, Hochschulstr. 10, 64289 Darmstadt
+49-6151-16-25387
Tim joined the Intelligent Autonomous Systems lab on November 1st, 2021, as a Ph.D. student. He is part of the Aristotle project under which he pursues a binational Ph.D. in cooperation with Prof. Liming Chen from École Centrale Lyon.
Before joining IAS, Tim completed his master's degree in Computer Science at Technische Universität Darmstadt. He wrote his master's thesis, "Active Inference for Robotic Manipulation", under the supervision of Boris Belousov and Hany Abdulsamad. In his thesis, he showed how Active Inference can be used to tackle challenging haptic exploration tasks with a robot. Prior to his master's thesis, Tim worked on reinforcement learning for design and construction of architectural structures with a robot arm.
During his Ph.D., Tim continues researching at the intersection between intrinsic motivation and robotic manipulation. He envisions that, similar to children, robots should become able to explore their environment haptically and develop an understanding of it by physical interaction.
Publications
- Funk, N.; Chen, C.; Schneider, T.; Chalvatzaki, G.; Calandra, R.; Peters, J. (2025). On the Importance of Tactile Sensing for Imitation Learning: A Case Study on Robotic Match Lighting, ICRA 2025 Workshop on “Towards Human Level Intelligence Vision and Tactile Sensing”.
- Chen, J.; Kshirsagar, A.; Heller, F.; Gomez Andreu, M.; Belousov, B.; Schneider, T.; Lin, L. P. Y.; Doerschner, K.; Drewing, K.; Peters, J. (2025). Active Sampling for Hardness Classification with Vision-Based Tactile Sensors, German Robotics Conference (GRC).
- Nguyen, D.H.; Schneider, T.; Duret, G.; Kshirsagar, A.; Belousov, B.; Peters, J. (2025). TacEx: GelSight Tactile Simulation in Isaac Sim – Combining Soft-Body and Visuotactile Simulators, German Robotics Conference (GRC).
- Lenz, J.; Pfenning, I.; Gruner, T.; Palenicek, D.; Schneider, T.; Peters, J. (2025). Exploring the Role of Vision and Touch in Reinforcement Learning for Dexterous Insertion Tasks, Multi-disciplinary Conference on Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making (RLDM).
- Scherer, C. F.; Tölle, M.; Gruner, T.; Palenicek, D.; Schneider, T.; Schramowski, P.; Belousov, B.; Peters, J. (2025). AllmAN: A German Vision-Language-Action Model, German Robotics Conference (GRC).
- Schneider, T.; de Farias, C.; Calandra, R.; Chen L.; Peters, J. (2025). Active Perception for Tactile Sensing: A Task-Agnostic Attention-Based Approach, German Robotics Conference (GRC).
- Boehm, A.; Schneider, T.; Belousov, B.; Kshirsagar, A.; Lin, L.; Doerschner, K.; Drewing, K.; Rothkopf, C.A.; Peters, J. (2024). What Matters for Active Texture Recognition With Vision-Based Tactile Sensors, Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).
- Lin, L.; Boehm, A.; Belousov, B.; Kshirsagar, A.; Schneider, T.; Peters, J.; Doerschner, K.; Drewing, K. (2024). Task-Adapted Single-Finger Explorations of Complex Objects, Eurohaptics.
- 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.
- Palenicek, D.; Gruner, T.; Schneider, T.; Böhm, A.; Lenz, J.; Pfenning, I. and Krämer, E.; Peters, J. (2024). Learning Tactile Insertion in the Real World, IEEE ICRA 2024 Workshop on Robot Embodiment through Visuo-Tactile Perception.
- Palenicek, D.; Gruner, T.; Schneider, T.; Böhm, A.; Lenz, J.; Pfenning, I. and Krämer, E.; Peters, J. (2024). Learning Tactile Insertion in the Real World, 40th Anniversary of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA@40).
- Kshirsagar, A.; Heller, F.; Gomez Andreu, M.; Belousov, B.; Schneider, T.; Lin, L. P. Y.; Doerschner, K.; Drewing, K.; Peters, J. (2024). Hardness Similarity Detection Using Vision-Based Tactile Sensors, 40th Anniversary of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA@40).
- 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).
- Lenz, J.; Gruner, T.; Palenicek, D.; Schneider, T.; Pfenning, I.; Peters J. (2024). Analysing the Interplay of Vision and Touch for Dexterous Insertion Tasks, CoRL 2024 Workshop on Learning Robot Fine and Dexterous Manipulation: Perception and Control.
- Nguyen, D.H.; Schneider, T.; Duret, G.; Kshirsagar, A.; Belousov, B.; Peters, J. (2024). TacEx: GelSight Tactile Simulation in Isaac Sim – Combining Soft-Body and Visuotactile Simulators, CoRL 2024 Workshop on Learning Robot Fine and Dexterous Manipulation: Perception and Control.
- Liu, Y.; Belousov, B.; Schneider, T.; Harsono, K.; Cheng, T.W.; Shih, S.G.; Tessmann, O.; Peters, J. (2024). Advancing Sustainable Construction: Discrete Modular Systems & Robotic Assembly, Sustainability, 16, pp.6678, MDPI.
- Boehm, A.; Schneider, T.; Belousov, B.; Kshirsagar, A.; Lin, L.; Doerschner, K.; Drewing, K.; Rothkopf, C.A.; Peters, J. (2023). Tactile Active Texture Recognition With Vision-Based Tactile Sensors, NeurIPS Workshop on Touch Processing: a new Sensing Modality for AI.
- Belousov, B.; Wibranek, B.; Schneider, J.; Schneider, T.; Chalvatzaki, G.; Peters, J.; Tessmann, O. (2022). Robotic Architectural Assembly with Tactile Skills: Simulation and Optimization, Automation in Construction, 133, pp.104006.
- Schneider, T.; Belousov, B.; Chalvatzaki, G.; Romeres, D.; Jha, D.K.; Peters, J. (2022). Active Exploration for Robotic Manipulation, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).
- Schneider, T.; Belousov, B.; Abdulsamad, H.; Peters, J. (2022). Active Inference for Robotic Manipulation, 5th Multidisciplinary Conference on Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making (RLDM).