Prof. Dr.-Ing. Johannes Betz

Main research topics

My research focuses on holistic software development for autonomous vehicles with the goal of developing the next generation of intelligent autonomous vehicles. By developing new algorithms in environment awareness, path and behavior planning, and control, these vehicles will be able to interact with each other and with humans while performing safely, efficiently, and powerfully. One focus of my research is the development of new methods for trajectory and behavior planning and adaptive control for autonomous vehicles. With these innovative algorithms, it will be possible to efficiently and effectively make the right decisions, especially in complex and uncertain environments. Simulation environments and various real vehicle platforms will be used for data generation and validation of these algorithms. With real vehicle deployment, safe and trustworthy autonomy will be enabled for a wide range of highly integrated robotic applications.

Vita

Johannes studied automotive engineering at Coburg University of Applied Sciences (B. Eng., 2013) and at the University of Bayreuth (M. Sc., 2013) with a focus on electric drive systems and software development. From 2013 to 2018, Johannes was a research assistant at the Technical University of Munich where he received his Dr.-Ing. degree in 2019 on the topic of "Evaluation of an intelligent fleet dispatching for mixed vehicle fleets". From 2018-2020 he was a postdoc at the Department of Automotive Engineering at TUM where he founded the TUM Autonomous Motorsport Team, which successfully participated in the autonomous racing series Roborace and Indy Autonomous Challenge. From 2020 to 2022, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, where he worked in the xLab for Safe Autonomous Systems. In 2023, he was appointed as Rudolf Mößbauer Professor at the Technical University of Munich where he holds the Autonomous Vehicle Systems Professorship as part of the Department of Mobility Systems.

Full CV as PDF

Awards & Honors

10/2023     1st place, in the golden lecture (TUM, School of Engineering and Design)
08/2023     1st place, CommonRoad Challenge, IEEE ITSC 2023
02/2023     Best Presentation Award, IEEE ICCCR 2023    
12/2022     IEEE ITS Outstanding Application Award (with TUM Autonomous Motorsport)
11/2022     IEEE ITS Young Professional Travel Fellowship
03/2022     DAAD AInet Fellow 2022
01/2022     1st Place, 3rd Japan Automotive AI Challenge
01/2022     2nd Place, Indy Autonomous Challenge@CES Las Vegas (with TUM Autonomous Motorsport)
10/2021     1st Place,  Indy Autonomous Challenge (1 Million $ Grand Prize - with TUM Autonomous Motorsport)
06/2021     2nd Place, Indy Autonomous Challenge Ansys Simulation Race (with TUM Autonomous Motorsport)
10/2020     Best Paper Award, IEEE CiSt 2020, Agadir, Morocco
11/2019     Best Student Paper Finalist, IEEE ICCVE 2019, Graz, Austria
11/2019     PhD graduation with highest distinction (summa cum laude)
10/2019     1st Place, Roborace Season Alpha Event 5 (with TUM Autonomous Motorsport)
07/2019     Young Author Award, IFAC IAV 2019, Gdansk, Poland
11/2018     Selected for German-Japan Young Professional Exchange Program 2018
05/2018     1st Place, Roborace “Human + Machine Challenge” (with TUM Autonomous Motorsport)
09/2017     Nvidia GPU Grant: Sponsoring of one “Titan Xp” GPU
04/2012     3rd best graduate in Bachelor of Engineering at FH Coburg

Service to Academic Community

Journal committees
01/2023 – present      Associate Editor, IEEE Open Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems
05/2022 – 05/2023     Guest Editor, Field Robotics Journal, Special Issue on “Autonomous Racing”
10/2020 – present      Associate Editor, SAE International Journal of Connected and Automated Vehicles

Conference committees
11/2024       Website Chair & Organizer, 2024 Conference on Robot Learning (CORL)
05/2024       Workshop Co-Chair & Organizer, 2024 IEEE ICRA
05/2024       Publicity Co-Chair & Organizer , 2024 IEEE MOST Conference
11/2023       Program Committee, 11th Automated Driving Symposium 2023
06/2023       Tutorial Co-Chair & Organizer, 2023 IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV)
05/2023       Program Committee, 2023 IEEE MOST Conference
12/2022       Program Committee, 5th Robot Learning Workshopat the NeurIPS 2022
10/2022       Program Committee, 2022 IEEE EVER Conference
01/2022       Program Committee, ITS Workshop at  IEEE COMMSNET 2022
12/2021       Program Committee, 4th Robot Learning Workshop at NeurIPS 2021
10/2021       Program Committee, 2021 IEEE EVER Conference
10/2020       Program Committee, 2020 IEEE EVER Conference

Other memberships and committees
01/2024 - present      Leading Co-Chair, IEEE RAS Technical Committee on AGV-ITS 
01/2023 – present     Committee Member, VDA  Working Group “Autonomous Driving”
05/2023                     Jury Member, Robothon – The Grand Grand Challenge
01/2023 – present     Strategic Planning Committee, The Autoware Foundation
03/2022 – 12/2023    Junior Co-Chair, IEEE RAS Technical Committee on AGV-ITS 
01/2021 – 12/2022    Working Group Leader (together with Christian John), The Autoware Foundation