Professor Niels Lohse Dipl.-Ing.(FH), MSc, PhD, MIEEE

• PhD in Manufacturing Engineering and Operations Management: University of Nottingham, 2006
• MSc in Technology Management: University of Portsmouth, 2001
• Dipl.-Ing. (Meng) in Mechanical Engineering specialising in Engineering Design: University of Applied Science Hamburg, Germany, 2000

After completing school in 1992, Niels successfully completed a three-year Apprenticeship as Industrial Mechanic at a shipyard in 1995 before entering higher education. This gave a strong foundation and sense for materials and industrial manufacturing processes. It also raised awareness of working in an industrial shopfloor environment.

Whilst completing their PhD, Niels was accepted a position as Lecturer in Advanced Manufacturing Technology at the University of Nottingham in 2006. This provided the opportunity to write, contribute, and work on several European Commission funded projects focusing on the design, operation and reconfiguration of automation systems. Many of these projects investigated and developed concepts, technologies and models that became to be know as Cyber-Physical Systems and later Industry 4.0. The key focus was on making it easier to change dedicated automation systems in response to changing production requirements. This gave the opportunity to work with many leading industrial and academic experts from across Europe driving the vision for smart systems with embedded intelligence and distributed control that allow systems to evolve over time.

At the beginning of 2014, Niels joined Loughborough University as a Senior Lecturer in Intelligent Automation as part of the Intelligent Automation Centre (IAC). This provided the opportunity to extend work on Cyber Physical Systems while at the same time exploring new opportunities in intelligent robotics and looking at human-robot collaboration working closely with several large aerospace companies in the UK.

In 2017, Niels was privileged to take over the leadership of the IAC, allowing guidance of the direction of research with our industrial partners and my academic colleagues. This was shortly followed by promotion to Reader in Manufacturing Automation and Robotics in 2018.

During time as director of IAC, they successfully moved premisses and built a very healthy research profile including the Made Smarter Innovation – Research Centre for Smart, Collaborative Robotics. Niels has represented Loughborough University on the Programme Board of the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) since 2017, was elected to the University Senate (2020 to 2023), joined the EPSRC Strategic Advisory Team for Manufacturing and the Circular Economy in 2022, and was promoted to full Professor in Manufacturing Automation and Robotics in 2022.

In 2024, after over 10 years at Loughborough University, Professor Lohse accepted a new challenge joining the University of Birmingham to help build a Robotics Institute and as part of the new EPSRC Manufacturing Research Hub in Robotics, Automation & Smart Machine Enabled Sustainable Circular Manufacturing & Materials (RESCu-M2).

Professor Lohse is open to discuss potential PhD projects including but not limited to the following topic areas:

Human-robot collaborative lifting – investigating ergonomic and safe collaboration for medium to high weight components.

Robot swarms for collaborative manipulation and transport – investigating robot-robot mobile manipulation for the handling, manipulation and transport of large bulky objects.

Real-time perception in complex industrial workspaces – investigating multi-modal sensor networks with edge intelligence and reconstruction of workplaces to track people (work analysis, posture, safety, etc.) and objects (components, assemblies, tools, etc.) as well as robots to learn their behaviour.

Learning of dexterous manipulation skills for non-rigid components – investigating how robots learn (in simulation and the real world) manipulation tasks for non-rigid objects like cables, fabrics, fibres, etc.

Professor Lohse's research is inspired by several fundamental research questions:

How do we enable humans and robotic systems to work more effectively together in hybrid teams that can achieve more collectively entirely human or robot systems?

How do we overcome existing barriers in automation and robotics for the manipulation, assembly, and disassembly of complex parts in complex environments that are difficult to model (e.g. due to non-rigid interactions, random variations, human behaviour)?

How do we enable automation and robotic systems to be come more adaptable, responsive and easier to changeover in response to changing requirements, objectives and tasks?

How do we increase labour productivity while improving environmental, social, and economy sustainability in industrial processes?

How do we unlock the potential of artificial learning systems for increased safety, autonomy, and resilience in manufacturing environments?

What are our ethical principles and corresponding regulatory frameworks that should govern the future of human and robotic work?