Jun.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Patrick Wolf
Contact
Room 48-370
Tel.: +49 631 205 3338
e-mail:patrick.wolf@cs.rptu.de
Research Focus
- Off-road intelligence
- Context-aware & adaptive autonomy
- Behavioral intelligence & behavior networks
- Cognitive architectures for field robotics
- Safe and reliable off-road machinery
- Autonomy for heavy machinery & specialized vehicles
- Modular vehicle systems & tool integration
- Resilient robotics & system health monitoring
- Safety, availability & reliability of robots in rugged terrain
- Application Domains
- Forestry & agricultural automation
- Robots in construction
- Search & rescue robotics / autonomous firefighting
- Navigation in inaccessible & rugged terrain
Socials
Vita
Patrick Wolf is a junior professor for control and perception architectures for off-road robot systems at the Department of Computer Science at RPTU Kaiserslautern. His research focuses on behavioural intelligence and self-adaptive architectures for autonomous robotic systems.After completing his degree in Applied Computer Science at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern from 2010 to 2016 with a focus on embedded systems and robotics, Patrick Wolf devoted his master's thesis to the topic of ‘Structured Design of Quality-Sensitive Behaviour-Based Perception Systems’. He analysed the quality of sensor data and its effects on the control of autonomous vehicles.
From 2016 to 2023, he worked as a research assistant and doctoral student at the Chair of Robotic Systems at RPTU. During this time, he conducted intensive research on autonomous commercial vehicles and received his doctorate with honours in 2022. His dissertation entitled ‘Cognitive Processing in Behaviour-Based Perception of Autonomous Off-Road Vehicles’ presented innovative concepts for robust environment recognition and adaptive perception architecture. He then worked as a Senior Safety Engineer at Fraunhofer IESE from 2023 to 2025, where he dealt with the safety of autonomous driving and approaches to situational risk management of autonomous systems. During this time, he was also a lecturer at RPTU and gave the lecture ‘Off-road Robotics’, which was honoured several times with the VLU prize for special commitment to teaching
Since July 2025, he has been a junior professor in the Department of Computer Science at RPTU and continues to work as an expert in ‘Autonomics’ at Fraunhofer IESE.
Publications (excerpt)
2025
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- A Dependable Trajectory Prediction Pipeline for Autonomous Driving. Integrating Computer Vision and Bayesian Networks for Highway Safety.
5th international Workshop on Safe Autonomous Systems, (2025)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/389418263 - Situational Risk Awareness for Autonomous Robots. Maximizing Safety and Operational Availability Across Domains.
1st German Robotics Conference, (2025)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/389826191 - Enhancing Safety and Performance of Autonomous Systems in Open Contexts Through the Layers of Protection Architecture (LOPAAS).
5th international Workshop on Safe Autonomous Systems, (2025)
2024
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- Evaluating Self-Adaptive Architectures for Automated Driving Systems.
2024 11th International Conference on Internet of Things, S. 212 - 217. (2024)
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10710315 - Utilizing sensory uncertainty detection for robot health monitoring and performing active perception adaptation.
Commercial Vehicle Technology 2024, S. 363 - 376. (2024)
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-658-45699-3₂1 - Tree-SLAM. Localization and Mapping in Dense Forest Environments for Autonomous Vehicles.
Commercial Vehicle Technology 2024, S. 345 - 362. (2024)
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-658-45699-3₂0 - Pioneering Situation-aware Autonomy and Safety for Off-Highway Machinery in Unpredictable Terrain.
(2024) - Ensuring Safe Autonomy. Navigating the Future of Autonomous Vehicles.
19th European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC24), (2024)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.19006 - MINTresse wecken. Frühkindliche Bildung mit Robotern.
(2024)
https://www.iese.fraunhofer.de/blog/mint-fruehkindliche-bildung-mit-robotern/ - Wie Normen und Standards die Zukunft von Künstlicher Intelligenz und Autonomen Systemen prägen.
(2024)
https://www.iese.fraunhofer.de/blog/ki-normen-und-standardisierung/
2023
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- Aktuelle Forschung im Bereich des autonomen Fahr- und Arbeitsbetriebs von Nutzfahrzeugen.
Jahresmagazin AUTOMATION + ROBOTIK, S. 48 - 53. (2023)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366158277 - Global map generation using local feature grid maps for autonomous vehicles in frequently changing off-road environments.
18th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS 2023), (2023)
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-44851-5₂ - Reverse-Engineering of Behavior-Based Robot Components.
18th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS 2023), (2023)
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-44981-9₂7 - Navigating Off-roads. Using Deep neural Networks for Rock detection in off-road Autonomous Driving with Unimog.
20th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR 2023), (2023)
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10202220 - Simultaneous top-down and bottom-up perception for autonomous off-road driving.
2023 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), (2023) - Autonomes Fahren. Denken wie ein Mensch.
(2023)
https://www.iese.fraunhofer.de/blog/autonomes-fahren/
2022
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- Human-inspired cognitive processing for robust autonomous off-road driving.
5th Young Reseachers Symposium 2022, S. 35. (2022) - Traction optimization for robust navigation in unstructured environments using deep neural networks on the example of the off-road truck Unimog.
17th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems – IAS-17, S. 191 - 208. (2022) - A modular control architecture for safe and robust robot operation and inspection in steep slope vineyards.
Resilient Smart Farming Lab Workshop Informatik 2022 (RSF-Lab 2022), (2022) - Integration of human skeleton posture models into REACTiON for realizing dynamic risk management.
7th International Commercial Vehicle Technology Symposium Kaiserslautern – CVT 2022, (2022) - Disturbance and Particle Detection in LiDAR Data.
48th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IECON 2022), (2022) - Cognitive Processing in Behavior-Based Perception of Autonomous Off-Road Vehicles.
(2022) - Universelle Nutzfahrzeugkonzepte zum autonomen Arbeiten in herausfordernden Umgebungen. Ein Zwischenbericht zum Projekt »Autonome Arbeitsmaschine für den Einsatz in Anwendungen wie Katastrophenschutz/ Feuerwehr, Forstwirtschaft und Weinbau«..
CVC News, Vol. 2, S. 20 - 24. (2022)
2021
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- Extending Skills of Autonomous Off-Road Robots on the Example of Behavior-Based Edge Compaction in a Road Construction Scenario.
Commercial Vehicle Technology 2020/2021. Proceedings of the 6th Commercial Vehicle Technology Symposium – CVT 2020/2021, (2021) - Data-fusion for robust off-road perception considering data quality of uncertain sensors.
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), S. 6853 - 6860. (2021) - Autonome Navigation und Umfelderkennung eines Unimogs in unstrukturiertem Terrain.
Tagungsband DWT-SGW Forum Unmanned Systems VIII, S. 30. (2021) - Autonomes Arbeiten mit dem Unimog. Umrüstung für Arbeitseinsätze im Katastrophenschutz, bei Feuerwehr, Forstwirtschaft, Weinbau und Deponie.
CVC News, Vol. 2, S. 8 - 10. (2021) - Localization using OSM landmarks.
2021 Latin American Robotics Symposium (LARS), 2021 Brazilian Symposium on Robotics (SBR), and 2021 Workshop on Robotics in Education (WRE), S. 228 - 233. (2021)
DOI: 10.1109/LARS/SBR/WRE54079.2021.9605475 ISBN: 978-1-6654-0761-8
2020
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- Behavior-Based Obstacle Detection in Off-Road Environments Considering Data Quality.
Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics, Vol. 495, S. 786 - 809. (2020) - Autonome Off-Road Navigation von Nutzfahrzeugen. Erfahrungsbericht und Testergebnisse des CVC-Leitprojekts zum autonomen Fahrbetrieb von Nutzfahrzeugen im Off-Road-Bereich.
CVC News, Vol. 1, S. 4 - 10. (2020) - Evolution of robotic simulators. Using UE 4 to enable real-world quality testing of complex autonomous robots in unstructured environments.
Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Simulation and Modeling Methodologies, Technologies and Applications (SIMULTECH 2020), S. 271 - 278. (2020) - Advanced scene aware navigation for the heavy duty off-road vehicle Unimog.
The 9th International Conference on Advanced Concepts in Mechanical Engineering – ACME 2020. IOP Conference Series, Vol. 997, S. 1 - 18. (2020)
DOI: 10.1088/1757-899x/997/1/012093 - Towards High-Quality Road Construction. Using Autonomous Tandem Rollers for Asphalt Compaction Optimization.
Proceedings of the 37th International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction (ISARC), S. 90 - 97. (2020) - Autonomous Off-Road Navigation using Near-Feature-Based World Knowledge Incorporation on the Example of Forest Path Detection.
Preprint submitted to Robotics and Autonomous Systems, (2020) - Wenn Autos fahren wie von Geisterhand. Off-Road-Bereich wird zur Herausforderung / Nutzen wäre aber enorm.
KOMMUNALtopinform, Vol. 4, S. 62 - 63. (2020)
2019
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- White Paper. High Quality Road Construction using 5G-AMMCOA. Autonomous Mobile Machine Communication for Off-Road Applications.
, S. 1 - 7. (2019) - Distributed Coordination and Task Assignment of Autonomous Tandem Rollers in Road Construction Scenarios.
36th International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction (ISARC 2019), S. 953 - 960. (2019) - Combining Onthologies and Behavior-Based Control for Aware Navigation in Challenging Off-Road Environments.
Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (ICINCO 2019), S. 135 - 146. (2019)
DOI: 10.5220/0007934301350146, ISBN: 9789897583803
2018
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- Behavior-Based Control for Safe and Robust Navigation of an Unimog in Off-Road Environments.
Commercial Vehicle Technology 2018. Proceedings of the 5th Commercial Vehicle Technology Symposium – CVT 2018, S. 63 - 76. (2018) - Cooperation and Communication of Autonomous Tandem Rollers in Street Construction Scenarios.
Commercial Vehicle Technology 2018. Proceedings of the 5th Commercial Vehicle Technology Symposium – CVT 2018, S. 25 - 36. (2018) - Combining Behavior-Based and Contract-Based Control Architectures for Behavior Optimization of Networked Autonomous Vehicles in Unstructured Environments.
Commercial Vehicle Technology 2018. Proceedings of the 5th Commercial Vehicle Technology Symposium – CVT 2018, S. 324 - 335. (2018) - Auf dem Weg zur autonomen Straßenfertigung. Kooperation und Kommunikation von vollautomatisierten Nutzfahrzeugen in der Baustelle von morgen am Beispiel von BOMAG Tandemwalzen..
CVC News, Vol. 1, S. 12 - 15. (2018) - Local Behavior-Based Navigation in Rough Off-Road Scenarios based on Vehicle Kinematics.
2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), S. 719 - 724. (2018)
DOI: 10.1109/ICRA.2018.8460631 - Behavior-Based Low-Level Control for (semi-) Autonomous Vehicles in Rough Terrain.
Proceedings of ISR 2018, S. 386 - 393. (2018)
2017
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- Quality-Based Behavior-Based Control for Autonomous Robots in Rough Environments.
Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (ICINCO 2017), Vol. 1, S. 513 - 524. (2017) - Autonomie in unwegsamem Gelände. Aktuelle Zwischenergebnisse des CVC-Leitprojekts zum autonomen Fahrbetrieb von Nutzfahrzeugen im Off-Road Bereich.
CVC News, Vol. 2, S. 8 - 11. (2017)