To content
Department of Mechanical Engineering
1984 | 2005 | 2015 | 2020 | ...

History

The group has a long and vivid history including some changes of focus. It traces back to the chair for machine parts and handling systems under the lead of Prof. Dr. Willibald Kreis († 30 | Sep | 2003). Afterwards, the focus shifted towards industrial robotics under the new lead of Prof. Dr. Bernd Kuhlenkötter. Finally, automatic control became the group's main focus,  where the transition from robotics to control coincided with the interim professorship of PD Dr. Jobst Bickendorf. Since 2020, Prof. Dr. Moritz Schulze Darup is leading the group and sharpening its profile towards innovative control for cyberpyhsical systems.

The actor Ralf Richter playing Scrabble with an industrial robot © www.hanna-witte.de
A special moment in the group's history was the involvement in an image film for the Ruhr.2010 campaign (within the European Capital of Culture program). In the scene shown above, the actor Ralf Richter (a.k.a. Kalle Grabowski) played Scrabble against an industrial robot provided by our group (IRPA).

The evolution of the group and its various denominations (in German) are summarized below.

Period Denomination Head of the Group
04 | 1984 - 03 | 2005 Lehrstuhl für Maschinen­ele­mente, ‑gestaltung und Handhabungstechnik (MGH) Prof. Dr. Willibald Kreis
04 | 2005 - 03 | 2015 Lehrstuhl für Industrielle Robotik und Produktionsautomatisierung (IRPA) Prof. Dr. Bernd Kuhlenkötter
04 | 2015 - 09 | 2020 Lehrstuhl für Regelung und Automatisierung von Produktionsprozessen (RAP) PD Dr. Jobst Bickendorf
since 10 | 2020 Lehrstuhl für Regelungstechnik und cyberphysische Systeme (RCS) Prof. Dr. Moritz Schulze Darup