Rate My Professor Marc Hanheide

Marc Hanheide is Professor of Intelligent Robotics and Interactive Systems in the School of Computer Science at the University of Lincoln, United Kingdom. He earned his PhD from the University of Bielefeld, Germany, and served as a research fellow in the School of Computer Science at the University of Birmingham from 2009 to 2011. Currently, he directs the Lincoln Centre for Autonomous Systems (L-CAS), a cross-disciplinary robotics research centre, and leads the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Agri-Food Robotics (AgriFoRwArdS). As Director of Research for the School of Computer Science, he oversees teaching in artificial intelligence, robotics, and student projects. Hanheide is a Principal Investigator in multiple funded projects, including those supported by Horizon 2020, EPSRC, Innovate UK, DFG, and industry partners, such as STRANDS for long-term autonomy, ILIAD for logistics, RASberry for berry production, and NCNR for nuclear robotics.

His research focuses on autonomous robots, human-robot interaction, interaction-enabling technologies, and system architectures, emphasizing long-term robotic behaviour and adaptation in dynamic environments. Applications span agriculture, elder care, logistics, nuclear decommissioning, security, museums, and service robotics. Hanheide has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, with highly cited works including 'Agricultural robotics: the future of robotic agriculture' (Duckett et al., 2018, 521 citations), 'Artificial intelligence for long-term robot autonomy: A survey' (Kunze et al., 2018, 317 citations), 'The STRANDS project: Long-term autonomy in everyday environments' (Hawes et al., 2017, 288 citations), and 'Robot task planning and explanation in open and uncertain worlds' (Hanheide et al., 2017, 229 citations). His scholarship exceeds 5,700 citations. He promotes public understanding through media, including BBC Countryfile, public lectures, and events. Hanheide is a member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. In 2025, Lincoln Agri-Robotics under his leadership won Best Research Project (Impact) at the AI & Robotics Awards.