Professorial Faculty
Technical University of Munich

Prof. Dr. Niklas Kochdumper

Professorship

Spacecraft Control

School

TUM School of Engineering and Design

Contact Details

Business card at TUMonline

Academic Career and Research Areas

Prof. Kochdumper's research focuses on robust control with formal safety guarantees, developing solutions for both general dynamic systems as well as spacecrafts in particular. His work spans the topics formal verification of dynamic systems via reachability analysis, safe-by-construction controller synthesis, set-based computing, conformant system identification, safe reinforcement learning via shielding, neural network verification, and space-related applications like active debris removal, in-orbit servicing, and automated docking.

Niklas Kochdumper received both his Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering and his Master's degree in Robotics, Cognition, Intelligence from TUM, and also earned his PhD there in 2022 under the supervision of Prof. Matthias Althoff. Afterward, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Stony Brook University (2021-2023) and Université Paris Cité (2024-2025), and later served as a junior professor at Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt (2025-2026). In February 2026, he was appointed assistant professor at TUM.

    Awards

    • Best Repeatability Evaluation Award, Int. Conf. on Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control (2025)
    • Best Repeatability Evaluation Award, Int. Conf. on Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control (2021)
    • Best Repeatability Evaluation Award, Int. Conf. on Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control (2020)

    Key Publications (all publications)

    Kochdumper N., Althoff M., "Sparse Polynomial Zonotopes: A Novel Set Representation for Reachability Analysis". IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. 2020; 66(9): 4043-4058.

    Abstract

    Kochdumper N. Bak. S., "Fully Automated Verification of Linear Time-Invariant Systems Against Signal Temporal Logic Specifications via Reachability Analysis". Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems. 2024; 53: Article No. 101491.

    Abstract

    Kochdumper, N., Krasowski, H., Wang, X., Bak, S., Althoff, M., "Provably Safe Reinforcement Learning via Action Projection Using Reachability Analysis and Polynomial Zonotopes". IEEE Open Journal of Control Systems. 2023; 2: 79-92. 

    Abstract

    Kochdumper, N., Gruber, F., Schürmann, B., Gaßmann, V., Klischat, M., Althoff, M., "AROC: A Toolbox for Automated Reachset Optimal Controller Synthesis". Proc. Int. Conf. on Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control. 2021; Article No. 23. 

    Abstract

    Kochdumper, N., Foughali, M. A., Habermehl, P., Asarin, E., "Robust Identification of Hybrid Automata from Noisy Data". Proc. Int. Conf. on Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control. 2025; Article No. 11. 

    Abstract

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