Rate My Professor Niels Lohse

Professor Niels Lohse is the Professor of Manufacturing Automation and Robotics in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Birmingham. He earned a Dipl.-Ing. (MEng) in Mechanical Engineering, specializing in Engineering Design, from the University of Applied Sciences Hamburg, Germany, in 2000; an MSc in Technology Management from the University of Portsmouth in 2001; and a PhD in Manufacturing Engineering and Operations Management from the University of Nottingham in 2006. Lohse began his academic career as a Lecturer in Advanced Manufacturing Technology at the University of Nottingham in 2006. He then joined Loughborough University as Senior Lecturer in Intelligent Automation in early 2014, advancing to Director of the Intelligent Automation Centre in 2017, Reader in Manufacturing Automation and Robotics in 2018, and Professor in 2022. In 2024, he moved to the University of Birmingham to lead efforts in establishing a Robotics Institute and contribute to the EPSRC Manufacturing Research Hub in Robotics, Automation & Smart Machine Enabled Sustainable Circular Manufacturing & Materials (RESCu-M2).

His research focuses on intelligent automation, robotics, and AI applications in assembly, disassembly, and joining; human-robot collaboration; measurement and perception; manufacturing system modelling; distributed control; and self-organising systems. These efforts aim to boost production system productivity and responsiveness while enhancing human wellbeing and sustainability. As Principal Investigator, he directs projects including the Co-AIMS Research Hub on Collaborative AI for Manufacturing Sustainability (2025–2032), the CHARISM Japan-UK Centre for Human-Oriented AI and Robotics in Inclusive and Sustainable Manufacturing (2026–2030), and Industrial Robots-as-a-Service (IRaaS) for resilient manufacturing (2024–2026). Notable publications encompass "Dual Control for Active Estimation and Path Planning in the Automation of Robotic Assembly Tasks" (IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, 2026), "Exploring tasks and challenges in human-robot collaborative systems: A review" (Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, 2026), "Realising human-robot collaboration in manufacturing? A journey towards industry 5.0 amid organisational paradoxical tensions" (Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2025), and "An investigation into minimising total energy consumption and total weighted tardiness in job shops" (2014, highly cited). Lohse has earned best paper awards at IEEE IECON 2013, ICMR 2021, and TAROS 2023, and serves on the EPSRC Strategic Advisory Team for Manufacturing and the Circular Economy since 2022.