Biography
Lars Kunze is Professor in Safety for Robotics and Autonomous Systems at the University of West England. Prior to this, he was a Departmental Lecturer in Robotics in the Oxford Robotics Institute (ORI) and the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford (where he is now a visiting fellow), and a Stipendiary Lecturer in Computer Science at Keble College. He is a Programme Fellow of the Assuring Autonomy International Programme (AAIP) and a Co-Editor of the German Journal of Artificial Intelligence (KI Journal, Springer). At ORI, Lars leads the Cognitive Robotics Group (CRG).
Lars studied Cognitive Science (BSc, 2006) and Computer Science (MSc, 2008) at the University of Osnabrück, Germany, and partly at the University of Edinburgh, UK.
He received his PhD (Dr. rer. nat.) from the Technical University of Munich, Germany, in 2014.
In May 2013, Lars was appointed as a Research Fellow in the Intelligent Robotics Lab at the School of Computer Science at Birmingham University.
In March 2017, he joined the Oxford Robotics Institute at Oxford University.
Research Interests
Lars' areas of expertise lie in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). His goal is to enable robots to understand their surroundings, to act autonomously, and to explain their own behaviour in meaningful human terms. To this end, his research concerns the design and development of fundamental AI techniques for autonomous robot systems. He focusses on the combination of knowledge representation, reasoning, machine learning, and robot perception; motivated by applications in complex, real-world environments.
Research Projects
- Assuring Autonomy International Programme (AAIP), Sense-Assess-eXplain (SAX) Building trust in autonomous vehicles in challenging real-world driving scenarios. (https://ori.ox.ac.uk/projects/sense-assess-explain-sax/)
- EU H2020, Autonomous Decision Making in Very Long Traverses (ADE) Realising planetary rover systems with autonomous decision making capabilities in the context of opportunistic science missions. (https://www.h2020-ade.eu)
Research Group
Research Activity
- Programme Fellow of the Assuring Autonomy International Programme (AAIP)
- Editor of the German Journal of Artificial Intelligence (KI Journal, Springer)
DPhil Supervision Interests
I am looking for DPhil students to join the Cognitive Robotics Group (CRG) at the Oxford Robotics Institute. I am open to supervising DPhil students with an interest in perception, inference, learning, and interaction.
Recent Publications
Designing for Anticipation: Centring Cyclist Perspectives on Trust for Automated Vehicle Interaction
Baghabrah J, Kunze L & Jirotka MD (2026), Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications, 218-229
BibTeX
@inproceedings{designingforant-2026/9,
title={Designing for Anticipation: Centring Cyclist Perspectives on Trust for Automated Vehicle Interaction},
author={Baghabrah J, Kunze L & Jirotka MD},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications},
pages={218-229},
year = "2026"
}
Sociotechnical Challenges of Machine Learning in Healthcare and Social Welfare
Reinmund T, Kunze L & Jirotka MD (2026), 1-7
BibTeX
@inproceedings{sociotechnicalc-2026/7,
title={Sociotechnical Challenges of Machine Learning in Healthcare and Social Welfare},
author={Reinmund T, Kunze L & Jirotka MD},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Interactive Health Conference},
pages={1-7},
year = "2026"
}
Quantile-Coupled Flow Matching for Distributional Reinforcement Learning
Groom M, Darvariu V-A, Kunze L, Wilson J & Hawes N (2026)
BibTeX
@misc{quantilecoupled-2026/5,
title={Quantile-Coupled Flow Matching for Distributional Reinforcement Learning},
author={Groom M, Darvariu V-A, Kunze L, Wilson J & Hawes N},
year = "2026"
}
Risk-Aware Reinforcement Learning for Mobile Manipulation
Groom M, Wilson J, Hawes N & Kunze L (2026)
BibTeX
@misc{riskawarereinfo-2026/3,
title={Risk-Aware Reinforcement Learning for Mobile Manipulation},
author={Groom M, Wilson J, Hawes N & Kunze L},
year = "2026"
}
MinkOcc: towards real-time label-efficient semantic occupancy prediction
Sze S, De Martini D & Kunze L (2025), 4036-4043
BibTeX
@inproceedings{minkocctowardsr-2025/11,
title={MinkOcc: towards real-time label-efficient semantic occupancy prediction},
author={Sze S, De Martini D & Kunze L},
booktitle={IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2025)},
pages={4036-4043},
year = "2025"
}
Ensemble of pre-trained models for long-tailed trajectory prediction
Thuremella D, Yang Y, Wanna S, Kunze L & De Martini D (2025), 2025 IEEE 28th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC), 2055-2062
BibTeX
@inproceedings{ensembleofpretr-2025/11,
title={Ensemble of pre-trained models for long-tailed trajectory prediction},
author={Thuremella D, Yang Y, Wanna S, Kunze L & De Martini D},
booktitle={IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC 2025)},
pages={2055-2062},
year = "2025"
}
AV-PsySafe: A risk model and analysis method for the psychological safety of human and autonomous vehicles interaction
Sirgabsou Y, Hardin B, Leblanc F, Raili E, Salvini P et al. (2025), Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 34, 101775-101775
BibTeX
@article{avpsysafeariskm-2025/11,
title={AV-PsySafe: A risk model and analysis method for the psychological safety of human and autonomous vehicles interaction},
author={Sirgabsou Y, Hardin B, Leblanc F, Raili E, Salvini P et al.},
journal={Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives},
volume={34},
number={101775},
pages={101775-101775},
publisher={Elsevier BV},
year = "2025"
}
LikePhys: Evaluating Intuitive Physics Understanding in Video Diffusion Models via Likelihood Preference
Yuan J, Pizzati F, Pinto F, Kunze L, Laptev I et al. (2025)
BibTeX
@misc{likephysevaluat-2025/10,
title={LikePhys: Evaluating Intuitive Physics Understanding in Video Diffusion Models via Likelihood Preference},
author={Yuan J, Pizzati F, Pinto F, Kunze L, Laptev I et al.},
year = "2025"
}
Generating causal explanations of vehicular agent behavioural interactions with learnt reward profiles
Howard R, Hawes N & Kunze L (2025), 2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 10416-10423
BibTeX
@inproceedings{generatingcausa-2025/9,
title={Generating causal explanations of vehicular agent behavioural interactions with learnt reward profiles},
author={Howard R, Hawes N & Kunze L},
booktitle={IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2025)},
pages={10416-10423},
year = "2025"
}
COBRA-PPM: a causal Bayesian reasoning architecture using probabilistic programming for robot manipulation under uncertainty
Cannizzaro R, Groom M, Routley J, Ness R & Kunze L (2025), 2025 European Conference on Mobile Robots (ECMR)
BibTeX
@inproceedings{cobrappmacausal-2025/9,
title={COBRA-PPM: a causal Bayesian reasoning architecture using probabilistic programming for robot manipulation under uncertainty},
author={Cannizzaro R, Groom M, Routley J, Ness R & Kunze L},
booktitle={European Conference on Mobile Robots (ECMR 2025)},
year = "2025"
}
