Hi, I’m Markus!

I work at the intersection of control theory, distributed AI, and physical robotics. I'm currently a Research Scientist in AI & Simulation at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) in Kjeller, developing AI architectures grounded in physics-based world models and integrated with high-fidelity simulators.

Before returning to research, I spent two decades as an R&D engineer and technical lead building autonomous systems for production - industrial manipulators at ABB Robotics, real-time ROS 2 interfaces at Yaskawa Robotics, autonomous drilling robots at Canrig Robotics (two US patents), electrical power systems for offshore vessels at Rolls-Royce Marine, and deepwater control systems for Equinor and General Electric. As a postdoc at Heriot-Watt University's Ocean Systems Lab, I led the research and software architecture of the UNITE project, taking a multi-agent autonomous system - ASV, tethered AUV, and manipulator - from simulation through field deployment with Fugro.

My research builds autonomous systems that plan from mission intent rather than scripts: agentic AI architectures grounded in neural world models (UROSA), whole-body MPC and trajectory optimization, and tether-aware planning under degraded sensing and communication. Everything passes through digital twins (AURA) and hardware-in-the-loop testing before it touches real hardware.

Outside the lab, I’m usually on a bike - clearing my head and putting in the kilometers.

Explore my code, project portfolio, and research and publications.