Maarten Steinbuch (born 1960 in Zeist) is a high-tech systems scientist, entrepreneur and communicator. He holds the chair of Systems & Control at
Eindhoven University of Technology
The Eindhoven University of Technology ( nl, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven), abbr. TU/e, is a public technical university in the Netherlands, located in the city of Eindhoven. In 2020–21, around 14,000 students were enrolled in its BSc a ...
(TU/e), where he is Distinguished University Professor. His research spans from
automotive engineering
Automotive engineering, along with aerospace engineering and naval architecture, is a branch of vehicle engineering, incorporating elements of mechanical, electrical, electronic, software, and safety engineering as applied to the design, manufactu ...
plasma
Plasma or plasm may refer to:
Science
* Plasma (physics), one of the four fundamental states of matter
* Plasma (mineral), a green translucent silica mineral
* Quark–gluon plasma, a state of matter in quantum chromodynamics
Biology
* Blood pla ...
control. He is most known for his work in the field of advanced motion control, as well as in robotics for high precision
surgery
Surgery ''cheirourgikē'' (composed of χείρ, "hand", and ἔργον, "work"), via la, chirurgiae, meaning "hand work". is a medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a person to investigate or treat a pat ...
. Steinbuch is a prolific blogger and a key opinion leader on the influence of new technologies on society. He is well known as an advocate of electric vehicles.
Philips Research
The Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium (English translation: ''Philips Physics Laboratory'') or NatLab was the Dutch section of the Philips research department, which did research for the product divisions of that company. Originally located in the ...
(1987-1998) and as group leader at Philips CFT (1998-1999).
In 1999 Steinbuch became full professor Systems and Control at Eindhoven University of Technology, where he heads the research group Control Systems Technology at the Mechanical Engineering department. From 2006-2017 he acted as scientific director of the 4TU Research Centre High Tech Systems of
4TU
4TU (stylized as 4TU.Federation) is the federation of the four Dutch universities of technology :
* Delft University of Technology (TU Delft)
* Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e)
* University of Twente (UT)
* Wageningen University and R ...
, the Federation of Dutch Technical Universities. In 2013 he was appointed Distinguished University Professor at TU/e and in 2014 Scientific Director of the TU/e High Tech Systems Center, which was established on his initiative.
In 2003, 2005, 2008 and 2015 Steinbuch obtained the 'Best-Teacher' award of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at TU/e. In 2015 he won the first Academic Society Award of the Royal Netherlands Society of Engineers (KIVI). In 2016 he was honored as Simon Stevin Meester by Technology Foundation STW - the highest Dutch award for scientific technological research.
automotive engineering
Automotive engineering, along with aerospace engineering and naval architecture, is a branch of vehicle engineering, incorporating elements of mechanical, electrical, electronic, software, and safety engineering as applied to the design, manufactu ...
.
He has developed new techniques to accommodate reference and disturbance induced errors, based on repetitive control, iterative learning and motion feedback control. His group is well known for developing and applying principles for the mechanical design of high-tech systems ('design for stiffness') which enabled the high reproducibility and low-cost manufacturing of such systems, which has benefited the high-tech industry in the Brainport
Eindhoven
Eindhoven () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of North Brabant of which it is its largest. With a population of 238,326 on 1 January 2022,ASML, Philips,
Océ
Canon Production Printing, formerly known as Océ until the end of 2019, is a Netherlands-based subset of Canon that develops, manufactures and sells printing and copying hardware and related software. The product line includes office printing an ...
, FEI, and various SMEs).
Steinbuch's research led to the improvement of high-performance robots for precision domestic care and medical surgery. He developed predictive models and implemented these in an integrated design strategy, taking into account all phenomena relevant to the robot's performance. His medical robotic systems perform close to the limits of what is physically possible, allowing highly precise surgical procedures. The design methodology of motion feedforward control was further explored for cooperative driving applications, resulting in a highly cited 2010 IEEE Trans. Vehicular Technology paper.
Maarten Steinbuch has supervised over 500 master students, 60 PhD students and published more than 300 peer-reviewed conference contributions and articles in peer-reviewed journals. His research group Control Systems Technology received the highest academic rating in the two most recent evaluations (2008 and 2013). Steinbuch has an H-index of over 25 in Web of Science and over 45 in Google Scholar, with more than 9000 citations. He gave over 80 invited lectures including many keynote speeches at conferences including the American Control Conference 2011, IFAC Symposium on System Identification (Sysid), IEEE Multi-Conference on Systems and Control (MCS) 2013, and IFAC Mechatronics. He was Editor-in-Chief of the leading journal IFAC Mechatronics (2008-2015), and Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology (2003-2008). Steinbuch holds 9 patents.
Entrepreneurship and valorisation
An important leitmotiv in Steinbuch's career is the concurrent focus on fundamental research as well as valorisation. He is member of advisory and supervisory boards at multiple companies and foundations and (co-)founded start-up companies including MI-Partners, Mechatronics Academy, Steinbuch in Motion, Eindhoven Medical Robotics, Preceyes The latter three are in the field of high precision surgical robotics,
eye surgery
Eye surgery, also known as ophthalmic or ocular surgery, is surgery performed on the eye or its adnexa, by an ophthalmologist or sometimes, an optometrist. Eye surgery is synonymous with ophthalmology. The eye is a very fragile organ, and requ ...
(Preceyes), and
vascular surgery
Vascular surgery is a surgical subspecialty in which diseases of the vascular system, or arteries, veins and lymphatic circulation, are managed by medical therapy, minimally-invasive catheter procedures and surgical reconstruction. The specialty ...
(Microsure). As CEO of Eindhoven Medical Robotics, Steinbuch has expressed the ambition to create more than 1000 jobs within 10 years in Eindhoven and create an industry on designing, building and selling-high tech medical equipment.
Steinbuch is considered one of the frontrunners in connecting academia and industry in the Eindhoven Brainport region and nationwide. He is faculty member of SingularityU NL and a regular keynote speaker at international SingularityU events. In his view of the next generation university academia becomes an open innovation space and co-creation hotspot with part time positions for ‘residents’ from industry, art, government, and societal institutions. This concept is now being explored as a regional collaboration between knowledge institutions and industry in the 'Eindhoven Engine'.
Outreach
Steinbuch is a prolific blogger, reaching out to peers, industry and society on a plethora of subjects. He maintains a well-visited website and is an active member of the Twitter community. He is a regular guest at Dutch national radio and television programmes such as the prime-time show
De Wereld Draait Door
''De Wereld Draait Door'' (; English: "The world keeps on turning") also known by the acronym DWDD was an early-evening talk show on Dutch television, broadcast every weekday at 7:00 p.m. on NPO 1. It is the Netherlands' longest-running, reg ...
and is often interviewed in newspapers. At an international level he appeared in BBC World and BBC news (UK), RTL West and ARD (Germany). From 2001-2015 Steinbuch was chairman of the 'Stichting Techniekpromotie' educating and inspiring children aged 4–18 in science and technology.
Steinbuch has inspired the establishment of TU/e student teams participating in the
World Solar Challenge
The World Solar Challenge (WSC), since 2013 named Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, is an international event for solar powered cars driving 3000 kilometres through the Australian outback.
With the exception of a four-year gap between ...
for solar powered vehicles (the TU/e car 'Stella' won the Cruiser Class in 2013, 2015, and 2017),
RoboCup
RoboCup is an annual international robotics competition founded in 1996 by a group of university professors (including Hiroaki Kitano, Manuela M. Veloso, and Minoru Asada). The aim of the competition is to promote robotics and AI research by offer ...
for robot soccer (the TU/e Tech United team is a five time world champion in the midsize league), and
RoboCup
RoboCup is an annual international robotics competition founded in 1996 by a group of university professors (including Hiroaki Kitano, Manuela M. Veloso, and Minoru Asada). The aim of the competition is to promote robotics and AI research by offer ...
for service robots (the TU/e Tech United team is world champion in the @Home Standard Platform League).
Personal
Maarten Steinbuch was born in 1960 in Zeist. He currently lives in
Helmond
Helmond (; called ''Héllemond'' in the local dialect) is a city and municipality in the Metropoolregio Eindhoven of the province of North Brabant in the Southern Netherlands.
Helmond is home to several textile and metal companies. The Vlisco fa ...
with his wife Inge Steinbuch-Linstra. Together they have three children. In 2016 and 2017 the couple published the "Slimme Scheurkalender" ('smart day calendar') of which 10.000 copies were sold. The revenues were used to sponsor the aforementioned TU/e student teams and the Stichting Techniekpromotie.