Daniel Swoboda
Doctoral Researcher
Born September 2nd, 1997 in Vienna, Austria
Doctoral researcher at the Chair of Machine Learning and Reasoning, RWTH Aachen University, working between machine learning and symbolic planning. My current work brings the two together for robotics — learning to guide task and motion planning with signals about what is geometrically feasible, and learning to connect abstract symbolic plans to the continuous goals a robot can execute — bridging the pattern-recognition strength of deep learning with the structure and transparency of symbolic reasoning.
PhD researcher in AI for robotics, working at the intersection of machine learning and planning. I build methods that learn to plan and act — spanning task and motion planning, generalised planning, and neuro-symbolic representation learning — so robots can operate reliably in cluttered, real-world environments.
Education
PhD Candidate — Computer Science
April 2024 – PresentRWTH Aachen University · Aachen, Germany
- Chair of Machine Learning and Reasoning; advised by Prof. Hector Geffner
- Focus: Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Task and Motion Planning, Neuro-Symbolic AI
Master of Science — Computer Science (Minor in Philosophy)
October 2020 – March 2024RWTH Aachen University · Aachen, Germany
- Final grade 1.3 (German scale; 1.0 = best), with Distinction
- Thesis: Jointly Learning Skill Execution and Domain Grounding; advised by Prof. Hector Geffner
Visiting Graduate Student — Kim Jaechul Graduate School of AI
February 2022 – August 2022Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) · Daejeon, South Korea
- Coursework in Robot Task and Motion Planning
Bachelor of Science — Computer Science (Minor in Philosophy)
October 2017 – September 2020RWTH Aachen University · Aachen, Germany
- Thesis: Sharing Promises and Requests in Multi-Agent Goal Reasoning for Logistics Robots; advised by Prof. Gerhard Lakemeyer
Experience
Doctoral Researcher
April 2024 – PresentChair of Machine Learning and Reasoning, RWTH Aachen University · Aachen, Germany
- Bringing learning and symbolic planning together for robot task and motion planning — guiding planning with signals about geometric feasibility, and grounding symbolic plans into continuous control.
Student Research Assistant
January 2024 – March 2024Chair of Machine Learning and Reasoning, RWTH Aachen University · Aachen, Germany
- Neuro-symbolic AI for robotics: integrating skill learning from demonstration with symbolic planning for long-horizon tasks on domestic robots.
Student Research Assistant
March 2020 – December 2023Knowledge-Based Systems Group (UnRAVeL Research Training Group), RWTH Aachen University · Aachen, Germany
- Multi-robot cooperation in goal reasoning: designed a lightweight form of high-level multi-agent cooperation based on sharing partial world states.
- Contributed to an open-source goal-reasoning framework for ROS 2.
Publications & Theses
- Wenbo Ma, Daniel Swoboda, Matteo Tschesche, Till Hofmann (2026). WorkBenchMark: A LEGO-Based Assembly Benchmark with an Assembly-by-Disassembly Baseline for the Smart Manufacturing League. RoboCup Symposium · Oral Presentation. (accepted)
- Tarik Viehmann, Daniel Swoboda, Samridhi Kalra, Himanshu Grover, Gerhard Lakemeyer (2026). Making Robots Play by the Rules: The ROS 2 CLIPS-Executive. 18th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence (ICAART). [PDF]
- Supun Dissanayaka, Alexander Ferrein, Till Hofmann, Kosuke Nakajima, Mario Sanz-Lopez, Jesus Savage, Daniel Swoboda, Matteo Tschesche, Wataru Uemura, Tarik Viehmann, Shohei Yasuda (2025). From Production Logistics to Smart Manufacturing: The Vision for a New RoboCup Industrial League. 2025 RoboCup Symposium, Salvador, Bahia. [PDF]
- Soren Munker, Daniel Swoboda, Karim El Zaatari, Nehel Malhotra, Lucas Manasses Pinheiro de Souza, Amon Goppert, Chi-Guhn Lee, Robert H Schmitt (2023). CAD-Based Product Partitioning for Automated Disassembly Sequence Planning with Community Detection. Proceedings of the Changeable, Agile, Reconfigurable and Virtual Production Conference. [PDF]
- Daniel Swoboda, Tarik Viehmann, Matteo Tschesche, Alexander Ferrein, Gerhard Lakemeyer (2023). The Carologistics RoboCup Logistics Team 2023. RoboCup Logistics League — Team Description Paper.
- Daniel Swoboda, Till Hofmann, Tarik Viehmann, Gerhard Lakemeyer (2022). Towards Using Promises for Multi-Agent Cooperation in Goal Reasoning. 2022 Workshop on Planning and Robotics. [PDF]
- Daniel Maximilian Swoboda (2024). Jointly Learning Skill Execution and Domain Grounding for Robot Task and Motion Planning. Master's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University. [PDF]
- Daniel M Swoboda, Till Hofmann, Gerhard Lakemeyer, Matthias Jarke (2020). Sharing Promises and Requests in Multi-Agent Goal Reasoning for Logistics Robots. Bachelor's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University. [PDF]
Invited Talks
- General Policies, Planning, and Robotics. 1st Mexican Conference on Intelligent Robotics (MEXCIR), Mexico. Plenary Talk, 2025.
- Building a Robotics Software Stack. compAIR Competition, Online. Invited Talk, 2021.
Teaching
AI for Robotics
Summer 2026Lead Instructor & Course Coordinator · RWTH Aachen University
Lab Course Planning for Robotics
Summer 2025Lead Instructor & Course Coordinator · RWTH Aachen University
Lab Course Robot Task and Motion Planning
Winter 2024/25Lead Instructor & Course Coordinator · RWTH Aachen University
Student Supervision
- Jaxon Cheng — Combining Goal-Conditioned RL with Hierarchical RL for Long-Horizon Robot Manipulation Tasks (Master's Thesis, ongoing)
- Fabian Hamm — Integrating Symbolic Planning and Continuous Control via Multi-Modal Goal Embeddings (Master's Thesis, ongoing)
- Hani Alassiri — Semantic Partitioning for Partially Observable Deterministic Task and Motion Planning (Master's Thesis, 2026)
- Wenbo Ma — Open-World Robotic Assembly with Physically Feasible Planning (Bachelor's Thesis, 2026)
- Ümit Diker — Learning Robot Motion Policies for Pushing Objects that Generalize (Master's Thesis, 2025)
Awards & Honours
- RoboCup — 1st Place, Logistics League — World champions — Salvador, Brazil 2025
- RWTH Certificate International — For exceptional dedication to internationalisation 2023
- RoboCup — 1st Place, Logistics League — World champions — Bangkok, Thailand 2022
- RoboCup Asia-Pacific — 1st Place, Logistics League — Remote 2021
- RoboCup — 1st Place, Logistics League — Remote 2021
- International Micro Air Vehicle Competition — 3rd Place, Indoor Competition — Madrid, Spain 2019
Academic Service
- Co-Organiser, Aachen Symposium on Representation Learning to Act and Plan (2024–Present)
- Program Committee Member, RoboCup Symposium (2024–Present)
- Member, Technical Committee, RoboCup Logistics League / Smart Manufacturing League (2021–Present)
Service & Outreach
Team Lead & Core Developer — Carologistics (RoboCup Logistics League)
March 2020 – PresentRWTH Aachen University · Aachen, Germany
Core developer since 2020 and team lead 2024–2026, leading the centralized goal-reasoning agent for a production-logistics scenario and co-developing a new ROS 2 agent framework. Three-time RoboCup Logistics League world champions (2021, 2022, 2025).
Mentor — RWTH BeBuddy Program
October 2022 – PresentRWTH Aachen University · Aachen, Germany
Supporting incoming international students through their first semester, helping them navigate academic life and integration.
Skills & Languages
- Programming
- Python, C++
- Frameworks & Tools
- PyTorch, ROS 2, PDDLStream, Docker, Linux
- Languages
- German — Native, English — C2 (IELTS 8.5), Korean — A2
Daniel Swoboda · Aachen · 2026
