Björn Matthias

Björn Matthias is Corporate Executive Engineer at ABB Robotics. 

After studying physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and obtaining his PhD in experimental particle physics at Yale University in 1990, Björn spent 3 1/2 years as a post-doc at the University of Heidelberg, doing research on spectroscopy of exotic atoms and on rare decays. 

In 1994, Björn joined ABB Corporate Research in Germany, working in 3D computational design and simulation of power electrical systems and of electrostatic paint application. Since 2001, his research focuses on industrial robotics, including robot safety, human-robot collaboration, and robotic small parts assembly. Among other projects, he participated in the development of the YuMi and GoFa robot families of ABB.

Since 2009, Björn is active in national and international committees for standardization of industrial robotics. Methodologies for risk reduction of collaborative applications were developed during this period. 

In the European context, he served on the Board of Directors of euRobotics aisbl from 2012 to 2015 and continues to contribute to the road mapping work for robotics and AI in both euRobotics and ADRA topic groups. 

Björn has co-authored over 100 scientific publications and contributed to more than 100 patent applications.