New Hires Join Kraken Robotik
From left to right: Dr. Jan Albiez, Dr. Sylvain Joyeux and Patrick Paranhos (Photos: Kraken)
Kraken Sonar Inc. subsidiary Kraken Robotik GmbH has added several new members to its team: Dr. Jan Albiez, Director of Engineering; Dr. Sylvain Joyeux, Senior Software Scientist; and Patrick Paranhos, Director, Business Development.
Kraken Robotik GmbH Managing Director, Dr. Jakob Schwendner, said the three new hires are “recognized leaders in underwater robotics” who join the company “as Kraken continues to prepare for more growth in our market areas and product lines.”
Dr. Jan Albiez –Director of Engineering
After being employed for six years as researcher in robotics at FZI in Karlsruhe, Germany, Albiez received his PhD from the University of Karlsruhe in 2007 for his work on biologically inspired walking machines. He then worked at the underwater robotic branch of DFKI (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence) in Bremen. DFKI is one of the world's largest nonprofit research institutes for artificial intelligence. In 2014, Jan moved to SENAI CIMATEC in Salvador, Brazil where he served as technical leader on the BG/Shell FlatFish AUV project and trained a 20-person robotics team.
Dr. Sylvain Joyeux – Senior Software Scientist
Since receiving his PhD in 2007, Joyeux has been working on software frameworks to enable long-term autonomy in robotic systems. Until 2014 he was part of DFKI in Germany, where he managed autonomy-related projects and later led DFKI’s Autonomy team. He is the main software architect of the Robot Construction Kit, a software framework used in a variety of robotic systems at DFKI and elsewhere, that has a focus on robust, fault-tolerant autonomous systems. Since 2014, he has been leading the software engineering efforts of the BG/Shell FlatFish project.
Patrick Paranhos – Director, Business Development
Paranhos obtained his MSc in Robotics in 2009 from PUC University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where he developed probabilistic localization algorithms for a Petrobras robotic system. In 2010, he started at DFKI and was involved in various robotics projects. In 2013, he moved to business development and helped establish a Brazilian Institute of Robotics and a Brazilian robotics company. Over the past 5 years he has developed over $30 million in research projects in the oil and gas, electrical energy and mining sectors. He was also responsible for client relations and served as the main contact point with BG/Shell for the FlatFish subsea resident AUV project.
February 2024
