Dr. Michael Suppa

Roboception GmbH

Co-founder and CEO

Dr. Michael Suppa is the co-founder and CEO of Roboception GmbH, a Munich-based start-up company providing comprehensive 3D perception solutions for robotic applications.

Michael received his Master’s Degree (Dipl.-Ing.) in Electrical Engineering (magna cum laude, 2000) and his Doctoral Degree (Dr.-Ing.) in Mechanical Engineering (summa cum laude, 2007) from the University of Hannover, Germany.

From 2000 until 2009, he was employed as a project manager and researcher at the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). In 2009, he was appointed Head of the Perception and Cognition Department at the same institute, and in 2014 he was additionally nominated Deputy Institute Director.

In 2015, Michael co-founded Roboception, a DLR spin-off company. Roboception has since successfully introduced the innovative 3D stereo sensor ‘rc_visard’ along with an associated software suite ‘rc_reason’, enabling robotic users across a variety of domains to equip their robots with reliable perception capabilities.

Under his leadership, the achievements of Roboception and its rc_visard have been recognized by a number of awards, including the Photonics 4.0 (2016), Stevie Award (2017), iF Design Award (2017), EU Robotics Technology Transfer Award (2018) and the Best of Industry Award/ Start-Up (2018).

Michael is consulting robotic start-ups on sharpening business ideas, finding strategic partners and acquiring capital. He has been the PI in several European and national projects and was nominated for and received several best paper awards. He is a lecturer at the Institute of Artificial Intelligence of the University of Bremen.