Simon Kohaut

I am a PhD candidate at the Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Lab at TU Darmstadt, co-supervised by Kristian Kersting and Devendra Singh Dhami.

My research sits at the intersection of neuro-symbolic AI and responsible reasoning systems, developing methods that combine the representational powers of neural learning with the interpretability and reasoning capabilities of symbolic systems. I am particularly interested in deploying such systems in safety-critical domains, including robotics and autonomous transportation, where reliability, explainability, and formal guarantees are essential.

I care about building AI that is not only performant, but also verifiable, transparent, and safe by design, contributing to a future where intelligent systems can be responsibly integrated into the physical world.

news

Jun 11, 2026	Paper accepted at Data-centric Machine Learning Research (DMLR): CycliST: A video language model benchmark for reasoning on cyclical state transitions.
Mar 03, 2026	New preprint: Right in time: Reactive reasoning in regulated traffic spaces.
Feb 07, 2026	New preprint: Reactive knowledge representation and asynchronous reasoning.
Nov 29, 2025	New preprint: CycliST: A video language model benchmark for reasoning on cyclical state transitions
Oct 18, 2025	Paper published at 2025 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS): The Constitutional Filter: Bayesian estimation of compliant agents.
Oct 02, 2025	Journal paper accepted in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems: Probabilistic mission design for neuro-symbolic unmanned aircraft systems.
Sep 24, 2025	Journal paper published in ACM Journal on Autonomous Transportation Systems: Hybrid many-objective optimization in probabilistic mission design for compliant and effective UAV routing.
Jul 20, 2025	New preprint: The Constitutional Controller: Doubt-calibrated steering of compliant agents.
Dec 18, 2024	New preprint: Answer set networks: Casting answer set programming into deep learning.
Aug 31, 2024	Paper published at 2024 IEEE 27th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC): StaR Maps: Unveiling uncertainty in geospatial relations.
Jun 03, 2024	Paper published at 2024 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS): Towards probabilistic clearance, explanation and optimization.
Oct 25, 2023	US Patent filed: Probabilistic mission design (App. 18/192,660).
Sep 03, 2023	Paper published at 2023 IEEE 26th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC): Mission design for unmanned aerial vehicles using hybrid probabilistic logic programs.
Sep 30, 2022	I started my PhD at the AI & ML Lab at TU Darmstadt in collaboration with the Honda Research Institute Europe.
Sep 23, 2021	Paper published at 2023 IEEE 26th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC): Error decomposition for hybrid localization systems.
May 26, 2021	US Patent filed: Analysis of localization errors in a mobile object (App. 17/105,510).
Jun 30, 2018	Paper published at International Robotic Sailing Conference 2018 (IRSC): Dynamic simulation model for an autonomous sailboat.

selected publications

ACM JATS

Hybrid many-objective optimization in probabilistic mission design for compliant and effective UAV routing

Simon Kohaut, Nikolas Hohmann, Sebastian Brulin, Benedict Flade, Julian Eggert, Markus Olhofer, Jürgen Adamy, Devendra Dhami, and Kristian Kersting

Journal on Autonomous Transportation Systems, 2025

arXiv Bib PDF Code

@article{kohaut2025hybrid,
  title = {Hybrid many-objective optimization in probabilistic mission design for compliant and effective UAV routing},
  author = {Kohaut, Simon and Hohmann, Nikolas and Brulin, Sebastian and Flade, Benedict and Eggert, Julian and Olhofer, Markus and Adamy, J{\"u}rgen and Dhami, Devendra and Kersting, Kristian},
  journal = {Journal on Autonomous Transportation Systems},
  volume = {3},
  number = {1},
  pages = {1--24},
  year = {2025},
  publisher = {ACM New York, NY},
}

IEEE/RSJ IROS

The Constitutional Filter: Bayesian Estimation of Compliant Agents

Simon Kohaut, Felix Divo, Benedict Flade, Devendra Singh Dhami, Julian Eggert, and Kristian Kersting

In 2025 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2025

arXiv Bib PDF Code

@inproceedings{kohaut2025constitutional,
  title = {The Constitutional Filter: Bayesian Estimation of Compliant Agents},
  author = {Kohaut, Simon and Divo, Felix and Flade, Benedict and Dhami, Devendra Singh and Eggert, Julian and Kersting, Kristian},
  booktitle = {2025 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)},
  pages = {3092--3099},
  year = {2025},
  organization = {IEEE},
}

IEEE T-ITS

Probabilistic mission design for neuro-symbolic unmanned aircraft systems

Simon Kohaut, Benedict Flade, Daniel Ochs, Devendra Singh Dhami, Julian Eggert, and Kristian Kersting

IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2025

arXiv Bib PDF Code

@article{kohaut2025probabilistic,
  title = {Probabilistic mission design for neuro-symbolic unmanned aircraft systems},
  author = {Kohaut, Simon and Flade, Benedict and Ochs, Daniel and Dhami, Devendra Singh and Eggert, Julian and Kersting, Kristian},
  journal = {IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems},
  year = {2025},
  publisher = {IEEE},
}

DMLR

CycliST: A Video Language Model Benchmark for Reasoning on Cyclical State Transitions

Simon Kohaut, Daniel Ochs, Shun Zhang, Benedict Flade, Julian Eggert, Kristian Kersting, and Devendra Singh Dhami

Journal of Data-centric Machine Learning Research, 2026

Bib Website

@article{kohaut2026cyclist,
  title = {Cycli{ST}: A Video Language Model Benchmark for Reasoning on Cyclical State Transitions},
  author = {Kohaut, Simon and Ochs, Daniel and Zhang, Shun and Flade, Benedict and Eggert, Julian and Kersting, Kristian and Dhami, Devendra Singh},
  journal = {Journal of Data-centric Machine Learning Research},
  issn = {XXXX-XXXX},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://openreview.net/forum?id=l03g53HUL2},
}

arXiv

Reactive Knowledge Representation and Asynchronous Reasoning

Simon Kohaut, Benedict Flade, Julian Eggert, Kristian Kersting, and Devendra Singh Dhami

arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.05625, 2026

arXiv Bib PDF Code

@article{kohaut2026reactive,
  title = {Reactive Knowledge Representation and Asynchronous Reasoning},
  author = {Kohaut, Simon and Flade, Benedict and Eggert, Julian and Kersting, Kristian and Dhami, Devendra Singh},
  journal = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.05625},
  year = {2026},
}