The spinoff company MECOS Traxler, specializing in the industrial application of magnetic bearings, was founded in 1988.

In October 1995, Prof. Dr. Andreas Stemmer joined the Institute of Robotics, focusing on research at the nanometer scale.

As of February 2001, Prof. Stemmer's nanotechnology group became an independent unit within the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering.

Until 2007, IRIS was composed of one single laboratory, the MultiScale Robotics Lab, headed by Prof. Bradley Nelson.

In 2007 the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems expanded to include the Autonomous Systems Lab (ASL) headed by Prof. Roland Siegwart, in an effort to establish a powerful institution conducting research in multiple fronts in robotics.

The laboratories of IRIS are independent entities that conduct research in areas ranging from nanodevices for biomedicine, to systems for rehabilitation and autonomous aerial vehicles.

[13][14][15][16] The Autonomous Systems Lab (ASL), led by Prof. Roland Siegwart resulted of a merger of the Center for Product Design at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) and the Autonomous Systems Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) in the year 2006.

The ASL focuses on the research on intelligent products and systems with special emphasis on autonomous mobile robots.

ADRL develops model-based and model-free control and machine learning methodes that enable robots with arms and legs to roam and manipulate dynamic and complex environments robustly and with agility.

The guidance system involves different electromagnets, through which electric currents must be precisely controlled via algorithms developed by the robotics community.