Antun Ivanović and Lovro Marković (UNIZG FER) visited the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA) for a week in February 2022. While at the facilities, they worked closely with Prof. Mirko Kovac (ICL), EMPA researchers David Häusermann​, Fabian Wiesemüller​, and Cedric Portmann, and ICL researchers Bahadir Kocer, Lachlan Orr, and Oscar Pang. They have continued the collaboration established by Bahadir Kocer's visit to UNIZG FER in February 2020. The team is collaborating on the development of an aerial robotics team for autonomous construction. They are developing planning and control algorithms and exploring new materials and adhesives to enable efficient and robust autonomous construction with a team of drones. During their stay, they have been working on integrating aerial systems from the two groups and preparing for ICL's upcoming visit to UNIZG FER for further experimental verification in preparation for a joint publication.

During Staff Exchange 2, Research Plan, the LARICS team visited partner CTA and US facilities. LARICS Project Manager Vlatka Kovačević met with the Project partner CTA (Technological Corporation of Andalusia) Head of Aerospace Sector Silvia de los Santos and Consultant Marta Marcias and Communication Department Officers Marisol Castro Rey and Natalia Gutierrez Roa. The goal of this short-term visit was to provide UNIZG-FER project management staff with direct insight into administrative processes in CTA that are related to innovation management and technology transfer. Vlatka has also with Silvia and LARICS Team (Robert Milijaš and Marko Križmančić) visited CATEC (Advanced Center for Aerospace Technologies). The main outcome of this trip was the enhancement of the reputation, attractiveness, and networking channels of LARICS and raising the profile of its staff thanks to knowledge exchange (best practices, lessons learned).

In the last series of visits in the AeroTwin staff exchange program, LARICS PhD students Marko Križmančić and Robert Milijaš spent three weeks at the University of Seville (USE), Spain from January 15 to February 6. They were working at the Department for Systems and Automatic Engineering under the supervision of Professor José Ramiro Martinez de Dios. Marko worked on designing a new mission planning algorithm for multi-robot systems with the help of USE professor Ivan Maza, while Robert compared the SLAM algorithms and hardware used by the GRVC group at USE to the approaches used in LARICS. During the exchange, several fruitful meetings were held which resulted in plans for future scientific publications.

On February 7, 2022 LARICS researcher Barbara Arbanas Ferreira successfully defended her doctoral dissertation and received a Doctor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. Barbara’s thesis was entitled “Decentralized mission planning for heterogeneous robotic teams based on hierarchical task representation”. The thesis was co-supervised by Prof. Stjepan Bogdan (UNIZG FER) and Prof. José Ramiro Martinez de Dios (USE).

Project partners finally gathered for the 2nd edition of DroneDays 2021 that took place in Biograd na Moru, Croatia . The aerial robotics workshop was held on the 4th and 5th of October, organized by LARICS team . Each partner participated by giving lectures and presenting their work through tutorials and hands-on implementing project activities. Expert lectures were given by: Prof. Mirko Kovac (ICL) on Multi-modal Aerial Robotics for Environmental Sensing and Construction Prof. José Ramiro Martines de Dios (USE)  on Heterogenous Aerial Robot Cooperation for Inspection and Maintenance Tutorials and hands-on were given by: Silvia de los Santos (CTA) on Technology Transfer Actions and Key aspects for the creation of a successful spin-off André Farinha, Constança Rosas and Mirko Kovac (ICL) on The intricacies of looking underwater with a drone – A dual agent system for aerial and underwater operations Ashutosh Choubey (ICL) on   Commercialisation of university based R&D projects Julio L. Paneque and  Raúl Tapia (USE) on Heterogeneous Robot Cooperation The event was successful with 90 registered participants, 16 lectures, 6 demonstration flights, and 200 visitors of the exhibition area where 7 companies presented their products and services.  Photos of the event are available in the gallery of the DroneDays official website .

LARICS members Robert Milijas and Jurica Goricanec attended ICUAS 2021 that took place in Athens, Greece from 15 until 18 June, 2021. Robert presented the paper A Comparison of LiDAR-Based SLAM Systems for Control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Jurica Civil infrastructure data acquisition in urban environments based on multi-UAV mission . Both papers were results of research and activities done within LARICS projects ENCORE, ASAP and AEROTWIN.                

LARICS members actively participated in this year's edition of  ICRA -  International Conference on Robotics and Automation  but only virtually. The conference was held  May 30 - June 5, 2021  at the brand new magnificent Xi’an International Convention and Exhibition Center in Xi’an China.  Ana Batinovic  presented the paper "A Multi-Resolution Frontier-Based Planner for Autonomous 3D" (A. Batinović, T. Petrović, A. Ivanovic, F. Petric, S. Bogdan). Marsela Polic  presented the paper "Compliant Plant Exploration for Agricultural Procedures With a Collaborative Robot" (M. Polic, M. Car, F. Petric, M. Orsag).  Antun Ivanovic  virtually attended the  Aerial Robotics Workshop  (paper title: "Precision Airdrop Challenges with Multirotor UAVs", A. Ivanovic, M. Orsag) together with Bruno Maric and Marsela Polic. Lovro Markovic  presented the paper "Adaptive Stiffness Estimation Impedance Control for Achieving Sustained Contact in Aerial Manipulation" (L. Markovic, M. Car, M. Orsag, S. Bogdan). Ivo Vatavuk  presented the paper "Precise Jump Planning Using Centroidal Dynamics Based Bilevel Optimization" (I. Vatavuk, Z. Kovacic). Stjepan Bogdan participated as a speaker at the Workshop on Aerial Robotics with the paper "The flying Cartographer: Using a graph SLAM method for a long-term UAV navigation"  

LARICS members paricipated in the first edition of Dronijada that took place on June 5 , 2021 in Varaždin. The event was organized by  LERAMIS ,  Aeroklub Varaždin  and  Croatian International Airshow Varazdin , and featured FPV races, commmercial drone fly zone, and exhibiton. LARICS memebrs took this opportunity to promote project AeRoTwin, and the upcoming DroneDays 2021, as well as the other activities of the lab and their equipment.