WP1 - Know-how exchange

WP1 objective is to increase UNIZG-FER research excellence and innovation capacity in the field of aerial robotics, in the following Strategic Research Domains (SRDs):

  • cooperative robotic missions
  • aerial robot navigation
  • aerial robot configurability


S&T knowledge transfer activities:

 

expert visits

short-term visits

joint summer schools

co-supervising PhD students

 

 

hands-on on-site trainings

 

innovation management knowledge transfer

 

transfer workshops

 


Repository

News

Marsela Polic defended her doctoral...

On March 11, 2022 LARICS researcher Marsela Polić successfully defended her doctoral dissertation and received a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering. Marsela’s thesis is entitled “Soft robotic manipulation in agrotechnical procedures based on machine and deep learning”.

Author: Tamara Petrović
Short term visit by Antun Ivanović...

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.

Author: Barbara Arbanas Pascoal Ferreira
Short term visit by Marko Križmančić...

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.

Author: Barbara Arbanas Pascoal Ferreira
Barbara Arbanas Ferreira defended her...

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).

Author: Barbara Arbanas Pascoal Ferreira
DroneDays 2021 successfully finalized

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.

Author: Ana Golec
LARICS at BTS 2020

LARICS team attended Breaking the Surface 2020 workshop from September 27 to October 4, 2020. This was the 12th edition of this international intersiciplinary field workshop of marine robotics and its applications, held every year in Biograd na moru, Croatia. 

LARICS members actively participated in the workshop programme with their PhD presentations and tutorials, and attended lectures by AeRoTwin partners from the University of Seville (J. Ramiro Martinez de Dios, Augusto Gómez Eguíluz, Julio L. Paneque) and Imperial College London (Mirko Kovac, Crystal Winston, Andre Farinha, Julien di Tria), and the invited talk by Ivana Palunko (University of Dubrovnik) organized within H2020 AeRoTwin project.

Photos are available in the Gallery.

Author: Ana Golec
2020 IEEE RAS Summer School in Prague

Our PhD students Antun Ivanovic, Lovro Markovic, Marko Krizmancic and Ana Batinovic attended the 2020 IEEE RAS Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems hosted at Czech Technical University in Prague from 14th to 18th of September 2020. The Summer School program aims at promoting the newest achievements in multi-robot system research. 

The main scope of the program was swarm robotics, including lectures by well-recognized experts in the field, group seminars, computer practicals, and outdoor experiments.  Moreover, the Summer School was a great opportunity for networking with other participants and lecturers. 

You can find more about the Summer School at http://mrs.felk.cvut.cz/summer-school/

Check out photos in the Gallery.

Author: Ana Golec
Stjepan Bogdan held an invited talk...

In celebration of the World Bee Day (May 20), Prof. Stjepan Bogdan held an invited talk “Swarm Intelligence in Animal-Robot Interaction” at the Technical Museum Nikola Tesla in Zagreb. Prof. Bogdan presented very interesting results of research done on bee communication channels and social behaviour of bees. The talk was a part of a special programme the Museum had prepared to raise awareness of the importance of pollinators, the threats they face and their contribution to sustainable development.

Author: Ana Golec
LARICS and ICL doing joint experiments

In the first week of February 2020, Bahadir Basaran from the Imperial College London, together with our own Marko Krizmancic and Antun Ivanovic, worked on experiments as part of collaboration within AeRoTwin project.

The main goal was building a wall with teams of aerial vehicles specialized for spreading infil mixture between brick layers, and brick pickup and placement. The team developed a mission planner for aerial vehicles collaboration and conducted experiments on a mockup scenario.

Author: Ana Golec
Invitation to the lecture:...

The H2020 project "Twinning coordination action for spreading excellence in Aerial Robotics - AeRoTwin" and Laboratory for Robotics and Intelligent Control Systems - LARICS invite you to the lecture:

"Human-robot collaboration to extend space missions through telerobotics"

by

Dr. Neal Y. Lii, German Aerospace Center (DLR)

which will be held on 6 March 2020 at 09:40 in the Auditorium Hall at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Zagreb, Croatia. The lecture will be held within European Space Agency (ESA)- Croatia regional workshop 'Space powering the Green Deal and the Digital Economy'.

Author: Ana Golec
Expert Visit by Prof. Felipe Gonzalez...

On Thursday, 23 January 2020, Prof. Felipe Gonzalez, Associate Professor at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia, will give a lecture on “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Artificial Intelligence Revolutionizing Wildlife Monitoring and Conservation”. The lecture will be held at 11 a.m. in room C-09-01.

 

Dr. Gonzalez interest is in creating aerial robots, drones or UAVs that possess a high level of cognition using efficient on-board computer algorithms using advanced optimization and game theory approaches that assist us to understand and improve our physical and natural world. Dr. Gonzalez lead the Airborne Sensing Lab at QUT.  He is the co-author of several books in UAV based remote sensing and UAV based design based on evolutionary optimization and game strategies and as of 2018 has published nearly 130 refereed papers. He is also a Chartered Professional Engineer, Engineers Australia – National Professional Engineers Register (NPER), a Member Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS), The IEEE, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and Holder of a current Australian Private Pilot Licence (CASA PPL) and a Remote Pilot Licence (RePL from CASA).

Author: Ana Golec
Invitation to the lecture: Real-World...

The H2020 project "Twinning coordination action for spreading excellence in Aerial Robotics - AeRoTwin" and Laboratory for Robotics and Intelligent Control Systems - LARICS invite you to the lecture: "Real-World Robotics: From Swarms to Entrepreneurship" by Daniel Lofaro, George Mason University, which will be held on 18th December 2019 at 12:00 in the Gray Hall of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Zagreb, Croatia.

The lecture is organized under the programme Robotics Food Court which is supported by the U. S. Embassy in Croatia.

More about the speaker and the talk can be found in the detailed news content or here.

Author: Ivana Mikolić
Short Term Visit 3

In November 2019, two LARICS PhD students, Marsela Polic and Marko Car visited the Aerial Robotics Laboratory at the ICL. The students first participated in the training activity, during which they had a guided laboratory visit. They also attended a guest lecture from prof. Masayuki Inaba from the University of Tokio and participated in an origami robotics workshop.

 

Following the training activity, the students continued their visit to the ARL within the short-term visit, during which they worked on a joint research project proposal together with Dr. Hai-Nguyen Nguyen (post-doc) and Chuqian Lou (PhD student), under the supervision of Dr. Mirko Kovac (laboratory director). The research proposal investigates the possibility of integration of soft robotics paradigm into the UAV control scheme using the origami robotic structures. During the visit, compliant force sensing origami prototypes were designed and tested on mechanical, hardware and software level. An origami casing for UAV mechanical compliance was designed, including both micro origami repeating pattern and macro structure with UAV mounting. Available state of the art micro depth cameras were tested, and the optimal one was chosen. The raw data acquisition was implemented and tested. A long-term timeline for the project progress was defined, during which the origami structure will be manufactured, tested, and implemented. The compliant sensing capabilities will be realized using machine learning and deep learning techniques.

Author: Ana Golec
Training 2: Design of bio-inspired...

In the week November 11-15, 2019 Stjepan Bogdan, Ivana Mikolić, Matko Orsag, Marsela Polić and Marko Car (UNIZG FER) visited Imperial College London and attended training organised by Mirko Kovac (ICL) within the know-how exchange project activity. The general aim was to give participants hands-on on-site training of bio-inspiration and how to design bio-inspired aerial platform by using CAD tools, 3D printers and novel soft materials.

The first training session was focused on the overview of facilities and testing setups, current work and new results, and planning of joint work and discussion about technical challenges, followed by a discussion on technical methodology and integration focus including system design choices and material selection.

The second session was on sensor selection (Intel reasense, TerraBee, Mint etc) and self-perception for robotic systems. Additionally, AeRoTwin project members Marko Car and Marsela Polić attended a seminar talk by Prof. Masayuki Inaba (University of Tokyo) on robot design including networking with group members about soft robot design. The last activity was training on robot tracking and sensor fusion, including option to integrate the robot in the Gazebo simulation.

During the last morning session, training on soft component manufacturing and design choices for structure took place. The final training was focused on soft material modelling using FEM methods and soft material simulation software approaches.

Check out our photos in our Gallery.

Author: Ana Golec
Ivana Mikolić held an invited lecture...

Ivana Mikolić held an invited lecture "Managing EU scientific-research projects" at the University of Dubrovnik on 10th of October 2019. More than 30 University's teaching and administrative staff participated in the lecture. The lecture was organized in the scope of AeRoTwin project and by the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society University of Zagreb Student Branch Chapter.

The lecture presented in detail all phases of the projects - from proposal writing, to project implementation, and to evaluation. The possibilities of using EU funds from different programmes were presented. Project preparation and management were elaborated through practical examples. All project phases were presented from a technical, managerial, financial and administrative perspective. The aim of the lecture was to gain a better understanding of EU projects, proposals and calls, as well as the tools used to manage them.

Author: webadmin
Short Term Visit 2

LARICS' PhD students Barbara Arbanas and Ana Batinović spent four weeks (June 2019) at the University of Seville, Spain,  as a part of Aerotwin staff exchange programme.

They were interns at Department for Systems and Automatic Engineering under supervision of professor Jose Ramiro Martinez de Dios. The main focus was on integrating SLAM, obstacle avoidance algorithm and a mission planner for UAV-UGV cooperative teams. Barbara worked on a new task allocation algorithm and Ana on both static and dynamic obstacle avoidance algorithm based on potential fields. Moreover, results will be presented as a joint conference paper and future collaboration.

Author: Ana Golec
LARICS team won first place at ERL...

LARICS team members took part in the European Robotics League Emergency Local Tournament on 18-23 February in Seville, Spain, where they achieved great results - they won first place overall, as well as best ground team. During the five days of the competition, they worked on developing their ground and aerial robots, making them work together autonomously in various environments, and they also took part in the 1st AeRoTwin Training and 1st AeRoTwin Short Term Visit with project partners from the University of Seville and Technological Corporation of Andalusia. You can find a gallery from the tournament here.

Author: Anamarija Miličević
Short Term Visit 1

During the ERL Local Emergency Tournament in Seville, LARICS Project Manager and AeRoTwin Project Coordinator Ivana Mikolić met with project partner CTA Aerospace Technical Officer Silvia de los Santos and consultant Marta Macías for the first AeRoTwin Short Term Visit, where she learned about the CTA model of innovation cluster and technological transfer. Ivana, Silvia and Marta visited the CTA facilities, talked to Silvia about their business and research strategies, and found out more about their equipment, projects etc. and visited the Advanced Center for Aerospace Technologies (CATEC). This was the first in a line of short term management-oriented visits which will help LARICS improve the laboratory's R&D capacities, as is the goal of the AeRoTwin project.

Author: Anamarija Miličević
LARICS team at the ERL Emergency 2019

This month, the LARICS team will be going to Seville, Spain, to take part in the European Robotics League Emergency Local Tournament 2019! Their team has been pre-selected for this competitive and interesting event, which means that they will have to combine their knowledge of ground and aerial robots to make them work together. They will have to be as autonomous as possible, capable of coordinating through both indoor and outdoor environments and will have to perform specific advanced tasks. LARICS members are working very hard for this competition and are looking forward to taking part in it!

Author: Anamarija Miličević
Training 1: Drone Localization and...

On February 18 and 19, 2019, the LARICS team will be coming to Seville to take part in the first AeRoTwin training with the title Drone Localization and Mapping. The training will be held at the Robotics, Vision and Control Group (GRVC ) Lab premises in Seville, Spain, and the lecturers are experienced members of this lab and the AeRoTwin project team, who will help LARICS members learn about drone localization and mapping, the newest developed techniques and technology, the theoretical background and practical applications. You can find out more about the content of the training, the lecturers and related institution by following this link.

Author: Anamarija Miličević
Innovation Management Training 1

From the 5th to the 7th of December, 2018, the project's first Innovation Management Training will be held in Zagreb, Croatia, at UNIZG-FER, hosted by LARICS. The title of the event is "EU and Business R&D Project Management", and the goal of the three-day training is for the attendees to gain a better understanding of EU projects, proposals and calls, as well as the tools used to manage them, with special focus on Horizon 2020 projects. The training will be led by four speakers: Vesna Torbarina from the Croatian Chamber of Economy, Manuel Jiménez Díaz from the Morera&Vallejo Group, Silvia de los Santos from the Technological Corporation of Andalusia and Matko Barišić from ABB AS Norway. The full agenda can be found at this link.

Author: Anamarija Miličević
A workshop for PhD students

On Thursday, 15th November, PhD students who are members of LARICS and the AeRoTwin project team attended a workshop in Zagreb, Croatia, which was organized by the Croatian Science Foundation (HRZZ) as part of the institution's project that aims to further develop the careers of young researchers and PhD students in Croatia. At the workshop, they learned about what their possibilities and duties are, how they file reports, work with the system etc. This is one of many such initiatives which will help them reach the goals of the project, particularly the goals of Work Package 1 - Know-how exchange.

Author: Anamarija Miličević
LARICS took part in an Innovation...

The LARICS management team attended an Innovation Management Training with the title "Disruptive Business Models and cracking the code of Financial Forecasting". It was held on 16th November by Helena Deane from WestBIC, Ireland, as part of the EXCELLABUST H2020 Twinning project coordinated by LABUST, another robotics laboratory from UNIZG-FER. The attendees learned about what disruptive business models are, why they are important and how they could be applied in the context of our scientific efforts within the project, as well as outside it.

Author: Anamarija Miličević
AeRoTwin at the TWINNING Coordinators...

Prof. Stjepan Bogdan and Ivana Mikolić, AeRoTwin project coordinators, are currently in Brussels attending the TWINNING Coordinators Day organized by the European Commission. They will attend presentations, meet experts in this area and learn about how they can work on and improve the project in the future. They also used this opportunity to meet the AeRoTwin Project Officer in Brussels.

 

Author: Anamarija Miličević
Invitation to the lecture:...

The H2020 project "Twinning coordination action for spreading excellence in Aerial Robotics - AeRoTwin" and Laboratory for Robotics and Intelligent Control Systems - LARICS invite you to the lecture:

"Bioinspired Aerial Robots for Infrastructures"

by

Mirko Kovač, Imperial College London

which will be held on 27th September 2018 at 09:00 in the Seminar Room of the Department of Control and Computer Engineering on the 9th floor of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Zagreb, Croatia.

More about the speaker and the talk can be found in the detailed news content or here.

Author: Ivana Mikolić