LARICS is looking for financial administrators, project administrators, event organizers and/or dissemination coordinators!   LARICS is involved in various scientific and industry projects and organizes multiple events funded by the EC, NATO, national institutions, local and international companies, and many more. We are looking for new employees willing to help us run these projects and organize them with the help of and under the supervision of our laboratory manager.   Responsibilities for the successful candidate(s) will include (depending on the given job role): preparing project documents and administrative reports monitoring project expenses and keeping track of the budget preparing financial reports engaging with the media creating content for our websites and social platforms organizing dissemination activities organizing various laboratory events any other duties as required and relevant to the role and grade Qualifications: excellent written and spoken Croatian and English is essential If you are interested in the position, please send a short application email with attached CV to this address until 30th of September 2019 . Candidates will be contacted shortly after their application for an interview. Contact: Ivana Mikolić, 091 604 7559

On 3 July 2019, Antonella Barišić and Marko Križmančić, two of our stipendiaries and future members, received rector's award for their work titled Decentralized formation control for a multi-agent system of autonomous spherical robots . The abstract of their work in Croatian is available on this link , while the video of the experimental results can be found here . This marks the 21st rector's award for students associated with LARICS and continues the streak of awards started in 2011. Congratulations to Antonella, Marko, and their mentor prof. Stjepan Bogdan!

After seeing our work through Dronedays and AeRoTwin activities, we were invited by several companies to investigate the posibilities of future collaboration. We were first invited by Koncar and Atos Hrvatska to the Pometeno Brdo windfarm on 2 July 2019 to demonstrate the capabilities of our UAVs in wind turbine inspection tasks. With supervision from Jurica Goričanec from Geoarheo, our Kopterworx UAV performed all planned tasks and results we obtained are looking promising for a future collaboration. We were also invited by Geodetski zavod Rijeka to the Grobnik airport on 9 July 2019 to showcase 3D mapping and georeferecing capabilities of our UAV. Gathered data is still being processed, but we hope it will facilitate interesting future collaborations.

Within NATO SfP project MORUS and EU project AeRoTwin, Lovro Marković and Marko Car attended the European Control Conference from 25th to 28th of June, 2019 in Naples, Italy . At the conference Lovro presented their paper titled Geometric Tracking Control of Aerial Robots Based on Centroid Vectoring . Their paper focuses on presenting the concept of geometric tracking control for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based on variations in centerof gravity (CoG). The proposed UAV model has the ability to exploit its dynamic CoG as a means of stabilization and control. A mathematical model of such a system is used as a base for developing the nonlinear geometric tracking controller on the special Euclidean group SE(3). Finally, two unique UAV models, presented with a trajectory tracking problem, are simulated in a realistic simulation environment. Performance of the selected control terms is analyzed based on relevant simulation results.

On 22 June 2019 , Frano Petric presented our experiences with the ADORE project at the first Assistive technologies and communication conference (ASTEK) in Belgrade, Serbia . Following our collaboration with Alfanum and professor Delic from the Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad, we were invited to present our experience of using humanoid robots with children with autism. Through the talk " Diagnosing ASD with a robot evaluator - experiences from the ADORE project " Frano talked about the technology behind the robot-assisted ASD diagnostics, challenges we faced but also about mixed reactions of the children to the robot and overwhelmingly positive reactions from the parents and caregivers. We would like to thank ASTEK organizers and especially professor Delic for the invitation and are hoping we will be able to take part in future ASTEK events.

The paper titled Centroid vectoring control using aerial manipulator: Experimental results was presented by Antun Ivanović at the international conference IEEE International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems within projects Specularia and AeRoTwin. The conference was held 11-14 June 2019 in Atlanta, USA . This paper addresses the issues of aerial manipulation and its dynamic center of mass variations by deriving a control principle capable of exploiting this disturbance as a means to stabilize the UAV. The UAV utilizes both rotors variations and centroid vectoring for attitude control and the control structure was further augmented with position control. The main focus is on experimental validation of the system.

On 20 May 2019, during the Croatian Academy of Engineering (HATZ) General Assembly, LARICS team member and Asst. Prof. Matko Orsag was awarded a Young Scientist Award "Vera Johanides" , which is a recognition of his rich contribution to science and the field of engineering - We would like to congratulate our colleague on his success and wish him even more success in the future!

On 20-24 May 2019, the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2019) was held in Montreal, Canada, and three of our Lab's members took part in it. Prof. Stjepan Bogdan went to the conference to take part in the workshop titled " The Future of Aerial Robotics: Challenges and Opportunities " as a speaker on the topic of “Full Autonomy in Aerial Manipulation”, while Barbara Arbanas and Goran Vasiljević presented their work and the results of the subCULTron project within the Marine Robotics section of the event. Take a look at a couple photos from the event in the detailed news!