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!

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.

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!      

Yesterday, 4th June 2019, the TV show " Školski sat " aired on Croatian National Television (HRT 2), the episode was titled " On robots and humans " with the topic of robotics. Our Lab's Matko Orsag and Frano Petric took part in the show together with the humanoid robot Pepper , and they discussed how robots work with people, how they might help us in the future and what questions might arise in this process. The show also featured segments about the fund-raising event we had for Christmas, as well as our work with robots in the Laboratory. Take a look at the episode via this link (in Croatian)!

LARICS members took part in another Festival of Science in Zagreb , an event aiming to bring science closer to the general public which was held from 8th to 13th April 2019 . The main topic of the festival was colors, but it also included many other interesting and innovative branches of technology, including robotics. This is why the robotics@fer.hr brand , which consists of LARICS, LABUST and LAMOR, also took part in the event and had workshops and an exhibition. Matko Orsag, Frano Petric and Barbara Arbanas represented our Laboratory at the event.

On 24 April 2019 , members of LARICS working on our Specularia project went to Agrivi , a company applying the newest software and technological innovations to agriculture. Matko, Ivana, Antun and Marsela talked to them about which agricultural crops and cultures they should use as part of the project and which activities can be done with the individual plants in their various stages of growth. They also learned a lot about Agrivi's work and how they use these innovative technologies, which they could also apply to the project in a number of ways.