LARICS has become a partner in a new project "Development of Unmanned Aerial Systems in virtual environments" under the  ESI ERDF - European Regional Development Fund  line of financing. Together with three SMEs, Kraken, Protostar Labs and Capital Hook, LARICS researchers will work on the methodologies that will allow design and analysis of UASs in virtual environments. As a part of the project activities, two demonstrators are planned - the validation of the system in a warehouse and in a railway system.

On 13th and 14th January 2021 LARICS researchers participated in the kickoff meeting of the project, that has been held on-line due to the pandemic. The consortium partners went through the discription-of-work and agreed on further steps to be taken in the first year of the project. LARICS researchers are looking forward to work with partners on several exciting topics related to sensor engineering, AI, autonomous systems and environmental modelling, in attempt to transform plants into living sensors that will provide an ecological/environmental feedback to citizens.

Continuing the collaboration on the ASAP project, on 16 December 2020 LARICS  joined their partners from the Faculty of Civil Engineering in the inspection of the pedestrian bridge in Osijek . This inspection marked the first deployment of new upgrades to their UAV (gimbal, IMU and high resolution lidar), which allowed them to detect and measure frequency of bridge vibrations, which are now being validated against measurements of the partners' obtained through standard techniques. Although hindered by cold temperatures, the project team also used this opportunity to thoroughly test the Ouster lidar by mapping the pylons and using them as a reference for autonomous navigation.

LARICS has again partnered up in two new projects that were kicked off in the last months - ESI ERDF project Development of environmentally friendly vehicle for cleaning public surfaces with autonomous control system based on artificial intelligence (EKOKOMVOZ) coordinated by company RASCO , and COST Action project Advancing Social Inclusion through Technology and Empowerment (a-STEP) , with 17 states participating. On behalf of LARICS, both projects are coordinated by prof. Zdenko Kovačić.

Instead of the annually held University of Zagreb Fair and Doors Open Day at UNIZG FER, this year the event had a special edition. The alternative  Windows Open Days  featured a programme that was streamed via MS Teams. UNIZG-FER's “windows” were open from  November 19 to 21, 2020 . LARICS also participated in the programme within the session  Introducing projects - Ask professors what you want to know about robotics . LARICS members presented the lab, their activities, robots, and projects. The extensive programme is available as YouTube videos at  https://smotra.fer.unizg.hr/

Daily newspaper Vecernji list visited Specularia project team to discuss the impact of the implementation of 5G on both the global and domestic economies, in which exceptional speed of information, communication and services are becoming possible. Project Coordinator Matko Orsag and Specularia researchers explained how 5G technology will enable innovation and the implementation of ideas into reality, and their robots will finally be able to talk to each other and make decisions all the time. Full article (in Croatian) available  here .

Three more members have recently joined the LARICS team -  Marijana Peti, Jelena Tabak, and Filip Zorić! Marijana Peti graduated with a master's degree from   the University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing  in 2020. During her studies, she received  three   “Josip Lončar” Awards  and the City of Zagreb scholarships  due to her academic success. Her research interests include multi-agent systems and unmanned aerial vehicles. Jelena Tabak graduated with a master's degree from the University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing  in 2020. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. and working as a  Research and Teaching Assistant . Her research interests include soft robotics manipulation and machine learning.  Fillip Zorić graduated from the University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (UNIZG-FER) in 2018 by having successfully defended his master thesis Control of Multirotor-UAV by Using Variable Rotational Plane Rotors . After that, he worked in robotics start-up company Gideon Brothers for 2 years. As of October 2020, he a Research Assistant at LARICS in the scope of the Aerial-Core project where he is also pursuing his PhD degree. His research interests are in the intertwining of control, perception, and robotic manipulation.

The Laboratory for Robotics and Intelligent Control Systems (LARICS) has become a partner in new H2020 FET project WatchPlant - SMART BIOHYBRID PHYTO-ORGANISMS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL IN SITU MONITORING . WatchPlant will develop a new biohybrid system technology, a wireless wearable self-powered sensor for in-situ monitoring of urban environments. This system equips urban biological organisms -plants- with Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create a smart sensor for measuring both, environmental parameters and the responding physiological state of plants, in a very early stage by the use of a barely explored fluid, phloem sap, in combination with chemical, and physical sensors. It will be integrated into complex network that allows performing distributed information processing, decision making, modeling and data fitting, paving the way for the self-awareness or self-adaptation. Additionally, it will constitute a clean energy self-powered device due to the novel use of sap, not only for transforming plants into living sensors, but also for clean energy generation.