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.  

At the event "Robotics and AI in Society: Impacts and Questions Raised", organized jointly by the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing and the Embassy of Portugal in Croatia , on May 20, 2021 , an interesting exchange of expert opinions and quality discussion between scientists and members of the academic and diplomatic community. The gathering was welcomed by H. E. Ambassador of Portugal Paula Leal da Silva, and Dean of FER, Prof. Gordan Gledec. The program was led by an experienced researcher Fausto Ferreira, from the Department of Automation and Computer Engineering. Presentations by Prof. Pedra Lime, from the Superior Técnico Institute of the University of Lisbon and Tomislav Bracanović from the Zagreb Institute of Philosophy, were followed by the round table on the implications of introducing artificial intelligence in our daily lives, with special emphasis on its impact on our jobs. The round table was moderated by the Vice Dean for Research, Prof. Nikola Mišković, and attended by Prof. Stjepan Bogdan , Prof. Lime and Tomislav Bracanović. Recording of the event is available on FER’s YouTube channel .  

To kickoff the Conference on the Future of Europe, the Office of European Parliament in Croatia and the Croatian Parliament have organized a thematic event called "The Conference on the Future of Europe: Vision of Croatia" . The emphasis of the event was placed on digital and green technologies, promoting successful stories and discussing a more equitable economy and education. UNIZG FER's Center for Artificial Intelligence , represented by professor Loncaric, was invited to showcase its efforts to digitally transform the Croatian society. Professor Loncaric was accompanied by LARICS team (professor Kovacic, Frano Petric and Ivan Hrabar) and our robot Pepper that became the first robotic member of the Croatian Parliament by interrupting the talk of Gordan Jandrokovic, the Speaker of the Parliament ( Pepper, MP ). Pepper also had a more amicable interation with professor Loncaric, who used the opportunity to invite companies from Croatia to contact the Center for Artificial Intelligence to discuss the transfer of technologies being developed at the Faculty.  The event generated a lot of interest in the media (check the  PRESS  section),   so we hope that the invitation of professor Loncaric will spark some future collaborations with the industry. We thank the Office of European Parliament in Croatia and the Croatian Parliament for the invitation, and Mrs. Renata Skalabrin for organising the event and accomodating all Pepper's requests.

This year's edition od Aerospace and Defense Meetings (A&DM) event is featuring a workshop , organized and held by AeRoTwin project partners, prof. Stjepan Bogdan, prof. Mario KOvač, prof. Anibal Ollero, and Silvia de los Santos . Covering different otpics, the partners are giving their respective talks on May 27, 2021, on the second day of the event. More details available  here . "Matchmaking Program for the Aerospace and Defense Industries" The 2021 edition of A&DM turns into a fully-digital event. The event will be held on 26th and 27th of May 2021 and gather the aerospace international community through pre-planned online B2B meetings, live conferences & replay videos and a virtual exhibition. EDIT: The workshop was successfully finalized, with project partners giving following presentations: Prof. Sjepan Bogdan (UNIZG FER): Autonomus Inspection of Wind Turbine Blades Prof. Mirko Kovac (ICL): Physical Artificial INtelligence for Infrastructure Drones Prof. Anibal Ollero (USE): Aerial Robots for Inspection and Logistics   Press release: ADM Sevilla 2021

Two LARICS student groups have become the recipients of the 2020 Rector Award . Borna Zbodulja, Jakov Vulama and Petar Ljubotina, mentored by prof. Zdenko Kovačić , won the award for their work ' Pepper as a welcome manager at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing' , while Filip Bradarić, Marko Cavalli, Ivona Krajačić and Jelena Tabak , together with Andrea Rebec from the  Faculty of Architecture, mentored by assoc. prof. Matko Orsag , won the award for their work ' Workshop for children: "Robofun" . The abstracts of their works can be found here . Congratulations to the students and their mentors!

The 1st AIRPHARO workshop on Aerial Robotic Systems Physically Interacting with the Environment will be held October 4-5, 2021 at Ilirija Resort, Biograd na Moru, Croatia. Since this two-day event is taking place in Croatia, the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society is organizing the workshop together with LARICS. AIRPHARO workshop is the successor of the workshops on Research, Education and Development of Unmanned Aerial Systems (RED-UAS) . The workshop will focus on a high growth area of both research and industry, the use of aerial robots for physical interaction with people and the environment. For more details, please visit AIRPHARO 2021 .

Prof. Stjepan Bogdan held a lecture on "Mission planning in heterogeneous robotic systems“ at the the first conference on trends and application of artificial intelligence Bounding Box 2021 that was held on Friday, March 26, in Osijek (Croatia), emphasizing that it is a fast-growing technology that is increasingly applied in various areas of business and life and is becoming an industry. The conference was held hybrid, i.e. both online and live. At the opening, the organizers from the company Protostar Labs from Belišće and Creative Agency Adverta emphasized the desire to make it an annual event. Its first edition was organized as part of the project "Improvement and automation of the VirtuAI Annotation system-adaptation of tools to the requirements of the market for the development of artificial intelligence technologies", an EU-funded project. "Artificial intelligence is a technology that changes our lives and with its better understanding and application it is possible to improve a lot in various spheres of life and business," said the organizers. Among the participants-lecturers at the conference are representatives of many companies in Croatia that deal with artificial intelligence, machine learning, application, i.e. localization and reading of QR codes in production and others, as well as experts from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, organization CroAI, and others. The topics discussed with the followers/audience at the conference were mostly professional ones, presenting work experiences, and related to machine learning, heterogeneous robotic systems, computer vision as a catalyst for change in many industries, application of neural networks in construction, challenges of artificial intelligence in various industries and others.

On Tuesday, March 30, 2021, LARICS is organizing an online presentation of Fulbright Scholarships Program for researchers and PhD students. The presentation will be held by Mrs. Vanja Ratković , Established Opinion Leaders Specialist from the U.S Embassy Zagreb. Assistant Public Affairs Officer Mrs. Elise Crane will make a short introduction to welcome the participants. The presentation starts at 10 a.m. via MS Teams platform . To join, please follow: Fulbright Scholarship Presentation