DroneDays - Aerial Vehicles End-User Workshop

Date: 26th and 27th March, 2020

Location: University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Unska 3, Zagreb, Croatia

Website: dronedays.fer.hr

DroneDays is a two-day end-user workshop focused on unmanned aerial vehicles which will be held on 26th and 27th March 2020 at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in Zagreb, Croatia. The programme consists of keynote lectures, an exhibition area, as well as a flying zone, and is focused on unmanned aerial vehicle applications and end-user industries. It will serve as a meeting place for around 100 experts from the industry and academia, end-users, as well as regulatory bodies from the region.

DroneDays is organized by the University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing and its Laboratory for Robotics and Intelligent Control systems in the scope of the EU H2020 project AeRoTwin. More on this year's edition of DroneDays can be found on the official website.

The Croatian Presidency of the Council of the EU has organised its priorities along 4 pillars: a Europe that develops, Europe that connects, Europe that protects and Europe that is influential. Space in general, and EO in particular, can contribute significantly to all four priority objectives, through a range of activities, such as ESA programmes recently endorsed by ESA ministers, or the future EU Space programme and notably its Copernicus component.

Together with paradigm shifts induced by Information Technology, such as Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, or by miniaturised satellites, this opens new opportunities for the digital economy and it enables new entrants from all member states, in particular SMEs,  to propose innovative services towards a more sustainable economy without excessive entrance fees. Europe must seize this opportunity to foster innovation and jobs in new service sectors.

Furthermore, EO data and services represents a formidable tool to support multilateralism and open cooperation, in support of the rule of law, environmental security and good neighbourhood relations and stability with special attention to regional perspectives, such as South-East Mediterranean cooperation and the Western Balkans.

The workshop will be the opportunity to confront needs and solutions and it will gather policy makers, scientists, service operators and EO application specialists.

The workshop is being jointly organised by the Croatian Ministry of Science and Education, the Faculty of Electrical Engineer and Computing of the Zagreb University and the European Space Agency under the auspices of the Croatian Presidency of the Council of the EU.

Robotic Charity Event

Date: 15th-19th December, 2019

Location: University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Unska 3, Zagreb, Croatia

Website: Facebook event

This year LARICS team members are organizing again a robotic charity event, together with KSET and professors from the University George Mason (USA), with the goal to raise funds for the Association for improving the quality of life of poor and neglected children “Mali zmaj”.

All the planned activities are taking place between December 15 and 19, 2019 at KSET and in the Faculty’s lobby. The programme of the ROBOWEEK is the following:

• on Sunday, December 15, 2019, from 8 to 11 p.m., on KSET’s stage, the visitors will have the opportunity to attend a unique performance of the ROBOBAND! Robots will be warming up the audience and spreading holiday cheer by playing different instruments, accompanied by FER’s professors and students;
• on Monday, December 16, 2019, professors from the University George Mason (USA) will hold a lecture for FER’s graduate and postgraduate students, and a lecture for the general public to present their science popularization projects;
• on Thursday, December 19, 2019, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., in FER’s lobby, at the ROBOTIC FOOD COURT, our well-known little robotic helpers Pepper, Franka and Baxter will be serving warm drinks and cookies, while primary and secondary school students will have a chance to attend interactive ROBOFUN workshops.

The co-organizers of the event, University of George Mason professors are planning to hold a similar event in April 2020 at their University.

We wholeheartedly invite you to join us in doing a good deed and spreading joy!

DroneDays is a two-day end-user workshop focused on unmanned aerial vehicles which will be held on 26th and 27th March 2019 at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in Zagreb, Croatia. The programme consists of keynote lectures, an exhibition area, as well as a flying zone, and is focused on unmanned aerial vehicle applications and end-user industries. It will serve as a meeting place for around 100 experts from the industry and academia, end-users, as well as regulatory bodies from the region.

DroneDays is organized by the University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing and its Laboratory for Robotics and Intelligent Control systems in the scope of the EU H2020 project AeRoTwin. More on this year's edition of DroneDays can be found on the official website.

On a cold Wednesday in December in Zagreb, students, faculty members and visitors of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing had the wonderful opportunity to take part in a unique event - a robot charity event. LARICS team members had the idea to use robots to serve mulled wine, tea, brownies and waffles to visitors, which would in turn donate their chosen amount of money towards a noble goal: the Autism Association Zagreb.

Numerous LARICS and Faculty robots took part in this fund-raiser - the humanoid robot Pepper took orders from customers, the robot arm Franka prepared the food, industrial robot Baxter served the treats, while NAO robots were keeping everyone entertained and in good cheer, while guests also had the opportunity to try out STEMI Hexapods, see what our Sphero robots can do and grab a Christmas-themed keychain printed during the day on a 3D printer.

The event was seen by over 40,000 people on Facebook, attracted a lot of media attention, and there were more than 1500 visitors and 700 unique orders for the robots, which resulted in almost €2,000 being donated to the Autism Association Zagreb. The gallery from the event can be seen here.

The 26th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation took place on June 19-22 in Zadar, Croatia. The conference gathered many experts from the fields of robotics, automation, control, software and hardware etc. and a broad range of topics was covered, in line with ongoing convergence of control/systems theory with software/communication technologies, as well as new developments in robotics and mechatronics, autonomous systems, unmanned systems, cyber physical systems, and network controlled systems. The conference also tackled some growing societal and economic challenges, as well as possible solutions brought by the control, automation and robotics technologies and systems.

Prof. Stjepan Bogdan was one of the General Chairs, while many of our members chaired other committees and actively participated in the organization of the event. A conference report is available here, while the conference proceedings can be found here.