A research team comprised of Khawaja Ghulam Alamdarn, Marijana Peti, Frano Petric, and Matko Orsag has been honoured with the Best Paper Award at the IEEE MRS 2025 conference, held at the Singapore University of Technology and Design this week. Their paper presents a novel approach to improving the efficiency and longevity of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication systems through decentralised, perch-aware control mechanisms. The award acknowledges the team's significant contribution to advancing multi-robot and multi-agent system technologies. The recognition was presented by the conference chairs, Jen Jen Chung, Malika Meghjani, Sungjoon Nam, and the award committee members Alcherio Martinoli and Lorenzo Sabattini. This achievement highlights the growing impact of innovative UAV research and marks an important milestone for the authors and the robotics community.  We are extremely proud and grateful to have such people in our team! 

We’re excited to announce that our research paper, also a finalist for the Best Paper Award, has been officially accepted for presentation at the IEEE MRS 2025 conference in Singapore this week! In our paper, Perch-Aware Decentralised Control for Extending the Lifetime of UAV Communication Networks, we introduce a decentralised and energy-efficient strategy for prolonging the operational lifetime of aerial communication networks. By incorporating perching strategies together with a switching-controller algorithm, our approach maintains network connectivity for significantly longer periods while reducing overall power consumption. How did we do it? We thoroughly evaluated the method through diverse simulations in the Gymnasium environment, as well as real-world experiments using Crazyflie UAVs and the Scout Mini UGV. With ROS 2 integration ensuring seamless interaction between simulation and hardware, the results highlight the practicality, robustness, and scalability of the proposed solution. Learn more about this week’s conference . Wishing the LARICS team the best of luck at the conference!

The new institutional research project POSEIDON (POmorski Siguran autonomni sustav za Ekologiju, IDentifikaciju, Očuvanje i Nadzor) has begun at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER) . The project aims to advance autonomous technologies for monitoring and protecting ecologically sensitive marine areas. During the project, the research team will design and develop an integrated multi-robot system built around a central unmanned surface vessel (USV). The USV will serve as a mobile base carrying several additional robotic components: Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for wide-area aerial inspection, capable of inductive charging directly on the USV A quadruped Unitree Go2 Air robot for exploring terrains that drones cannot reach A robotic arm used to deploy the quadruped onto another vessel or onto shore The main scientific challenges include ensuring safe and reliable communication between the USV, UAVs, and the quadruped robot, as well as enabling real-time coordination of all system elements. The project teams will explore robust communication technologies, wireless security, and advanced control methods needed for seamless multi-robot cooperation in dynamic maritime environments. POSEIDON marks a significant push toward safer, smarter, and more autonomous protection of marine ecosystems, strengthening both scientific research and environmental stewardship. The project is carried out at FER in collaboration between five laboratories: LARICS, LABUST, LAMOR, EMLAB, and LISP.

We are pleased to announce that on 17 October 2025, the final review of the AeroStream project was successfully completed, and the unanimous conclusion of all present was that the project was a "great success". This three-year project aimed to improve the quality of innovation management, technology transfer, and citizen involvement at HEIs from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina . Numerous partners participated: University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (project coordinator), University of Zagreb Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, University of Zagreb Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, Protostar Labs (Croatia), Innovation Centre Nikola Tesla (Croatia), University of Sarajevo - Faculty of Electrical Engineering (Bosnia and Herzegovina), University of Seville (Spain), CTA - Technological Corporation of Andalusia (Spain), FADA-CATEC - Advanced Center for Aerospace Technologies (Spain), University of Twente (Netherlands), and Czech Technical University in Prague - Faculty of Electrical Engineering. We believe that this successful cooperation will lead to many more fruitful collaborations in the future.

The students' team work " Design and development of a three-wing rotary unmanned aerial vehicle ", submitted by Toni Vuković , Teo Putarek , and Marko Šimić  under the mentorship of  Prof. Matko Orsag , has been awarded the  Rector's Award of the University of Zagreb in the field of Technical Sciences for the academic year 2024/2025 . The work covers all phases of the development of an unmanned aerial system with a specific rotational configuration, from motivation and literature review, through mechanical and electronic design, software development, and communication algorithms, to experimental testing and discussion of results. In addition to ensuring stable flight, the system incorporates a unique safety mechanism based on autorotation of the three-wing design, enabling controlled and safe descent in the event of propulsion loss. The work was conducted in the Laboratory for Robotics and Intelligent Control Systems (LARICS). Congratulations on your remarkable success!

The students' work " BerryBot: Autonomous Soft Robotic System for Raspberry Harvesting ", submitted by Leticija Crnković and Antonio Čogelja under the mentorship of Prof. Matko Orsag , has been awarded the Rector's Award of the University of Zagreb in the field of Technical Sciences for the academic year 2024/2025 . The work includes a description of the development of a complete robotic system for raspberry harvesting, covering the theoretical foundations, the design of a soft gripper, and the autonomous control of the robot in both simulation and real-world conditions. The work was developed in the Laboratory for Robotics and Intelligent Control Systems (LARICS) and carried out with the support of the Regional Centre of Excellence for Robotic Technologies CRTA . Congratulations on your remarkable success!

As new projects arrive, the need for qualified young researchers  and skilled project administrators at LARICS also increases. We are pleased to announce the addition of three new members to the laboratory: Arijan Vidulin and Dorian Erić as researchers, and Saša Martinek as project administrator. We extend a warm welcome and wish them a smooth integration into our team.