​Our lab got 5 IEEE ICRA papers (one of which with RA-L journal option). Congratulations to all the team members and collaborators for this great result! We will present the following contributions: 

• Mihir Rahul Dharmadhikari, Harshal Deshpande, Tung Dang, Kostas Alexis, "Hypergame-based Adaptive Behavior Path Planning for Combined Exploration and Visual Search", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 30-June 5, 2021, Xi'an China
• Paolo De Petris, Dinh Huan Nguyen, Mihir Kulkarni, Frank Mascarich, Kostas Alexis, "Resilient Collision-tolerant Navigation in Confined Environments", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 30-June 5, 2021, Xi'an China​
• Frank Mascarich, Paolo De Petris, Dinh Huan Nguyen, Nikhil Vijay Khedekar, Kostas Alexis, "Autonomous Distributed 3D Radiation Field Estimation for Nuclear Environment Characterization", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 30-June 5, 2021, Xi'an China​
• Dinh Huan Nguyen, Kostas Alexis, "Forceful Aerial Manipulation based on an Aerial Robotic Chain: Hybrid Modeling and Control", IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters with IEEE ICRA 2021 presentation
• Ran Duan, Changhong Fu, Kostas Alexis, Erdal Kayacan, "Online Recommendation-based Convolutional Features for Scale-Aware Visual Tracking", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 30-June 5, 2021, Xi'an China​

In addition we co-organize the following exciting workshops:

• Resilient and Long-Term Autonomy for Aerial Robotic Systems - Organizers: Anibal Ollero, Giuseppe Loianno, Kimon Valavanis, Ivana Palunko, Kostas Alexis, Shaojie Shen
• Robust Perception For Autonomous Field Robots in Challenging Environments - Organizers: Andrew Kramer, Christoffer Heckman, Ali-akbar Agha-mohammadi, Margarita Chli, Luca Carlone, Kostas Alexis

Videos from some of our papers follow:

We are co-organizing two IEEE ICRA 2021 workshops on the following topics:

• Resilient and Long-Term Autonomy for Aerial Robotic Systems - Organizers: Anibal Ollero, Giuseppe Loianno, Kimon Valavanis, Ivana Palunko, Kostas Alexis, Shaojie Shen
• Robust Perception For Autonomous Field Robots in Challenging Environments - Organizers: Andrew Kramer, Christoffer Heckman, Ali-akbar Agha-mohammadi, Margarita Chli, Luca Carlone, Kostas Alexis

​Looking forward to your participation and the exciting discussion! 

This year's ICRA is different! The major robotics conference has moved fully virtual due to the Covid19 pandemic. Below please find information on our presence in the conference. 

Session: Aerial Systems: Applications I
09:30-09:45, Paper MoA05.2  
Motion Primitives-Based Path Planning for Fast and Agile Exploration Using Aerial Robots
Authors: ​Mihir Rahul Dharmadhikari, Tung Dang, Lukas Solanka, Johannes Brakker Loje, Dinh Huan Nguyen, Nikhil Vijay Khedekar, and Kostas Alexis
Slack Channel: https://icra20.slack.com/app_redirect?channel=moa05_2
​Presentation Video:

Session: Aerial Systems: Applications II
11:30-11:45, Paper MoB05.2  
Learning-Based Path Planning for Autonomous Exploration of Subterranean Environments
Authors: Russell Reinhart, Tung Dang, Emily Hand, Christos Papachristos, and Kostas Alexis
Slack Channel: ​https://icra20.slack.com/app_redirect?channel=mob05_2 
​Presentation Video: 

Session: Aerial Systems: Mechanics and Control II
11:45-12:00, Paper TuB05.3  
The Reconfigurable Aerial Robotic Chain: Modeling and Control
Authors: ​Dinh Huan Nguyen, Tung Dang, and Kostas Alexis​
Slack channel: https://icra20.slack.com/app_redirect?channel=tub05_3
​Presentation Video: ​

Our paper:

• K. Alexis, "Lévy Flight Foraging Hypothesis-based Autonomous Large-scale Memoryless Search under Sparse Rewards", IEEE Aerospace Conference (AeroConf) 2019, Yellowstone Conference, Big Sky, Montana, Mar 7-14, 2020

Got the  Best Paper Award in the "Air Vehicle Systems and Technologies" Track. 

Our paper:

• Mihir Kulkarni, Nguyen Dinh Huan, Kostas Alexis, "The Reconfigurable Aerial Robotic Chain: Shape and Motion Planning", IFAC 2020 World Congress, Berlin, Germany, July 12-17, 2020

Got accepted. The video below allows for better understanding. 
​

Our lab got 3 papers accepted at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2020 Conference to take place in Paris, France. We will present the following contributions:

• Mihir Rahul Dharmadhikari, Tung Dang, Lukas Solanka, Johannes Brakker Loje, Dinh Huan Nguyen, Nikhil Vijay Khedekar, and Kostas Alexis, "Motion Primitives-based Path Planning for Fast and Agile Exploration using Aerial Robots", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2020, May 31 - June 4 2020, Paris, France.
• Russell Reinhart*, Tung Dang, Emily Hand, Christos Papachristos, and Kostas Alexis, "Learning-based Path Planning for Autonomous Exploration of Subterranean Environments", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2020, May 31 - June 4 2020, Paris, France.
• Dinh Huan Nguyen, Tung Dang, and Kostas Alexis, "The Reconfigurable Aerial Robotic Chain: Modeling and Control", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2020, May 31 - June 4 2020, Paris, France.

Below we provide results from the relevant experimental evaluation studies.

Congratulations to Shehryar Khattak for successfully defending his PhD on "Resilient Multi-Modal Robot Localization in Perception Degraded Environments"! Committee included

• Prof. Dr. Kostas Alexis | UNR
  
• Prof. Dr. Margarita Chli | ETH Zurich
  
• Prof. Dr. George Bebis |UNR 
  
• Prof. Dr. Christos Papachristos |UNR
  
• Dr. JIhwan Yoon | UNR

Our group has received the IEEE International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR) 2019 Best Paper Award for our contribution on: 

• T. Dang, S. Khattak, F. Mascarich, K. Alexis, "Explore Locally, Plan Globally: A Path Planning Framework for Autonomous Robotic Exploration in Subterranean Environments", 19th International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR), Belo Horizonte - Brazil, December 2-6, 2019 (Best Paper Award) 

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