RobotoKAUST

RobotoKAUST: Short Robotics Story and Video Contest 2022: Deadline Extended

Prof. Eric Feron, Electrical and Computer Engineering

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KAUST

Submission deadline has been extended to January 16th. Notification: February 28, 2022. Following on from last year’s success, the KAUST RISC Lab is back with a brand new story contest, the RobotoKAUST: Short Robotics Story and Video Contest 2022. The contest is open to children, teenagers (TKS G1- G12 level) and adults.

Human Robot Interaction with Natural Language Logic: a Step Closer

Emmanuel Roche, PhD, CEO of Clover.AI

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KAUST

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Distributed AI: Optimal algorithms for distributed stochastic non-convex optimization

Usman A. Khan, Associate Professor, Tufts University

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KAUST

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Safe learning and control with L1 adaptation

Naira Hovakimyan, Professor, Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois

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KAUST

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Dynamic Explorations of a TiltWing Aircraft Transitioning from Conventional to Hovering Flight

John Hauser, Professor, University of Colorado Boulder

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KAUST

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Core Challenges in Navigation in Human Environments

Jean Oh, Senior Systems Scientist, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

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KAUST

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Enhancing visibility for reliable underwater visual SLAM

Ayoung Kim, Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

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KAUST

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Trajectory planning in uncertain transient currents: a stochastic optimization approach

Ricardo M. Lima, Research Scientist, CEMSE, KAUST

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KAUST

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The challenging path to creating fully autonomous and controllable microrobots

Prof. Néstor O. Pérez-Arancibia, Autonomous Microrobotic Systems Laboratory, University of Southern California (USC)

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KAUST

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Levering AI for Unmanned Aerial Systems: Deployment Strategies

Anis Koubaa, Professor, Prince Sultan University

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KAUST

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Using drones, fluid lensing, and network analysis to get a more comprehensive view of coral reef mapping in the Red Sea

Colleen Campbell, PhD Student, Red Sea Research Center, KAUST

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KAUST

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Autonomous Vision-Based Navigation and Control for Robotic Space Objects

Hesham Shageer, Assistant Professor, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology KACST

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KAUST

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Multi-Robot Task Allocation Games in Dynamically Changing Environments with Application to Trash Collection

Shinkyu Park, Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, KAUST

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KAUST

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From one to many, coordination problems of multiple mobile robots

Lucia Pallottino, Associate Professor, University of Pisa

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KAUST

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Safe, Interaction-Aware Decision Making and Control for Robot Autonomy

Marco Pavone, Associate Professor, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University

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KAUST

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The Robots are Coming – to your Farm

Girish Chowdhary, Associate Professor, UIUC

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KAUST

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Swarms for People

Sabine Hauert, Associate Professor, Bristol Robotics Laboratory, University of Bristol

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KAUST

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An Egocentric Wearable Camera for Assistive Technologies

Mohammed Kutbi, Assistant Professor, Saudi Electronic University

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KAUST

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Xwing: the journey to deploying autonomous cargo aircraft

Maxime Gariel, Chief Technology Officer, Xwing

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KAUST

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Optimization-Based Control of Autonomous Aerospace Systems

Behcet Acikmese, Professor, William E. Boeing Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, University of Washington, USA

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KAUST

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On the Fundamental Challenges for Self-Driving Cars

Emilio Frazzoli, Professor, Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zürich

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KAUST

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Certification of Autonomous Vehicles: A Regulator-Oriented Approach

Huan Xu, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland

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KAUST

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Designing And Modelling Soft Active Artificial Muscles “Geometric and Material Nonlinearities”

Marwa Eldiwiny, PhD Student, IEEE RAS Org

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KAUST

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Safe autonomy with imperfect information

Necmiye Ozay, Associate Professor, University of Michigan

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KAUST

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Efficient Reachability for Safe Autonomous Systems: A Mixed Monotone Approach

Sam Coogan, Assistant Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology

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KAUST

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Recordings of the talks are available!

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KAUST

#RobotoKAUST21. The recordings of the talks from the KAUST Research Conference on Robotics and Autonomy 2021 are available! Please check our website https://cemse.kaust.edu.sa/risc/robotokaust21. To subscribe to RISC Lab YouTube Channel, please visit: https://www.youtube.com/c/KAUSTRISCLab

RobotoKAUST 2022 Call for Poster Abstracts

Prof. Eric Feron, Electrical and Computer Engineering

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KAUST

We are excited to announce the KAUST Research Conference on Robotics and Autonomy 2022, which will be held on Feb 28 - March 2, 2022 (#RobotoKAUST). The conference will address the most recent trends of robotics application in a range of disciplines. The conference will give space for presentations and discussions of systems, items, and methods related to robotics and autonomy. As part of this event, we are accepting poster abstract submissions.

Abdellatif: Robotic Systems for Oil & Gas Applications

Fadl Abdellatif, Saudi Aramco, KSA

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Robotic Systems for Oil & Gas Applications Abstract Robotic systems have been gaining increased traction in the oil and gas industry over the last few years. They are especially popular in applications that involve performing tasks that are repetitive, hazardous or laborious. Robotic systems spanning the land, sea and air domains have been proven useful in oil and gas applications including underwater robots, unmanned aerial vehicles, magnetic crawlers and legged robots. Applications cover routine rounds, inspection jobs, light maintenance, exploration, and surveillance. Such systems reduce

Ian Bernstein: Robotics Startup Opportunities: Lessons from Misty II and the Sphero Star Wars BB-8

Ian Bernstein: Misty Robotics

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Robotics Startup Opportunities: Lessons from Misty II and the Sphero Star Wars BB-8 Abstract Many of the systems, sensors, and software frameworks in robotics today have originated from academia. But, what happens when you want to commercialize an idea and turn it into a viable business. Sphero was founded in 2010 and has shipped over 4 million robots around the world. Misty Robotics (acquired in January 2022 by Furhat Robotics) has shipped thousands of robots to both companies and researchers. In this session, I share both lessons learned from these two companies in going from an idea to

Prof. Abdelhedi: Optimized and stable F2 -based motion planning approach for mobile robots

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Optimized and stable F2 -based motion planning approach for mobile robots Abstract Mobile robotics has contributed significantly to the intelligent development of human society, where motion planning is an essential requirement that refers to the ability of a mobile robot to automatically plan its motions. OSF2 is a motion planning strategy based on the Dynamic Variable Speed Force Field method to control mobile robot movements. It ensures motion planning effectiveness against collision risks and instability mainly in dynamic environments. The flexibility of the mobile robot motion is provided

Prof. Acikmese: Optimization Based Control - An Aerospace Perspective

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Optimization Based Control - An Aerospace Perspective Abstract Many future aerospace engineering applications will require dramatic increases in our existing autonomous control capabilities. These include robotic sample return missions to planets, comets, and asteroids, formation flying spacecraft, swarms of autonomous spacecraft, unmanned aerial, ground, and underwater vehicles, and autonomous commercial robotic applications. A key control challenge for many autonomous systems is to achieve the performance goals safely with minimal resource use in the presence of mission constraints and

Prof. Tsiotras: Recent Advances in Optimal Motion Planning for Autonomous Systems

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Recent Advances in Optimal Motion Planning for Autonomous Systems Abstract Computing efficiently a feasible or optimal trajectory between two given states lies at the core of all autonomous systems. Traditional techniques, based on optimal control and trajectory optimization, or utilizing suitable discrete abstractions of the problem, have been used for many years with great success to solve a variety of problems, especially in aerospace applications. However, most of these methods are best suited for off-line computations and their usefulness diminishes very quickly when one wants to plan

Dr. Roche: CYBORG-NLP: Patching “Soft” deep learning methods with “Hard” symbolic processing in NLP

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
CYBORG-NLP: Patching “Soft” deep learning methods with “Hard” symbolic processing in NLP Abstract In this talk, we will explore the apparent opposition, in the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP), between deep learning and symbolic processing as it relates to human-robot communication. Human-robot communication, because it is constrained by the physical world, provides a unique insight into what the word “understanding” means in the context of NLP, a concept that has been elusive to NLP since its inception. We will also discuss how, contrary to the famous assertion “symbolic processing

Prof. Kayacan: Future of Smaller, Faster, More Agile, Yet Safer Aerial Robots: Challenges & Opportunities

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Future of Smaller, Faster, More Agile, Yet Safer Aerial Robots: Challenges & Opportunities Abstract Request for increased, almost perfect, accuracy and efficiency of aerial robots pushes the operation to the boundaries of the performance envelope and, thus, induces a need for reliable operation at the very limits of attainable performance. The use of advanced learning algorithms, which can learn the operational dynamics online and adjust the operational parameters accordingly, might be a candidate solution to all the aforementioned problems. This talk will focus on both model-based and model

Dr. Watanabe: Safe path planning for UAV urban operation under GNSS signal occlusion risk

Dr. Yoko Watanabe, ONERA, France

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Safe path planning for UAV urban operation under GNSS signal occlusion risk Abstract Flying UAVs or drones in an urban or peri-urban environment is yet quite a challenge. This presentation introduces a concept of safe path planning for UAV's autonomous operation in an urban environment where GNSS-positioning may become unreliable or even unavailable. Given a geo-referenced environment model, it is possible to predict GNSS signal occlusions and hence to generate a map of local quality/availability of its positioning solution. Motivated from this, our main idea is to utilize such sensor

Prof. Hovakimyan: Safe Learning for Autonomous Systems

Prof. Naira Hovakimyan, UIUC, USA

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Safe Learning for Autonomous Systems Abstract Learning-based control paradigms have seen many success stories with various robots and co-robots in recent years. However, as these robots prepare to enter the real world, operating safely in the presence of imperfect model knowledge and external disturbances is going to be vital to ensure mission success. In the first part of the talk, we present an overview of L1 adaptive control, how it enables safety in autonomous robots, and discuss some of its success stories in the aerospace industry. In the second part of the talk, we present some of our

Prof. Low: Learning with Less Data: Automated Machine Learning and Bayesian Optimization

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Learning with Less Data: Automated Machine Learning and Bayesian Optimization Abstract In this talk, I will briefly describe our research efforts on learning with less data and automated machine learning. Then, I will discuss in greater detail on one of such efforts: Bayesian optimization (BO), specifically, in how we have progressed from tackling some of the fundamental challenges/issues in BO to applying BO to more complex blackbox optimization problems such as in robotics. Biography Dr. Bryan Low is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the National University of Singapore and the

Prof. Khamvilai: Towards intelligent middleware for more resilient robots

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Towards intelligent middleware for more resilient robots Abstract Integrated modular avionics is the primary system architecture used in modern aircraft. It is designed upon a strict principle of fixed and static allocation of redundant tasks on redundant hardware for safety assurance. However, in the event of hardware or communication failures, the safety can be improved if the reallocation of tasks to another hardware is allowed, leading to a concept of reconfigurable integrated modular avionics. One of the challenges for the reconfiguration problem is the way to ensure the feasibility of

Prof. Koubaa: Aerial Systems for Delivery and Surveillance: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Aerial Systems for Delivery and Surveillance: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities Abstract The development of aerial systems is nowadays a significant trend in the industry. Delivery and surveillance applications are among the most important in drones' business. However, the development of drones applications encompasses several technical challenges, both from hardware and software perspectives. In this talk, I present the benefits of delivery and surveillance applications using aerial vehicles and discuss the main challenges from different perspectives, including technical, regulatory, and

Prof. Lubineau: Super-sensitivity in resistive and capacitive strain sensing

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Super-sensitivity in resistive and capacitive strain sensing Abstract Advanced composite materials are a key enabling technology for new solutions in energy production, transportation and storage. It is critical to develop monitoring techniques that are viable for a large scale/distributed sensing, which can inform us about the critical condition of the structures, localize and identify their degradation mechanism. Capacitive sensors are usually preferred for local strain sensing. Yet, the sensitivity of such sensors is guided only by the geometrical change, with a gauge factor close to one

Eng. Sarhan: Technologies and Applications of Drone Autonomy

Eng. Sami I. Sarhan, KAUST Innovation, KSA

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Technologies and Applications of Drone Autonomy Abstract Fifteen years ago drone started as toy, it developed to become one of the most sophisticated flaying machine. The development in drone technologies went ahead in every direction, the advancement in the industry helped the drone to become a tools for every professional. Drones have three main parts: the hardware, the software and the payload. However, a fourth part is being introduced, in my opinion, is the autotomy. Self-flying is moving from nice-to-have to must-to-have; the applications of autonomous flights are growing every day

Prof. Prorok: Multi-Robot Learning: Leveraging Communication and Explanations

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Multi-Robot Learning: Leveraging Communication and Explanations Abstract Effective communication is key to successful coordination. Yet, it is far from obvious what information is crucial to the task at hand, and how and when it must be shared among agents. In this talk, I first discuss how we leverage machine learning methods to generate effective communication strategies to solve hard coordination tasks. I present some pioneering real-robot experiments that demonstrate the transfer of our methods to the physical world. The learning process itself, however, remains challenging, especially in

Dr. Gariel: Xwing: the journey to deploying autonomous cargo aircraft

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Xwing: the journey to deploying autonomous cargo aircraft Abstract Xwing is on a mission to build the world’s smartest, cleanest and most advanced aviation system. We're transforming the way airplanes fly— so regional air mobility will be radically safer, more efficient, more accessible and more sustainable than it’s ever been. Our work begins with converting today’s cargo aircraft into remotely-operated self-flying airplanes so every regional route can be serviced frequently and reliably— so every person in every corner of the world can have improved access to all the goods and supplies that

Dr. Kartci: Agile Control of Underwater Robots

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Agile Control of Underwater Robots Abstract Underwater Robots have a large area of application – environmental monitoring, an inspection of naval structures, underwater welding, ocean production, object location and recovery, and security. Since over 70% of the Earth's surface is covered by the ocean, and yet a very small percentage has been explored by scientists, high agile maneuver driving and high-performance controllers have become a necessity. To achieve such performance, two challenges must be solved considering unpredictable external disturbances caused by underwater currents, tether

Campbell: Using drones to monitor Algae patches on reefs in the Red Sea

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Using drones to monitor Algae patches on reefs in the Red Sea Abstract Algae is very important to the health of the coral reef system. In the Red Sea there are over 500 species of algae, with many species beneficial to coral reef health. Many fish feed on algae and use it as breeding territories. The spread of some kinds of turf algae can be an indicator of a decline in coral health and early intervention could help save the reef before too much coral is lost. Even though it is vital to the coral reef system, algae patches are difficult to determine extent with in situ surveys. Furthermore

Abdel-Aal: Using Drones and Autonomous Vehicles for Delivery - Practical Insights from KAUST Living Lab

Mohamed Abdel-Aal, Director, KAUST Smart, KSA

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Abstract KAUST presents a unique campus with unique opportunities. It's a "city" with limitless boundaries for experimentation and a culture that pushes the boundaries of innovation. "KAUST Smart" is the brand that represents this living lab and it's the enabler for testing and evaluation of emerging technologies. By applying an experience-focused design methodology, KAUST Smart is able to deliver rapid experimentations that engage the community, industry, and government in a reiterative approach. In this talk, we will look into the outcomes from two recent experiments that were conducted at

Alabdulkarim: Industrial Robot Applications: from Challenges to Safety

Arwa M Alabdulkarim, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, KSA

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Abstract Advance robot industrial applications require robots to become aware of their environments and surroundings. Many advances in research made collaborative robots able to interact with other robots or humans; interactions involve robots that work together with other robots or humans, or are aware of their existence in the environment, as well as their actions. This talk focuses on Mobile-Manipulator robots, and their safety constraints and considerations. In addition, the talk covers solutions that could be implemented to tackle logistic and industrial problems Biography Arwa

Prof. de Sousa: Maritime operations with multi-domain robotic vehicles: current trends and future developments

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Maritime operations with multi-domain robotic vehicles: current trends and future developments Abstract Underwater, surface, air, and space robotic vehicles are already revolutionizing maritime operations. But this is just the beginning. Vehicle systems are reaching unprecedented levels of maturity and reliability, thus enabling persistent operations in remote areas. However, a significant number of COTS vehicles have not been designed for interactions and are not interoperable with other systems. But this will change, mainly because of demand in maritime operations. This talk discusses

Prof. Pettersen: Bioinspiration gives snake robots moving on land and exploring the oceans

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B19 H1

Featured Sessions
Bioinspiration gives snake robots moving on land and exploring the oceans Abstract Snake robots are motivated by the long, slender and flexible body of biological snakes, which allows them to move in virtually any environment on land and in water. Since the snake robot is essentially a manipulator arm that can move by itself, it has a number of interesting applications including firefighting applications and search and rescue operations. In water, the robot is a highly flexible and dexterous manipulator arm that can swim by itself like a sea snake. This highly flexible snake-like mechanism has

KAUST Research Conference of Robotics and Autonomy 2021

1 min read ·
The KAUST Research Conference on Robotics and Autonomy 2021, #RobotoKAUST, brought together leading international and in-Kingdom robotics researchers and government and industry representatives from the robotics industry to discuss robotics and its applications. The online event was organized by Prof. E. Feron, Prof. B. Ghanem, Prof. X. Zhang and had six sessions on Marine Robotics, Human-Robot Interactions, Aerospace Robotics, Mobile Robotics, Wearable Robotics & Microrobotics, Assured Autonomy. Twenty-seven speakers (seven from KSA including three from KAUST, and three from industry)

The Recordings of the #RobotoKAUST talks are available

1 min read ·
The first KAUST Research Conference on Robotics and Autonomy 2021, #RobotoKAUST, brought together leading international and in-Kingdom robotics researchers and government and industry representatives from the robotics industry to discuss robotics and its applications. The recordings of the talks are available online! To watch the talks, please visit our website #RobotoKAUST or our KAUST RISC Lab YouTube Channel.