Researchers are encouraged to submit workshop papers to share the latest discoveries. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Robot design and control for long-term functionalities Robotic perception of various marine signals Cognition to enable robotic autonomy in the ocean for various tasks Human-robot interaction to cope with complex tasks Energy harvesting, recharging and management for robot sustainability   We encourage 3(min)-4 pages extended abstract of relevant work on the topics, in the format of IEEE conference paper template: https://www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates.html. New ideas, concepts, discoveries, etc. will be prioritized. The authors can submit via email to: iros2023-marinerobotics@googlegroups.com. The organizers will review them according to their relevance, technical quality, and ethics. All the accepted papers will appear in the poster session and will be documented on the workshop website (…

Jungseok Hong is a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) working with Professor John Leonard. Before joining MIT, he received his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Minnesota, working with Professor Junaed Sattar. His research is at the intersection of robotics, computer vision, and machine learning. He primarily focuses on improving robotic perception in data-scarce and visually challenging environments using deep learning and probabilistic approaches.   TALK TITLE Human-robot teaming for complex undersea missions   ABSTRACT Despite recent advances in autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) technology, it is still extremely difficult for AUVs to interpret ambiguous perceptual data, make decisions in the face of unforeseen events, and interact with the environment (e.g., manipulating tools and objects). Human divers bring cognitive decision-making, dexterous manipulation, and…

Dr. Corina Barbalata is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Louisiana State University (LSU). Prior to joining Louisiana State University, she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Navel Architecture and Marine Engineering Department at the University of Michigan. She obtained her PhD from Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh, United Kingdom) in 2017 from the School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, a dual-MS degree from University of Burgundy (France) and Heriot-Watt University (UK), and a BS degree in Automation-System Engineering from Transilvania University (Romania). Her research interests are in autonomy for robotic systems, with a focus on dynamic modeling, control theory, motion planning, and perception systems. Her work is focused on mobile robotic manipulator systems that perform tasks in complex, dynamic and uncertain environments, such as underwater environments or industrial settings.   TALK TITLE…

Lantao Liu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering at Indiana University-Bloomington. His main research interest lies in Autonomy that integrates real physical robotic systems with data driven methods. He has been working on various autonomous systems (air, ground, aquatic) involving single or multiple robots,  and his various unmanned vehicles have been deployed to the real world with “field trials” in those complex and unstructured environments. Before joining Indiana University, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Southern California during 2015 - 2017. He also worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University during 2013 - 2015. He received a Ph.D. from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University in 2013.   TALK TITLE Information-driven path planning for ocean sampling and mapping…

Huihuan Qian received his Ph.D. in Automation and Computer-Aided Engineering from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and thereafter worked as a Research Assistant Professor there. He is currently an Associate Professor at the School of Science and Engineering in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. His research interests include design and control of robots and intelligent system, and currently focus on marine surface robotics. He has published 2 monographs, 1 edited book, and 140 papers in international journal and conferences, and awarded over 35 patents. He has received the Best Paper Award from IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics in 2011 with his colleagues, based on the research of steering interface for omni-directional vehicles. With his postgraduate/undergraduate students, he has received a number of awards, including IROS2020 Best Paper Award on Robot Mechanisms and Design, IROS2020 Best Application Paper Finalist, ROBIO2019 Best Paper Finalist, RCAR2019…

Erdal Kayacan worked with the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, as an assistant professor for four years. He was an associate professor at Aarhus University at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 2018 to 2023. He is pursuing his career as a full professor at the Department of Electrical and Information Technology at Paderborn University, Germany. His primary research interests and contributions lie within the areas of control systems with applications in guidance, navigation, and automation of unmanned ground, aerial, and underwater vehicles.   Dr Kayacan is a member of the Computational Intelligence Society and the Robotics and Automation Society in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).  He is the IEEE/ASME Transactions Mechatronics technical editor and the associate editor in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters.     TALK…

Nina Mahmoudian received the Ph.D. degree in aerospace engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA, USA, in 2009. She is currently an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering with Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA. She was the Lou and Herbert Wacker Associate Professor in Autonomous Mobile Systems with the Department of Mechanical Engineering–Engineering Mechanics, Michigan Technological University (Michigan Tech), Houghton, MI, USA. She is the founding Director of Nonlinear and Autonomous Systems Laboratory. Her research interests include robotics, energy autonomy, system design, dynamics and controls. Dr. Mahmoudian was the recipient of the 2015 National Science Foundation CAREER Award and 2015 Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program Award.   TALK TITLE Enabling persistent autonomy in marine environment    

Daniel Gregorek received his doctoral degree at the Institute of Electrodynamics and Microelectronics, University of Bremen, Germany, in 2018. He is now working as a postdoctoral researcher at the MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen. His research interests focus on acoustical and optical methods for underwater sensing and embedded system design for long-endurance autonomous underwater vehicles and gliders.   TALK TITLE Enabling sustainable observation and monitoring tasks for deep-sea applications   ABSTRACT The talk will present a brief historical background on sustainable ocean observations and provide a closer look at existing uncrewed marine vehicles for long-term observations. Based on the experiences and concepts that led to the success of these systems we will present some challenges and opportunities for developments enabling sustained operations in the upper ocean as well as…

João Tasso de Figueiredo Borges de Sousa is with ECE Department, Porto University and the head of the Underwater Systems and Technologies Laboratory – LSTS (https://www.lsts.pt/). He holds a PhD and a MSc in ECE, both awarded by Porto University. His research interests include multi-domain unmanned vehicles, planning/execution control for networked vehicle systems, and applications to the ocean sciences, security, and defense. He received the BES Innovation National Award in 2006, an outstanding teaching award from Porto University in 2008, and the IEEE Ocean Engineering Society mid-career Rising Star award in 2018. He is the chair of the Swedish Marine Robotics Center Advisory Board, a member of the NATO MUS Innovation Advisory Board, and a member of SFI-Ocean Advisory Board. He was the chief scientist for the 2018 Schmidt Ocean Institute cruise Exploring Fronts with Multiple Robots. He was the chair of the 2013 IFAC Navigation, Guidance and Control Workshop and of the 2018 IEEE OES…

Dr. Francesco Maurelli is a Professor in Marine Systems and Robotics at Constructor University - formerly Jacobs University Bremen (Germany, EU), where he also serves as Program Chair for the Robotics and Intelligent Systems Program. He has obtained his PhD at the Oceans Systems Lab, Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh, Scotland) with a thesis on intelligent localisation of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles. He has been Scientific Manager at Technical University of Munich (Germany, EU) where he led European-wide initiatives to support moving robotics technology from the lab to the market. After a research stay at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA, USA), as a Marie Curie Fellow, he has accepted a faculty position in Constructor University. Dr. Maurelli's research interests are focused on persistent autonomy for marine robotics, perception, autonomous navigation, intelligent decision making, sensor data processing and fault management.   TALK TITLE The…

Dr. ‪Fumin ZHANG ‪is Chair Professor and Director of the Cheng Kar-Shun Robotics Institute at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is also Dean’s Professor adjunct in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received a PhD degree in 2004 from the University of Maryland (College Park) in Electrical Engineering and held a postdoctoral position in Princeton University from 2004 to 2007. His research interests include mobile sensor networks, maritime robotics, control systems, and theoretical foundations for cyber-physical systems. He received the NSF CAREER Award in September 2009 and the ONR Young Investigator Program Award in April 2010. He is currently serving as the co-chair for the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Marine Robotics, associate editors for IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, and IEEE Transactions on Control of Networked Systems, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, and International Journal of…

For the development of the human society, there are extensive opportunities for robots to work long-term in the vast marine environment, e.g. for observation, transportation, environment protection, etc. Significant challenges exist as well, e.g. in autonomy, energy, communication, robustness, and so forth. To advocate the research for long-term marine robotics, this workshop will gather scholars in areas of robot design, perception, control, energy, planning, human-robot interaction, etc., to share their insights on how to enable marine robots to arrive at remote locations, explore for a longer time, become more autonomous, overcome faults, perceive and so forth. Young researchers will also present their latest discoveries in workshop papers. In the final discussions, speakers and audiences will interact and brainstorm how to enable marine robots for long-term functionalities. This workshop will provide a platform for marine robotic researchers at various career stages to…

Endorsement: We would like to thank the endorsement from the IEEE-RAS Technical Committees on: Marine Robotics Computer and Robot Vision   Supporting Organizations: • Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society (AIRS)     https://airs.cuhk.edu.cn • China Computer Federation (CCF)    https://www.ccf.org.cn/ • Korea Robotics Society (KROS)   https://kros.org/             

   Time Name Affiliation Title 09:00 IEEE RAS TC Marine Robotics Presentation of the workshop, objectives and outline of the day 09:10 Prof. Fumin Zhang Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Bayesian learning and bio-inspired autonomous search in aquatic environment 09:32 Prof. Nina Mahmoudian Purdue University Enabling persistent autonomy in marine environment 09:54 Dr. Jungseok Hong Massachusetts Institute of Technology Human-Robot teaming for complex undersea missions 10:16 Prof. João Sousa University of Porto Maritime unmanned vehicles: is there a law of exponentials? 10:38…

Prof. Francesco Maurelli Constructor University (Germany) Prof. Huihuan Qian (Alex) The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (China) Prof. Nina Mahmoudian Purdue University (USA) Dr. Hyun-Taek Choi Korea Research Institute of Ships and Ocean Engineering (Korea)  

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Joint control is crucial in the innovative applications of manipulators on fluctuating marine surface. Unlike the motion control methods of terrestrial robots, the ocean's waves exert continuous and stochastic effects on robots. We solved two problems. On the one hand, we proposed a method to use these effects to drive joint motion and save energy. On the other hand, we proposed a method to resist the effects of water disturbance for precision manipulation.   2-joint solar tracker utilizing wave To address the issue of wave utilization, we propose a model-based method that enables robot joints to move to specified positions under wave action. Based on this method, we developed a wave-driven solar tracker. We established a dynamic model for the device and constructed a motion controller based on the model. To compensate for the disturbance caused by wind, we built a sliding mode observer to enhance the robustness. To our knowledge, this is the world's first method…

Due to the extremely vast area of the maritime environment, autonomous robotic systems have been heavily demanded to reduce risk to human and increase efficiency. A large number of such demands remain on the marine surface, such as ocean upper layer observation, pollution detection, patrolling, and communication. Vastness of the ocean has placed significant challenges on marine surface robots for long-term operation, especially from perspectives of energy. Sailing robots can contribute significantly to maritime surface exploration, due to its potential for long-range and long-duration motions in the environment with abundant wind. We have explored sailing robot with various sizes, including mini sailboats for educational purpose with controlled wind field and indoor water pool, and large-scaled sailboat with capability of long-term marine test. Risk avoidance is also investigated to make the robot safer.   Mini sailboat with STAr (Sailboat Test Arena) We have…

For the development of the human society, there are extensive opportunities for robots to work long-term in the vast marine environment, e.g. for observation, transportation, environment protection, etc. Significant challenges exist as well, e.g. in autonomy, energy, communication, robustness, and so forth. To advocate the research for long-term marine robotics, this workshop will gather scholars to share their insights on how to enable marine robots to arrive at remote locations, explore for longer time, become more autonomous, overcome faults, perceive and so forth. Topics include but not limited to: Robot design and control for long-term function Robotic perception of various marine signals Cognition to enable robotic autonomy in the ocean for various tasks Human-robot interaction to cope with complex tasks Energy harvesting, recharging and management for robot sustainability Confirmed speakers include: Prof. Fumin Zhang, Professor, Georgia…

Jiagen Li, Yuxiao Tu,  Rulin Liu,  Yihua Lu, and Xi Zhu, "Toward “On‐Demand” Materials Synthesis and Scientific Discovery through Intelligent Robots", Advanced Science, 2020

 A.; Wang, M.; Zhu, X., "Phosphorene: from theory to application", Materials, 2020.

Jiatao Ding, Songyan Xin, Tin Lun Lam, Sethu Vijayakumar, “Versatile Locomotion by Integrating Ankle, Hip, Stepping, and Height Variation Strategies,” Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Xian, China, May 30 – June 5, 2021.

Xiaoyu Zhang, Lei Yan, Tin Lun Lam, Sethu Vijayakumar, “Task-Space Decomposed Motion Planning Framework for Multi-Robot Loco-Manipulation,” Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Xian, China, May 30 – June 5, 2021.

Liguang Zhou, Chenping Du, Zhenglong Sun, Tin Lun Lam, Yangsheng Xu, “Long-Range Hand Gesture Recognition via Attention-based SSD Network,” Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Xian, China, May 30 – June 5, 2021.

Yan Gao, Lyucheng Xie, Tin Lun Lam, “Thrust Enhancement of Wave-driven Unmanned Surface Vehicle by using Asymmetric Foil,” Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Xian, China, May 30 – June 5, 2021.