FER, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, hosted an engaging Open Day on Saturday, November 25, 2023, from 10 am to 4 pm, providing a unique opportunity for high school seniors to explore the diverse fields of study and research offered by the faculty. During the FER Open Day, visitors enjoyed a variety of activities, including playing Pong with artificial intelligence, witnessing robots cultivate plants in a greenhouse, and participating in a workshop on teaching robots to write. The event also featured a robotics workshop, a closer look at micro- and nano-electronics through a microscope, and a showcase of cutting-edge inventions and technologies in electrical engineering, information and communication technology, and computer science by FER staff and students. Notably, LARICS presented their projects Specularia and WatchPlant, and there was a special workshop tailored for elementary school students.

Students Marko Kozlik and Viktor Horvat from LARICS, under the guidance of Prof. Bogdan and Orsag, have been honored with the University’s prestigious rector’s award on 29th of June, 2023 for their outstanding individual scientific work. Their project, titled “FERbarium – self-sustainable wireless sensor node controlled by mobile application,” has garnered attention for its innovative approach. This project, aimed at developing a wireless sensor node for environmental monitoring in greenhouses and urban environments, is closely linked to the Specularia and WatchPlant initiatives. The groundbreaking work of Kozlik and Horvat not only contributes to scientific advancements but also aligns with real-world applications, emphasizing the importance of their research. Stay tuned for more updates on their inspiring work and its impact on environmental monitoring.

LARICS PhD student Jelena Vuletić published an article Close-range multispectral imaging with Multispectral-Depth (MS-D) system in scientific journal Biosystems Engineering on 24th of June 2023.

The recent MUZZA Science Week, held from May 19th to 21st at the Zagreb Trade Fair, successfully captivated the general public with its mission to showcase the captivating world of science. With a special focus on engaging children, the event aimed to spark curiosity and demonstrate the beauty of scientific exploration, and inspiring children to learn about science and technology.

Dario Stuhne published an article that will be presented at AIM 2023 international conference. The article is an exstension of previously published article Design and Prototyping of Soft Finger AI-Enabled Hand (SofIA). D. Stuhne, J. Tabak, M. Polić and M. Orsag, “Design and Prototyping of Soft Finger AI-Enabled Hand (SofIA),” 2022 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM), Sapporo, Japan, 2022, pp. 1581-1586, doi: 10.1109/AIM52237.2022.9863338.

Izv.prof.dr.sc. Matko Orsag attended the WORLD FIRA 2023 conference from 7th-9th of February in Toulouse, France.

The festive robot party at the Cultural Information Center Maskimir was a great success! We had a lot of fun with the robots, learned about their amazing capabilities, and interacted with them in a friendly and playful way. The event took place in the large hall of the Center, Švarcova 18, on Tuesday, December 13, 2022, from 12 to 8 p.m. One of the highlights of the party was the presentation of project Specularia.

On Saturday, November 26, 2022, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing opened its doors to all those who are interested in scientific research, advanced technologies, and applications of these technologies in everyday life! Members of LARICS were also there showing a series of scientific research and projects. Among them were project WatchPlant, Hektor, and many others. A new project, Aerostream was also intorduced.

Dario Stuhne, Jelena Vuletić and Filip Zorić attended the International Conference on Smart Systems and Technologies (SST) which was held from 19th – 20th of October in Osijek. Dario Stuhne presented Automated Suckering of Vines with a Mobile Robot and a Torque-controlled Suckering Tool (Hektor), Jelena Vuletić presented Procedural generation of synthetic dataset for robotic applications in sweet pepper cultivation (Specularia). Filip Zorić presented Towards intuitive HMI for UAV control (Aerial Core) for which he was awarded with Best Paper Award.  

Jelena Vuletić and Matko Orsag participated in the “15th International Workshop on Human-Friendly Robotics” conference in Delft, the Netherlands. Jelena Vuletić presented the paper “Robotic strawberry flower treatment based on deep-learning vision”, in which the method for automatic image annotation, A3IA, was presented.

Mirta Čolić, Iva Hrastnik, Luka Karniš, Andro Katanec, Lovro Pliskovac and Dominik Sekula, mentored by assoc. prof. Matko Orsag and with help of assistant Jelena Vuletić, won the award for their work ‘digitalization system based on photogrammetry: “SimplyDigitize”. The abstract of their work is available on this link.  An example of use case of this system on a collection of stuffed animals can be seen on this link. Congratulations to the students and their mentors!

This year, the IEEE 18th International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (IEEE CASE2022), was held in Mexico City on August 20-24, 2022 (with satellite site concurrently in Chengdu, China). Bruno Marić and Jelena Vuletić participated virtually and presented two papers: “Replicating Human Skill for Robotic Deep-Micro-Hole Drilling” and “Introducing Multispectral-Depth (MS-D): Sensor Fusion for Close Range Multispectral Imaging“.  

On July 2nd LARICS researchers Jelena Vuletić, Marijana Peti, and Dario Stuhne attended the Innovation Day conference THINK BIG. They demonstrated the manipulation of objects of irregular shapes with a soft robotic hand (SOFIA) from project SPECULARIA and a smart biohybrid system for controlling and monitoring plants as a part of the WATCHPLANT project. At the conference 20 international and Croatian faculties and companies from the tech industry had an opportunity to present their innovations and projects to students from all over Croatia. The conference was held at Alpha Centauri campus organized by Infobip and STEMI as a part of “Škola budućnosti” project. More about the project “Škola budućnosti” you can find here.

Dario Stuhne presented the paper “Design and Prototyping of Soft Finger AI-Enabled Hand (SofIA)” at the 2022 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM). The study proposes a material and method for fabricating soft Fin-Ray fingers by molding them entirely from urethane rubber and showcases key capabilities of SofIA.

The 19th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR 2022), has been held from July 4-6 at the Ramada Plaza Jeju, Jeju, Korea. Marsela Polić presented a Specularia paper “Robotic Irrigation Water Management: Estimating Soil Moisture Content by Feel and Appearance ” selected as one of the 5 best paper award candidates.

This year’s international ICUAS conference on Unmanned Aircraft systems was held in Dubrovnik from 21st until 24th of June 2022. The main theme of the conference had two aspects: aerial robotics and navigation, and control of manned-unmanned systems. In addition to excellent organization and a handful of content, this year’s conference was the first time a student UAV competition was held. One of the organizers of the conference was LARICS (Laboratory for robotics and intelligent control systems) lab. Antun Ivanović presented the paper “Render-in-the-loop Aerial Robotics Simulator: Case Study on Yield Estimation in Indoor Agriculture”.

SPECULARIA researchers Jelena Vuletić attended the 17th Intelligent Autonomous systems (IAS-17) conference held from 13th-16th of June in Zagreb, Croatia. Jelena Vuletić presented an article Towards Synthetic Data: Dealing with the Texture-Bias in Sim2real Learning.

After two challenging COVID years, the annual Croatian Science Festival, an event aiming to bring science closer to the general public, finally took place live and in all its glory from 2nd to 7th May 2022. The main theme of this year’s festival was celebrating and learning everything about life. Topics ranged from its definition to its preservation, from molecular biology, chemistry and psychology to advanced technologies and beyond. As our lives are quickly becoming unimaginable without robots, LARICS also participated as part of the robotics@fer.hr brand in collaboration with LABUST and LAMOR. Jelena Vuletić, Dario Stuhne, and Matko Orsag prepared an interactive exhibition to showcase Specularia.

April 12, 2022 – Natalia Ivanjko, Katarina Mužina, Ana Novačić, and Marsela Polić are this year’s scholarship holders of the National Scholarship Program “For Women in Science” organized by L’Oréal Adria and the Croatian Commission for UNESCO at the Ministry of Culture and Media. The scholarship program has been running in Croatia for sixteen years, and by decision of leading Croatian scientists, four scholarships in the amount of 5,000 euros are awarded to the four best Croatian scientists under 35 from the field of natural sciences, including interdisciplinary fields, which are in the final year of their Ph.D. studies. Congratulations Marsela! More info on the link: https://min-kulture.gov.hr/vijesti-8/svecano-dodijeljene-stipendije-nacionalnog-programa-stipendiranja-za-zene-u-znanosti/22187

Specularia researchers Jelena Tabak, Dario Stuhne, and Matko Orsag, presented Specularia’s new soft gripper SofIA, by participating in 2022 ROBOSOFT competition. To participate in the competition, SofIA had to learn how to pick up small and delicate objects as well as how to pour whiskey into a glass.

University of Zagreb University Computing Centre held its annual conference Dani e-infrastrukture – Srce DEI 2022. Matko Orsag was an invited speaker for this event and gave a talk about Specularia and AI technologies developed within the project.

New research paper entitled Parabolic Airdrop Trajectory Planning for Multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles has been published in IEEE ACCESS. The interested reader can find out more about it in this link.

On March 11, 2022 LARICS researcher Marsela Polić successfully defended her doctoral dissertation and received a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering. Marsela’s thesis is entitled “Soft robotic manipulation in agrotechnical procedures based on machine and deep learning”.

IFAM is the only B2B Trade Fair for automation, mechatronics, sensor technology, and measurement technologies in Slovenia and the CEE region. The event brings all key technologies together in one place and is focused on fulfilling the needs of professional visitors. In cooperation with colleagues from Slovenia and Serbia, at the robotics fair in Ljubljana, members of the research group organized a workshop on the application of robotics in agriculture. Matko Orsag gave an invited lecture about the Specularia project at the workshop.

The Advent fever did not bypass the robots and drones that occupied the Maksimir Center for Culture and Information at Švarcova 18 on Wednesday, December 22, from 1 pm to 8 pm, and served visitors hot drinks and Christmas treats! Our lab members introduced visitors to robots Franka, Pepper, Kinova, and Schunk in the Advent house in front of the Center who rolled up their sleeves to warm the visitors in these cold days and brighten the upcoming holidays.Robots prepared and served hot drinks and Christmas treats, and at the same time in front of the Center, there were presentations of robots intended for primary and secondary school students where they learned firsthand how robots can communicate with plants and learn how to fly drones.

How can we do better? Data, autonomy, and AI solutions in Inspection and Maintenance robotics. This was the title of the workshop organized through an EU project Robotics 4EU. Matko Orsag was an invited lecturer for this workshop and gave a talk about heterogeneous robotic systems and their applications ranging from agriculture to infrastructure inspection.

The 18th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR 2021) will be held from 12-14 July as a form of hybrid meeting at the Lakai Sandpine Resort, Gangneung-si, Gangwon-do, Korea. Marsela Polić presented the paper Pepper to fall: a perception method for sweet pepper robotic harvesting, which was nominated for the best paper award.

IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE) is the flagship automation conference of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and constitutes the primary forum for cross-industry and multidisciplinary research in automation. Its goal is to provide a broad coverage and dissemination of foundational research in automation among researchers, academics, and practitioners. IEEE CASE 2021 has been held in Lyon, France, on August 23-27, 2021. Bruno Marić, Marsela Polić, and Matko Orsag presented a Specularia paper “Soft robotics approach to autonomous plastering”.