Research line
Mobile Robotics and Intelligent Systems

The research activities of the MOBILE ROBOTICS line are aimed to endow mobile robots and ubiquitous computing devices the necessary skills to aid humans in everyday life activities. These skills range from pure perceptual activities such as tracking, recognition or situation awareness, to motion skills, such as localization, mapping, autonomous navigation, path planning or exploration.
Head of line: Alberto Sanfeliu Cortés

Research areas
>> Urban service robotics
>> Social robotics
>> Robot localization and robot navigation
>> SLAM and robot exploration
>> Tracking in computer vision
>> Object recognition

Tech. transfer
Our activity finds applications in several fields through collaboration with our technological partners
Research projects
We carry out projects from national and international research programmes.
→ More about our research projects
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Urban service robotics
The group focuses on the design and development of service mobile robots for human assistance and human robot interaction. This includes research on novel hardware and software solutions to urban robotic services such as surveillance, exploration, cleaning, transportation, human tracking, human assistance and human guiding.

Social robotics
The group's work on social robotics has an emphasis in human robot interaction and collaboration, developing new techniques to predict and learn human behaviors, human-robot task collaboration, and the generation of emphatic robot behaviors using all types of sensors, computer vision techniques and cognitive systems technologies.

Robot localization and robot navigation
This research area tackles the creation of robust single and cooperative, indoor and outdoor robot localization solutions, using multiple sensor modalities such as GPS, computer vision and laser range finding, INS sensors and raw odometry. The area also seeks methods and algorithms for autonomous robot navigation, and robot formation; and the application of these methods on a variety of indoor and outdoor mobile robot platforms.

SLAM and robot exploration
We develop solutions for indoor and outdoor simultaneous localization and mapping using computer vision and three-dimensional range data using Bayesian estimation. The research includes the development of new filtering and smoothing algorithms that limit the load of maps using information theoretic measures; as well as the design and construction of novel sensors for outdoor mapping. This research area also studies methods for autonomous robotic exploration.

Tracking in computer vision
We study the development of robust algorithms for the detection and tracking of human activities in indoor and outdoor areas, with applications to service robotics, surveillance, and human-robot interaction. This includes the development of fixed/moving single camera tracking algorithms as well as detection and tracking methods over large camera sensor networks.

Object recognition
The group also performs research on object detection and object recognition in computer vision. Current research is heavily based on boosting and other machine learning methodologies that make extensive use of multiple view geometry. We also study the development of unique feature and scene descriptors, invariant to changes in illumination, cast shadows, or deformations.

These are the latest research projects of the Mobile Robotics and Intelligent Systems research line:
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LOGISMILE: Last mile logistics for autonomous goods delivery
European Project
Start Date: 01/01/2022
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TERRINET: The European robotics research infrastructure network
European Project
Start Date: 01/12/2017
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SciRoc: European robotics league plus smart cities robot competitions
European Project
Start Date: 01/02/2018
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GAUSS: Galileo-EGNOS as an asset for UTM safety and security
European Project
Start Date: 01/03/2018
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ROBOCOM++: Rethinking robotics for the robot companion of the future
European Project
Start Date: 01/03/2017
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AEROARMS: AErial RObotics System integrating multiple ARMS and advanced manipulation capabilities for inspection and maintenance
European Project
Start Date: 01/06/2015
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LOGIMATIC: Tight integration of EGNSS and on-board sensors for port vehicle automation
European Project
Start Date: 01/03/2016
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ECHORD++: European Clearing House for Open Robotics Development Plus Plus
European Project
Start Date: 01/10/2013
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Cargo-ANTS: Cargo handling by Automated Next generation Transportation Systems for ports and terminals
European Project
Start Date: 01/09/2013
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RAADICAL: Actividades asistidas por robots en el cuidado diario y la vida
National Project
Start Date: 01/09/2021
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ROCOTRANSP: Robot-human collaboration for goods transportation and delivery
National Project
Start Date: 01/06/2020
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ColRobTransp: Colaboración robots-humanos para el transporte de productos en zonas urbanas
National Project
Start Date: 30/12/2016
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Robot-Int-Coop: Robot-Human Interaction, Cooperation and Learning in Urban Areas
National Project
Start Date: 01/01/2014
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PAU+: Perception and Action in Robotics Problems with Large State Spaces
National Project
Start Date: 01/01/2012
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MIPRCV: CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 Multimodal interaction in pattern recognition and computer vision
National Project
Start Date: 01/10/2007
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C-URUS: Ayuda complementaria al proyecto europeo IST-STREP URUS
National Project
Start Date: 01/01/2008
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NAVROB: Integration of robust perception, learning, and navigation systems in mobile robotics
National Project
Start Date: 13/12/2004
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ANNA: Supervised learning of industrial scenes by means of an active vision equipped mobile robot.
National Project
Start Date: 28/12/2001
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MARCO: Active vision systems based in automatic learning for industrial applications
National Project
Start Date: 01/12/1998
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DIMECO: Diseño, mecanizado y construcción de piezas y mecanismos robóticos
CSIC Project
Start Date: 01/01/2018
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MELPC: Mejora de las estaciones de trabajo del Laboratorio de Pilas de Combustible
CSIC Project
Start Date: 01/10/2018
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OTDIRI: Apoyo a las actividades de la oficina de transferencia y divulgación del IRI
CSIC Project
Start Date: 01/05/2018
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COLAROB: Colaboración hombre-robot en tareas de manipulación, navegación y exploración
CSIC Project
Start Date: 01/04/2013
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SGR VIS: Grup consolidat de Visió Artificial i Sistemes Intel·ligents
Regional Project
Start Date: 01/01/2017
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STAFF: Desenvolupament d'un sistema de transport automàtic i flexible entre llocs de treball del centre de fabricació flexible de la UPC
Regional Project
Start Date: 01/01/1996
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FENILO: Framework for 2D Estimation and Navigation using IMU, Lidar and Odometry
UPC Project
Start Date: 01/07/2020
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GEPEVE: Gestión predictiva de energía para eficiencia energética en vehículos eléctricos con control de crucero adaptativo
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 19/07/2021
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CARNET 2022: Autonomous Delivery Drive. Navegació avançada en zones urbanes
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 22/12/2021
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CARNET 2021: CARNET AUTONOMOUS DRIVING CHALLENGE 2021
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 01/06/2021
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DOGS2: Development of an IMU aided AGV Guiding System
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 07/07/2021
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MODPOW: Desenvolupament de noves tècniques d’exploració en entorns oberts i tancats amb robots
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 09/03/2021
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CARNET 2021-1: Autonomous Driving Challenge 2021 (Fase 1)
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 03/03/2021
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CARNET 2020: Sensorización-Navegación plataforma robótica (Fase 2)
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 11/06/2020
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TRREX-PROMAUT: Tecnologías habilitadoras del robot de rango extendido para la factoría altamente flexible
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 01/01/2019
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TRREX-DTA: Tecnologías habilitadoras del robot de rango extendido para la factoría altamente flexible
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 01/03/2019
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CARNET 2019: Sensorización-Navegación plataforma robótica (Fase 1)
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 01/10/2019
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SMART FACTORY: Investigación en tecnologías habilitadoras de sistemas inteligentes para las fábricas del futuro
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 01/10/2015
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DITCAV: Assessoria en el desenvolupament i integració de tècniques específiques a l’àrea de la conducció autònoma de vehicles
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 20/07/2018
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ICCS: Concept for intrinsic camera calibration station
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 01/01/2017
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#RobòticaiÈtica: Organización y gestión del ciclo "Diálogos sobre robótica y ética"
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 14/09/2018
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LCAS: Object localization with LIDAR for the validation of a CMS system
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 11/01/2016
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ADC: Coordinación técnica y soporte para la competición SEAT Autonomous Driving Cup
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 01/07/2017
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VW_Vehicle-Robot: Desenvolupament/innovació sobre “vehicle-robot”.
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 01/09/2016
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AIN-IRI: Detección de obstáculos para robots aéreos por medio de técnicas ópticas
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 01/02/2010
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ICARUS: Treball de consultoria sobre temes d'investigació tecnològica referent al desenvolupament d'un sistema de suport per a la navegació d'un robot mòbil
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 16/10/2006
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UTILAR II: Consultoria tècnica projecte d'investigació i desenvolupament de nous connectors elèctrics per a lunetes tèrmiques de l'automòbil
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 09/06/2006
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UTILAR: Disseny d'un sistema automàtic per a pre-soldar terminals de lunetes tèrmiques
Technology Transfer Contract
Start Date: 10/11/2005
These are the most recent publications (2022 - 2021) of the Mobile Robotics and Intelligent Systems
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J. Solà, J. Vallvé, J. Casals, J. Deray, M. Fourmy, D. Atchuthan, A. Corominas Murtra and J. Andrade-Cetto. WOLF: A modular estimation framework for robotics based on factor graphs. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 7(2): 4710-4717, 2022.
Abstract
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J. Laplaza, A. Pumarola, F. Moreno-Noguer and A. Sanfeliu. Attention deep learning based model for predicting the 3D human body pose using the robot human handover phases, 30th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 2021, Vancouver, Canada, pp. 161-166.
Abstract
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O. Gil, A. Garrell Zulueta and A. Sanfeliu. Social robot navigation tasks: Combining machine learning techniques and Social Force Model. Sensors, 21(7087): 23, 2021.
Abstract
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J. Sanchez, A. Pumarola and F. Moreno-Noguer. PhysXNet: A customizable approach for learning cloth dynamics on dressed people, 2021 International Conference on 3D Vision, 2021, London, UK (Virtual), pp. 879-888.
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E. Ramon, G. Triginer, J. Escur, A. Pumarola, J. García, X. Giro-i-Nieto and F. Moreno-Noguer. H3D-Net: Few-shot high-fidelity 3D head reconstruction, 2021 International Conference on Computer Vision, 2021, (Virtual), pp. 5620-5629, to appear.
Abstract
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N. Ugrinovic, A. Ruiz, A. Agudo, A. Sanfeliu and F. Moreno-Noguer. Body size and depth disambiguation in multi-person reconstruction from single images, 2021 International Conference on 3D Vision, 2021, London, UK (Virtual), pp. 53-63.
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A. Pumarola, E. Corona, G. Pons-Moll and F. Moreno-Noguer. D-NeRF: Neural radiance fields for dynamic scenes, 2021 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 2021, Nashville, TN, USA (Virtual), pp. 10313-10322, Computer Vision Foundation.
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E. Corona, A. Pumarola, G. Alenyà, G. Pons-Moll and F. Moreno-Noguer. SMPLicit: Topology-aware generative model for clothed people, 2021 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 2021, Nashville, TN, USA (Virtual), pp. 11870-11880, Computer Vision Foundation.
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V. Vaquero, I. del Pino, F. Moreno-Noguer, J. Solà, A. Sanfeliu and J. Andrade-Cetto. Dual-branch CNNs for vehicle detection and tracking on LiDAR data. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 22(11): 6942-6953, 2021.
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J.A. Aguilar, A.P. Husar and J. Andrade-Cetto. Box-Jenkins autoregressive models for PEMFC operating under dynamical conditions, 17th Symposium on Modeling and Experimental Validation of Electrochemical Energy Technologies, 2021, Sion, Switzerland (Virtual), pp. 93.
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M. Dalmasso, A. Garrell Zulueta, J.E. Domínguez, P. Jiménez and A. Sanfeliu. Human-robot collaborative multi-agent path planning using Monte Carlo tree search and Social Reward Sources, 2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2021, Xian, China, pp. 10133-10138.
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J.E. Domínguez, I.J. Torres, A. Garrell Zulueta and A. Sanfeliu. User-friendly smartphone interface to share knowledge in human-robot collaborative search tasks, 30th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 2021, Vancouver, Canada, pp. 913-918.
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Mobile Robotics Laboratory
The Mobile Robotics Laboratory is an experimental area primarily devoted to hands-on research with mobile robot devices. The lab includes 3 Pioneer platforms, 2 service robots for urban robotics research based on Segway platforms, and a 4-wheel rough outdoor mobile robot, a six-legged LAURON-III walking robot, and a vast number of sensors and cameras.

Barcelona Robot Laboratory
The Barcelona Robot Lab encompasses an outdoor pedestrian area of 10.000 sq m., and is provided with 21 fixed cameras, a set of heterogeneous robots, full coverage of wifi and mica devices, and partial gps coverage. The area has moderate vegetation and intense cast shadows, making computer vision algorithms more than challenging.


Researchers
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Alquézar Mancho, Renato
ralqueza (at) iri.upc.edu
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Andrade Cetto, Juan
cetto (at) iri.upc.edu
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del Pino Bastida, Iván
idelpino (at) iri.upc.edu
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Fourmy, Médéric
mfourmy (at) iri.upc.edu
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Garrell Zulueta, Anaís
agarrell (at) iri.upc.edu
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Puig-Pey Claveria, Ana Maria
apuigpey (at) iri.upc.edu
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Sanfeliu Cortés, Alberto
sanfeliu (at) iri.upc.edu
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Santamaria Navarro, Angel
asantamaria (at) iri.upc.edu
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Solà Ortega, Joan
jsola (at) iri.upc.edu
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Vallvé Navarro, Joan
jvallve (at) iri.upc.edu
PhD Students
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Chamorro Hernández, William Oswaldo
wchamorro (at) iri.upc.edu
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Dalmasso Blanch, Marc
mdalmasso (at) iri.upc.edu
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Debeunne, Cesar
cdebeunne (at) iri.upc.edu
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Domínguez Vidal, José Enrique
jdominguez (at) iri.upc.edu
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Ferrandis Vilaró, Joan
jferrandis (at) iri.upc.edu
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Gil Viyuela, Oscar
ogil (at) iri.upc.edu
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Laplaza Galindo, Javier
jlaplaza (at) iri.upc.edu
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Magdaleno Maltas, Jordi
jmagdaleno (at) iri.upc.edu
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Martí Saumell, Josep
jmarti (at) iri.upc.edu
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Taher, Hafsa
htaher (at) iri.upc.edu
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Tian, Yi
ytian (at) iri.upc.edu
Master Students
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Barthel Brunner, Thomas
tbarthel (at) iri.upc.edu
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Coll Ribes, Gabriel
gcoll (at) iri.upc.edu
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Cucurull Salamero, Xavier
xcucurull (at) iri.upc.edu
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Depledt, Yann
ydepledt (at) iri.upc.edu
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Fernandez Ruiz, Carlos
cfernandez (at) iri.upc.edu
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Fontal Chacón, Adrián
afontal (at) iri.upc.edu
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Oliver Caraballo, Juan Jaume
joliver (at) iri.upc.edu
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Rodriguez Linares, Nicolas Adrian
nrodriguez (at) iri.upc.edu
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Sales Montufo, Marc
msales (at) iri.upc.edu
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Schnorr, Sergio Leandro
sschnorr (at) iri.upc.edu
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Torres Rodriguez, Ivan Jesús
itorres (at) iri.upc.edu
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Vendrell Gallart, Joan
jvendrell (at) iri.upc.edu
TFG Students
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Dorado Gil, Enrique
edorado (at) iri.upc.edu
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Geer Cousté, Idril-Tadzio
igeer (at) iri.upc.edu
Support Staff
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Duarte, Hugo Miguel
hduarte (at) iri.upc.edu
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Herrero Cotarelo, Fernando
fherrero (at) iri.upc.edu
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