Annual Report 2002 - Örebro universitet

2 AASS – Center for Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems
Summary
The Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems Center (AASS) organizes all research and graduate
education in the area of Autonomous Systems and also is responsible for the undergraduate
and MSc programs in Computer Engineering (Datateknik) at the Dept. of Technology, at
Örebro University in Örebro, Sweden. The research effort has a pronounced interdisciplinary
character being a fusion of a variety of disciplines from Systems and Control, Measurement
Science and Sensors, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, and Operations Research
but, with emphasis on Fuzzy Systems, Intelligent Control and Sensors, Machine Learning,
Planning and Automated Reasoning, and Biologically Inspired Systems.
The Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems Center is organized in four laboratories,
responsible for research and graduate education in their respective areas:
1. Biologically Inspired Systems Laboratory (BIS)
2. Mobile Robotics Laboratory (MR)
3. Intelligent Control Laboratory (IC)
4. Learning Systems Laboratory (LS)
The common research focus for the four research laboratories is the subject of perception and
autonomy in diverse un- and/or semi-structured environments. This subject is pursued using a
common research methodology, which is strictly applied: all technologies under investigation
should answer actual needs that emerge from an application, and their effectiveness is always
validated on the application. Applications considered by AASS include mobile platforms,
e.g., mobile robots, and immobile platforms, e.g., industrial plants and processes.
This report presents AASS organization and management, developments in education,
research and industrial cooperation, activities within the national/international research
community, and various forms of societal interaction that have taken place in year 2002. In
this context the major achievements that characterize year 2002 are as follows:
• During 2002 the number of Phd students has increased from 13 to 22.
• A new research line on Cooperative Robotics started, which has got initial momentum by
four related events: (i) a 5-year grant from CUGS (national graduate school in computer
science), (ii) the employment of two new PhD students, (iii) the organization, jointly with
the Technical University of Lisbon, of the First European Summer School on cooperative
robotics, and (iv) our successful participation at the 2002 international RoboCup
competition.
• Lars Karlsson has been awarded a 3 year grant by Vetenskaprådet (Swedish funding
agency for basic research) to work on planning and plan execution under uncertainty.
• Silvia Coradeschi and Alessandro Saffiotti have been appointed guest editors for a special
issue on "Anchoring" of Robotics and Autonomous Systems, one of the major journals in
this field. This demonstrates the recognition, by part of the international community, of