April the 20th, 2024 – To anyone who has been paying closer attention, it won’t come as a shock to learn that Croatian roboticists are barrelling their way through even some of the most imposing types of global competition. But just how have they managed?
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, FERConnect is the name of the third gathering of alumni of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing of the University of Zagreb (FER). Their upcoming gathering has been called “On the wave of robotics/Na valu robotike”, and will be held on April the 23rd, 2024 at 17:00 at FER. After last year’s two extremely successful gatherings, this year’s FERConnect, organised by the Alumni Board, will celebrate the success of their Croatian robotics team. That incredible team recently won the prestigious international robotics competition held in Abu Dhabi.
The team of Croatian roboticists from FER won with their project of cooperation between unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned ships in performing complex tasks. The participants are expected to hear a story of success in competition with the globe’s most important universities such as MIT.
“Although the competitors had incomparably greater financial resources at their disposal, the Croatian robotics team of eighteen members and members from FER won. They’ll reveal how they won the world championship at FERConnect. They’ll also delve deeper into the different stages of the exciting competition, as well as the simulation of their winning solution. This will all be presented to us by our winners who, with this achievement, have aroused sense of pride throughout the entire country”, announced the president of the Alumni Board, Mladen Pejković.
As a reminder, FER’s winning Croatian robotics team consisted of experts from the Laboratory for Robotics and Intelligent Control Systems (LARICS) and the Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies (LABUST) under the mentorship of Professor Stjepan Bogdan and Professor Nikola Misković. Despite the initial strong competition from about fifty teams from prestigious universities from all over the world, including Lockheed Martin and the world-famous MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the FER team led by Dr. Barbara Arbanas Ferreira first made it to the top five teams, and was eventually declared the winner.
The Croatian roboticists provided a remarkable solution to complex tasks such as locating intruder vessels, detecting illegal cargo and capturing and transporting objects in an environment without a global satellite navigation system. In the grand final, FER fought side by side with some major international research institutions such as KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology) and DTU (Technical University of Denmark). Despite the tough competition, the Croatian roboticists were deservedly declared the winning team and awarded this prestigious award.
