Fei Gao, Tenured Associate Professor, Deputy Director and Technical Leader of the FAST Lab, Department of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, China
E-mail:fgaoaa@zju.edu.cn
Website: http://zju-fast.com/fei-gao/
Title:Towards Closed-Loop Intelligence for Aerial Robots and Its Applications in Maritime Search
Bio:Fei Gao is currently a tenured associate professor (doctoral supervisor) at the Department of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, where he works as the deputy-director and the technical leader of the Field Autonomous System and Computing (FAST) Laboratory, and leads the Flying Autonomous Robotics（FAR）group. He also works as PI for the Center of Autonomous Navigation of Swarm Robotics in Huzhou Institute, Zhejiang University. His research interests include aerial robots, autonomous navigation, motion planning, optimization, and localization and mapping. As the first or corresponding author, he has published over 70 prestigious papers in Robotics, including ICRA, IROS, ISER, ISRR, RAL, JFR, TRO, and Science Robotics. His paper was published as the cover of Science Robotics in the May 2022 issue, which was also elected as one of the Top Ten Academic Progress of Zhejiang University. He is also the recipient of the IEEE-TRO 2020 King-Sun Fu Best Paper Award Honorable Mention, the ICBS 2024 Frontiers of Science Award in TCIS, the IEEE-SSRR 2016 best paper award, and the IEEE/RSJ IROS 2021 best Application Paper Finalist. As the principal investigator, he has undertaken the National Excellent Youth Science Foundation of China, the young scientists’ project of the National Key Research and Development Program of China, etc. His research has been reported multiple times by mainstream technology media, such as CCTV, Times, AAAS, IEEE Spectrum and Science.
Abstract:As the perception, planning, and coordination technology going mature, autonomous robots are given higher expectations by people. Aerial robots, and their swarms, now are required not only to fly out of laboratory, but also to finish more complicated tasks. To this end, building smarter drones with sophisticated functionalities where perception and planning modules are coordinated or even coupled is an attractive research topic. In this talk, I will introduce some new methods of aerial robots developed in my group, by which we may broaden the application range and intelligence level of drones. Then, based on real-world requirements, some systematic solutions for specific tasks are presented, where the architecture, algorithms, engineering considerations, as well as closed-loop performances, are explained. Finally, I will turn to some of our most recent research, on which we are working towards a perception-planning coupled, flexibly coordinated, and large-scale aerial swarm system and its applications in maritime search.