NEWS

The HEKTOR project at the International Fair of Agriculture, Agricultural Equipment and Machinery CroAGRO 2022, which will be held from December 1 to 4, 2022, at the Zagreb Fair. The HEKTOR project will be at the Croatian Association of Innovators. On Saturday, December 3, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the Velesajam, there will be a workshop for winegrowers and winemakers: HEKTOR Robotic system for spraying and removing saplings... Read More

As a part of project Caliper an interview was published with Antonia Kurtela Pavlić. The goal of the interview is to promote horizontal principles, equality, and representation of women scientists at the university and their involvement in projects.   Caliper: Please tell us more about yourself: where were you born and how your environment from childhood affected the person you are today?   Antonia: My name is Antonia Kurtela Pavlić,... Read More

 In the show Scientific circles an autonomous all-terrain mobile manipulator was presented by project HEKTOR. Members of the HEKTOR project, Prof. Dr. Sc. Zdenko Kovačić, Ivan Hrabar, Ivo Vatavuk and Juraj Oršulić, participated in the presentation which was filmed by HRT in the Jazbina vineyard. The full recording is available here.

Article titled Biofouling Estimation in Mariculture and A Marine Robotic Simulator was accepted for OCEANS 2022 Hampton Roads conference that will be held from 17th to 20th of October, 2022 at Hampton Roads, USA. Fausto Ferreira presented the articles LIDAR-based USV close approach to vessels for manipulation purposes i Operating drones at sea – maritime law implications. Fabijanić, M., Kapetanović, N. & Mišković, N. (2022) Biofouling Estimation in Mariculture. U: Proceedings of the... Read More

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)... Read More

Prof. Zdenko Kovačić held a lecture on the topic “Autonomous heterogeneous robotic system for spraying and removing saplings in steep vineyards” at the innovation forum Innovations in agriculture in hilly and mountainous areas of the Republic of Croatia, September 30, Gospić, organized by the Croatian Community of Innovators.

On 29th of September prof. Zdenko Kovačić and Nadir Kapetanović held a lecture about the results of HEKTOR project at the 14th Breaking the surface conference in Biograd na Moru, Hrvatska, as well as demo with autonomous catamaran and diver. During the demo presentation, Nenad Antolović i Nikša Glavić from Institute for the Sea and the Coast from Dubrovnik have tested their diving equipment and equipment for underwater filming.

LABUST team members prof. Nikola Mišković and Nadir Kapetanović attended the 14th IFAC Conference on Control Applications in Marine Systems, Robotics and Vehicles (IFAC CAMS) held from 14th – 16th of September at Technical University of Denmark – Kongens Lyngby, Copenhagen, Denmark. prof. Nikola Mišković was International Program Commitee Chair (IPC Chair) of the conference.   The following articles were presented:  Kapetanović, N.; Mišković, N.; Ferreira, F. Landing Platform for... Read More

From August 30 to September 4, 2022, the largest world fair of technology, aviation and space industry TEKNOFEST was held in the Republic of Turkey in the city of Samsun, as part of which the international innovation fair ISIF 2022 was also held.  The Croatian Association of Innovators presented a dozen Croatian innovators, some of whom achieved remarkable results.  Representatives of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (Nadir Kapetanović, Đula... Read More

On 11th of August 2022, the local newspaper Jutarnji list featured a story about the project SubCULTron from Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies (LABUST) and new project HEKTOR. Project subCULTron was a large Obzor2020 project worth almost four million euros led by prof. Nikola Mišković. The goal of the project was to create a flock of underwater robots composed of different platforms. It also brought together researchers from the University of Graz, the Free University of Brussels, the Swiss company... Read More

As a part of project Caliper, an interview was published, with LARICS Lab assistant professor Ph.D. Tamara Petrović. The goal of the interview is to promote horizontal principles, equality, and representation of women scientists at the university and their involvement in projects.  Caliper: Interview with role models  Caliper: Please tell us more about yourself: where were you born and how your environment from childhood affected the person you are today? ... Read More

LABUST researchers attended the 17th Intelligent Autonomous systems (IAS-17) conference held from 13th-16th of June in Zagreb, Croatia. Vladimir Slošić presented the article Acoustical Underwater Localization of a Remotely Operated Vehicle in Mariculture. Kapetanović, Nadir; Nađ, Đula; Lončar, Ivan; Slošič, Vladimir; Mišković, NikolaAcoustical Underwater Localization of a Remotely Operated Vehicle in Mariculture // Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS-17)

  At the 13th international fair in agriculture, food industry and agricultural mechanization AGRO ARCA 2022, two FERs innovations won the highest prizes.  The Autonomous catamaran for aquaculture secured the highest award “Grand Prix” for the authors Nadir Kapetanović, mag. ing., doc. dr. sc. Đula Nađa, Nikica Kokir, mag. ing., Martin Oreč, mag. ing., Kristijan Krčmar, mag. ing. i prof. dr. sc. Nikola Mišković.  Heterogeneous robotic system, whose authors are Ivo Vatavuk, mag. ing., Marko Cukon, Dario... Read More

On 6th of May 2022, Science festival was held in new LABUST laboratory on Martinovka. Vehicles of HEKTOR project were presented.

General assembly was held on 4th of May 2022. Industrial phase of project has finished and experimental phase has started. Achievements of all working groups were presented LARICS, LABUST, UNIDU (University of Dubrovnik, Institute for sea and coastal areas), Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zagreb. Also, presentations of young researchers Antonia Kurtela, Nadir Kapetanović, Ivan Hrabar, Ivo Vatavuk, Jurica Goričanec were held. 

 The LABUST team visited the site of the Bistrina Bay near the town of Mali Ston from 25th until 29th of April. The team conducted successful integration testing of the Korkyra catamaran, the landing platform, the automatic winding system, and the system for acoustic localization of the submersible vehicle.   

HEKTOR was featured in a blog article on the Science&Wine website. The article describes the project and its objective and disseminates the most important advancements achieved by the project thus far.

LARICS has participated at IFAM 2022, B2B Trade fair Robotics in Ljubljana 15.02.-17.02.22. which is the only event in Slovenia and the CEE region that dedicates to robotics and unmanned systems. Robotics is tailor-made for exhibitors and gives them a platform for presenting their range of robot technologies in both industrial and service robot sectors. Prof. Zdenko Kovačić has come with its team, researchers Ivan Hrabar, mag.ing. and Ivo Vatavuk, mag.ing.... Read More

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... Read More

HEKTOR project was presented in two Croatian Radio and Television shows – Prometej and More. Prometej was focused on underwater robotics, and presented UNIZG FER’s Laboratory on Underwater Systems and Tehnologies, as well as objectives of the project HEKTOR and equipment used in the project activities. Show More reported on the workshop Breaking the Surface where HEKTOR equipment was tested, and experiments conducted for obtaining project results.

UNIZG FER’s researchers Zdenko Kovačić, Nadir Kapetanović, and project partners Nikša Glavić and Nenad Antolović from the Institute for Marine and Coastal Research attended the 13th International Workshop of Maritime Robotics – Breaking the Surface (BtS) held in Biograd na Moru from September 26 to October 3, 2021, and had a project meeting on October 1, 2021 to discuss joint activities and results, including the demonstration of the research platform... Read More

Nadir Kapetanović presented a paper at OCEANS 20201 – Conference and Exposition held September 20-23, 2021 in a hybrid form, with in-person sessions in San Diego (USA) and Porto (Portugal). The paper “Towards a Heterogeneous Robotic System for Autonomous Inspection in Mariculture” was co-authored by Nadir Kapetanović, Đula Nađ, and Nikola Mišković. OCEANS is the bi-annual event for global marine technologists, engineers, students, government officials, lawyers, and advocates, organized by the partnership of Marine Technology Society and the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society. The industry thought leaders gather... Read More

At this year’s edition of MIPRO 2021 – International Convention on Information, Communication and Electronic Technology, HEKTOR researchers, LABUST members and UNIZG FER students presented a paper on “Underwater ROV software for fish cage inspection”, co-authored by Goran Borković, Matej Fabijanić, Maja Magdalenić, Andro Malobabić, Jura Vuković, Igor Zieliński, Nadir Kapetanović, Igor Kvasić, Anja Babić, and Nikola Mišković.  Prof. Zdenko Kovačić presented the paper “Collecting information for biomass estimation in mariculture with a heterogeneous robotic... Read More

The paper Heterogeneous autonomous robotic system in viticulture and mariculture – project overview was presented by Jurica Goričanec at the 16th International Conference on Telecommunications held June 30-July 2, 2021 in Zagreb. The paper was co-authored by most of the HEKTOR team – Jurica Goričanec, Nadir Kapetanović; Ivo Vatavuk; Ivan Hrabar; Antonia Kurtela; Marina Anić; Goran Vasiljević; Jakša Bolotin; Valter Kožul; Dario Stuhne; Marko Cukon; Nikša Glavić; Stjepan Bogdan; Matko Orsag; Gordan Gledec; Tamara Petrović; Nenad... Read More

HEKTOR project team members Nikola Mišković, Zdenko Kovačić, Nadir Kapetanović (UNIZG FER), and Nikša Glavić, and Nenad Antolović (UNIDU) attended the 13th International Interdisciplinary Field Workshop of Maritime Robotics and Applications Breaking the Surface – BtS held from 26 September to 3 October 2021 in Biograd na Moru, Croatia. Nadir Kapetanović held a HEKTOR demonstration of the catamaran Korkyra, and Nikša Glavić and Nenad Antolović gave a talk on “Robotic Systems in Mariculture”.

Our robot VIV conducted a series of experiments in Jazbina, an agricultural field complex. An experiment was also conducted in a vineyard near the village of Sv. Ivan Zelina, which, with a slope of 50%, is an excellent terrain for testing the ground component of the HEKTOR project. Data on the robot’s movements were collected and its autonomy was tested. The robot proved capable of dealing with such steep terrain.

The paper Heterogeneous autonomous robotic system in viticulture and mariculture – project overview was presented by Jurica Goricanec at the 16th International Conference on Telecommunications held June 30-July2, 2021 in Zagreb. The paper was co-authored by most of the HEKTOR team – Jurica Goricanec, Nadir Kapetanović; Ivo Vatavuk; Ivan Hrabar; Antonia Kurtela; Marina Anic; Goran Vasiljevic; Jaksa Bolotin; Valter Kozul; Dario Stuhne; Marko Cukon; Niksa Glavic; Stjepan Bogdan; Matko Orsag;... Read More

From 27 to 29 June 2021, HEKTOR team members paid another visit to the project end-user, Cromaris fish farm (Ugljan, Croatia) to collect new datasets for the estimation of sea bream and sea bass biomass in fish cages. They also collected a dataset for biofouling and net damage detection algorithms. The data was collected using DJI Phantom, ARIS sonar and Blueye Pro ROV.

On 9 and 10 June 2021, the Ministry of Tourism and Sport and Institute of Agriculture and Tourism organized a conference ‘Sustainable tourism strategies for preservation and valorisation of the coastal and marine area natural heritage of the Mediterreanean’ within the project INHERIT. The two-day conference was held in the national park Brijuni. On 9 June, LABUST member Nadir Kapetanovic gave a presentation as a guest speaker on the results of LABUST’s Interreg Mediterreanean project BLUEMED, and also took the opportunity... Read More

HEKTOR researcher Nadir Kapetanović participated in the virtual meet-up event ISPRS WGII/9 ‘Underwater Data Acquistion and Processing’ organised by International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Nadir Kapetanović gave a short presentation on LABUST activities and equipment, and introduced the main concepts of the HEKTOR project that LABUST team is currently implementing. The event was held June 8 and 9, 2021 featuring many international speakers.

On April 16th 2021, members of the LARICS project team visited Jazbina, an agricultural field complex, located in the foothills of Mountain Medvednica and maintained by our project partner, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zagreb. The field no. 10 of Jazbina complex is a steep vineyard. It was selected as test ground for experimental validation of proposed robotic solution for viniculture, within HECTOR project. In this field trial, visual data... Read More

Our researcher and PhD student Nadir Kapetanović has been invited to join today’s webinar ‘Customize your setup with the Blueye SDK and API’ as a guest speaker presenting LABUST’s Blueye SDK-ROS2 integration. The webinar is organized by company Blueye to present stories from their customers who have utilized the SDK for controlling multiple drones simultaneously and others that have improved their post-processing sequence of the media and log files via the API. Edit: Webinar talk available... Read More

On Thursday, November 12, 2020, the first joint meeting of all researchers of the HEKTOR project was held. The meeting was held online and the project partners presented the activities of their institutions. Newly employed researchers presented in more detail the activities carried out in the first six months of project implementation. Project leader, prof. Zdenko Kovačić concluded that the activities are being carried out according to the plan and... Read More

On October 8, 2020, members of the project team visited CROMARIS fish farm (Kali, Ugljan) to collect field data needed for the development of algorithms using the equipment procured within the project (BlueEye ROV underwater vehicle). Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) recorded visual data from the air, and autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) visual and sonar data on the appearance of cages under the sea. The data collected by the UAVs will... Read More

On Tuesday, July 21, 2020, members of the project team (members of LARICS) performed test flights by drone in the vineyard to try out the creation of a 3D map of the vineyard using several types of sensors (LiDAR, cameras). The test vineyard in Zagreb served as an excellent location for the project task, which was successfully completed and the first project results were achieved. More photos are available in... Read More

The implementation of the project HEKTOR – Heterogeneous autonomous robotic system in viticulture and mariculture began on March 13, 2020. The three-year project funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is coordinated by the University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (UNIZG FER) with prof. Zdenko Kovačić as Project Coordinator. The project partners are the University of Dubrovnik – Institute for Marine and Coastal Research and the... Read More

On June 8, 2020, a project and technical meeting of project team members was held in the premises of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (UNIZG-FER). In the introductory presentation the project objectives and activities were shown in detail and general information related to administrative obligations were shared. The meeting also set out terms of reference and responsibilities for the newly hired researchers. Project work plan and procurement of... Read More