We are announcing the following open positions to be part of the research group for Internet of Underwater Things (within Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies) established in the framework of the Horizon Europe project UWIN-LABUST:
For the full Job Announcements please click on the above links.
Interested candidates should contact us at uwin-labust@fer.hr.
Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies (LABUST) in collaboration with the IEEE OES University of Zagreb Student Branch Chapter is inviting you to a lecture "Robotic and Remote Sensing Applications in Coastal Heritage Conservation, Advantages and Challenges" held by Dr. George Alexandrakis from the Coastal & Marine Research Lab (CMRL) – Foundation For Research and Technology Hellas, Greece, as part of the UWIN-LABUST project.
The lecture will take place on Tuesday, April 15th, 2025 at 2 p.m. in Banjavčićeva 1a, Zagreb (meeting room 3-21/3rd floor). The lecture will be held in person in English language, followed by a short overview of the TECTONIC collaboration project by Dr. Vladimir Đapić, and is estimated to last 60 minutes, including questions.
A summary of the lecture as well as the lecturer's biography can be found below.
The IEEE OES University of Zagreb Student Branch Chapter, in collaboration with the Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies (LABUST), invites you to the lecture "Progress in Marine Monitoring" held by Dr. Shyam Madhusudhana from Curtin Mauritius (an offshore unit of Curtin University, Australia), as part of the UWIN-LABUST project.
The lecture will take place on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025 at 1 p.m., at Banjavčićeva 1a (room 3-21/3rd floor). The lecture will be held in person in English language and is estimated to last 60 minutes, including questions.
A summary of the lecture as well as the lecturer's biography can be found below.
Labust's researcher Martin Oreč attended JEC World, the leading international exhibition dedicated to composite materials. The event that took place from 4th to 6th of March 2025 in Paris, France, provided an opportunity to engage with over 1,300 exhibitors showcasing cutting-edge technologies and advanced materials.
During the visit, he participated in live demonstrations, where leading manufacturers presented their innovative production techniques. This experience proved highly valuable for Labust, offering insights into the latest industry developments and facilitating connections with globally recognized manufacturers and material suppliers.
On Thursday, February 20, 2025, the UWIN-LABUST group collaborated with researchers from the University of Trento, Italy.
They performed a Doppler effect estimation experiment at “Brodarski institute” (Engl. Ship Institute) in the heart of Zagreb, Croatia.
By analyzing the deformations in frequency modulated signals, the relative velocity between the transmitter and the receiver can be estimated.
The experiment was performed in a hydrodynamical pool spanning over 270 m in length, one of the largest in Europe.
"Brodarski institut" has been involved in many innovations in its 80 years of history in shipbuilding, marine weapon systems and fundamental research in hydrodynamics and mathematical physics.
The institute is soon to be renovated and will serve as a headquarters for the project "CoE MARBLE - Centre of Excellence in Maritime Robotics and Technologies for Sustainable Blue Economy".
This project will breathe new life into the institute and spearhead Croatia (and all visiting research groups) into becoming a leader in marine technology and blue economy.
Prof. Roee Diamant, a professor at the Department of Marine Technologies at the University of Haifa, was interviewed for a Croatian daily newspaper Večernji list about international research projects he is actively participating in together with UNIZG-FER. His work in underwater acoustics is bringing innovative solutions for communication, navigation, and sustainable fishing.
"The ocean is a limitless source of possibilities, from research and ecology to security and energy. Both Croatia and Israel have the potential to become leaders in the blue economy," Diamant stated.
The scientific projects discussed by Prof. Diamant in the article, UWIN-LABUST, SOUND, and SHIELD (set to launch on March 1) are currently at the core of his research. His work is focused on advancing and applying the cutting-edge technologies developed within these projects.
Full article here (in Croatian): Večernji list
In Dec. 2024, a team from the UWIN group traveled to Malawi to showcase the sound floater to the Malawian fishery department. The experiments involved operating the floater by the local team and showed success in detecting fish as small as 6cm.
In Nov. 2024 we traveled to Dominica Island to participate in the all-team meeting of project CETI. During this time, we performed a unique experiment for separating signals from two boats simultaneously emitting sperm whale click playbacks. The signals were received by a submerged glider equipped with an array of four hydrophones.
We are proud to announce that members of LABUST were placed second on the Approximate Supervised Object Distance Estimation Challenge organized by the University of Tübingen, the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Computer and Information Science and KLE Technological University. The challenge was to detect navigational buoys on the surface of water and correctly estimate their distance. LABUST had the best distance estimation and second best average precision and was placed second in the final combined evaluation metric.
Matej Fabijanić and Assistant Professor Fausto Ferreira, the authors of the winning method, will be featured as co-authors in the challenge results paper. The results of the method will also be featured in the Maritime Computer Vision (MaCVi) workshop at the IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV) 2025 held in Tucson, Arizona, USA.
More about the challenge: https://macvi.org/workshop/macvi25/challenges/usv_dist
More about the conference: https://wacv2025.thecvf.com/
WUWNet 2024, held for the first time on European soil, took place from 28th to 31st of October in Šibenik, Croatia, organized by Roee Diamant and supported by projects like UWIN-LABUST. The conference proved to be a resounding success, bringing together academics and practitioners from various fields of underwater networks and systems to foster collaboration, ignite interest, and make a lasting impact. Alongside the conference, additional trials of various groups of researchers took place in the venue itself, the Amadria Resort and the nearby Ruđer Bošković Institute's station Martinska.
Held in the stunning city of Šibenik along the beautiful Dalmatian coast, the conference was set against a backdrop of crystal-clear waters, ancient architecture, and Mediterranean charm. The weather was perfect throughout the entire week, adding to the overall experience and providing an ideal environment for both scientific exchange and networking.
The event featured an engaging program, including 5 keynote speeches, 2 parallel tracks, live demos at sea, and a half-day excursion that allowed participants to connect while enjoying Šibenik's captivating surroundings.
The Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies (LABUST) members attended the 16th International Interdisciplinary Field Workshop of Maritime Robotics and Applications Breaking the Surface - BtS held from 29th September until 6th October 2024 in Biograd na Moru, Croatia, organized by LABUST, and supported by projects UWIN-LABUST, SeaTecHub, Monusen, uBlueTec and MASK.
LABUST members participated in the rich programme which included included 14 lectures, 10 demos and 11 tutorials, but also managed to conduct trials for the ongoing projects.
The underwater localization challenge was organized again this year after two successful ones in 2022 and 2023, and got great reactions from the participants describing it as exciting and challenging.
We are looking forward to the next year's edition of BtS which is going to take place in Cyprus!
Check out the promo video of this year's BtS here.
Barbara Arbanas Pascoal Ferreira, Matej Fabijanić, and Nadir Kapetanović attended the IROS 2024 conference held in Abu Dhabi on 14-18.10.2024. Barbara presented our MBZIRC competition experiences at the Maritime Heterogeneous Unmanned Robotic Systems workshop. Matej presented his work on biofouling estimation in a poster session at the Autonomous Robotic Systems in Aquaculture: Research Challenges and Industry Needs workshop, while Nadir presented the overview of the results of the HEKTOR project at the same workshop.
From September 3 to September 6, two LABUST PhD students, Juraj Obradović and Luka Mandić, presented their work at the CAMS conference, which was held in Blacksburg, Virginia (USA). Luka Mandić presented his work titled Adaptive and Robust Direct Data-Driven Controller for Surface Vessel Navigation, where he introduced and applied an extension of the DeePC algorithm as the vessel controller. This approach aligns with the increasing trend of data-driven reference tracking in control system theory. Juraj Obradović presented his work titled Analysis of LiDAR-Camera Fusion for Marine Situational Awareness with Emphasis on Cluster Selection in Camera Frustum, where he introduced a method that integrates LiDAR and camera data for precise 3D object detection and tracking. In addition to presenting their own papers, this conference was a great opportunity for LABUST members to gather ideas for future research.
As part of the UWIN-LABUST and SOUND projects, field trials took place in Rijeka on September 19th, 2024 as a preparation for Breaking the Surface 2024 demo and Šibenik joint trials planned in October. The LABUST team tested the refined depth-keeping capabilities of the SOUND floater at sea.
Check out our shining new Subnero modem, custom-made with 4 synchronous hydrophones, one projector, and a high-performance processor for real-time algorithm implementation. Last week we tested the unit at sea: implementing active sonar for target detection, and testing transmissions for speed (Doppler) estimations.
The Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies (LABUST) is excited to invite students and all interested parties on Tuesday, 16th of July at 11:30 in lecture hall B5 to a special lecture by a renowned scientist, Associate Professor at Berkeley, Gasper Begus. This event will delve into the cutting-edge topic of AI interpretability, a new frontier in AI research that holds promise for advancing our understanding of both artificial intelligence and human cognition.
Last week, June 21, we dived to 30m in Šibenik to extract an acoustic recorder that was deployed for 4 months. The recorder monitored the activity of ships in the Šibenik Canal for noise pollution monitoring and the data was integrated with a camera overlooking the canal.
As a continuation of March field trials in Šibenik, on June 10th UWIN-LABUST members visited the maritime station of Institute Ruđer Bošković. The team members retrieved the recorded data and made some adjustments in their effort to create an underwater color-calibrated image dataset.
As part of the UWIN-LABUST and SOUND projects, field trials took place in Rijeka on May 16th, 2024 as a preparation for Šibenik joint trials planned in July. The LABUST team tested the depth-keeping capabilities of the SOUND floater at sea and validated the behavior with an acoustic recorder.
From June 3 to June 7, a research team from LABUST participated in “DCLDE 2024” conference in Rotterdam, Netherlands, focusing on marine mammal detection, classification, localization, and density estimation. The team included Professor Roee Diamant, Meisam Jahanshahi, Marko Barišić, Mak Gračić, and Guy Gubnitsky.
The conference started with workshops in Array Beamforming for Passive Acoustic Monitoring, the Dive Depth Detection (3D) method, updates on the Low-Frequency Detection and Classification System (LFDCS), marine mammal density estimation, and Pamguard's Tethys database and machine learning updates.
From June 4 to 7, various presentations were made. Notably, Professor Roee Diamant presented a paper on the “Robustness assessment of a dolphin whistle detector in the Red Sea and on the DCLDE11 dataset”. Additionally, Guy Gubnitsky presented a poster on the “Fully automatic detection and classification of sperm whale codas”.
The conference was a success, providing opportunities to network with leading researchers, learn about the latest advancements, and gathering new ideas for future researches.
On June 12th, Barbara Arbanas Ferreira and Nadir Kapetanović participated in the PhD Day event held at FER. Barbara's inspirational lecture was titled "The Road to Victory at the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC) - Experiences of FER's Winning Team". Nadir had a three-minute pitch presentation about his PhD and participated in the panel discussion with other PhDs awarded with FER's Josip Lončar Silver Plaque.
PhD Day was inspired by the top universities from around the world, as an open gathering where doctoral students publicly present their research results, and everyone interested can get an insight into the diversity and quality of scientific work at the Faculty.
Nadir Kapetanović and Anja Babić participated in the Ceremonial Promotion of Doctors of Science and Doctors of Arts held on June 8th at the Great Hall of the Regional Center for the Development of Entrepreneurial Competences for Southeast European Countries (SEECEL). In total 252 Doctors of Science and Doctors of Arts were promoted. These formal promotions are the first where new doctors receive printed diplomas as well as digital diplomas in their e-mail inboxes. Both versions of the doctoral diplomas were created at the same time and have a QR code, and those in digital form are also electronically signed.
During MONUSEN Summer School held in Kotor, Montenegro on 3-6th June, a few of LABUST members held workshops on several topics. On June 5th, Ivan Lončar held a workshop titled "LoRa networks for localization" and Luka Mandić held a workshop titled "Data meets Model Predictive Control: From classical MPC to an online adaptive direct data-driven navigation and control of autonomous vessels". On June 6th, Nadir Kapetanović held a workshop titled "Detecting anomalous objects in side-scan sonar imagery". On June 7th prof. Marin Vuković and Magdalena Šimunec held a "Cybersecurity – data, users and machines" workshop. Each workshop lasted 3 hours with an introductory theoretical lecture and a hands-on tutorial.
On June 5th, at the 15th international MOTSP conference held in Dubrovnik, Croatia, Nadir Kapetanović gave an invited talk titled "LABUST - Increasing Croatia’s marine robotics research capacities". He presented LABUST's recent research activities. The talk emphasized recent research projects ROADMAP, HEKTOR, Multifunctional smart buoys, Multipurpose autonomous ship, and Smart Blue Tourism as well as the challenges and good practices from MACVi 2024 and MBZIRC 2024 competitions.
On June 3rd, Nadir Kapetanović gave a presentation on his research in the past five years during the 2nd mini-scientific-professional conference Croatian Academy of Technical Sciences (HATZ) - Cohesive factor of technical and biotechnical sciences and the Croatian economy. After the conference, at the 51st regular annual assembly of HATZ, he was awarded the Vera Johanides award. The award is given to young researchers who have not reached the age of 35 and have defended their doctorate in science, and who in the past five years have achieved noticeable personal scientific or professional progress or achieved a notable contribution in the field they are researching.
The interactive exhibition "Journey into the Depths of Underwater Systems and Technologies" was officially opened at the Nikola Tesla Technical Museum on May 23, 2024 as part of the UWIN-LABUST project.
The exhibition presents innovations that have enabled people to explore and interact with the mysterious underwater world and its inhabitants. From autonomous ships and divers, all the way to the latest innovative research equipment, the exhibition shows breakthroughs that advance our understanding of the underwater world and revolutionize the maritime industry.
The exhibition was realized in cooperation University of Zagreb / Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies (LABUST) Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies and the University of Haifa, University of Haifa the Department of Maritime Technologies, Laboratory for Underwater Acoustics and Navigation Underwater acoustic and navigation laboratory (ANL), supported by the joint Research and Innovation Program Horizon Europe of the European Union (UWIN-LABUST), Croatian-Israeli Scientific Research, Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia (MZO) and Israeli Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology (MOST).
We also prepared an interactive application that reveals the magical world of the depths, available at https://labust-museum-app-five.vercel.app/.
Liisa Janssens LLM MA, scientist Emerging Disruptive Technologies and Law, unit Defence, Safety and Security at TNO, the Netherlands visited LABUST on 20-21 May 2024 and provided a lecture on Responsible AI and Rule of Law. More about the talk and speaker can be found below.
Liisa Janssens LLM MA works as a scientist at TNO in interdisciplinary teams to navigate research-projects on emerging disruptive technologies, for example AI in counter unmanned aircraft systems.
In her talk Liisa Janssens elaborated on a scenario-based method which is applied in civil-military research projects, for example in the recently launched NATO report: 'The Design of AI in C-UAS and the Rule of Law' of which she was the lead scientist.
She shared insights via providing answers to the following questions:
How can we protect our freedom, safety and security with the best means and methods?
And how can AI be part of means and methods (of warfare) in a responsible way?
The scenario-based method illustrates how scenarios can be a useful tool in navigating interdisciplinary challenges on deploying AI in civil and military operations.
See for more information:
https://www.tno.nl/en/about-tno/our-people/liisa-janssens/
Following the success of previous EMRA workshops (CNR-Rome 2014, IST-Lisbon 2015, NCL-Newcastle 2016, VICOROB-Girona 2017, UL-Limerick 2018, IFREMER-Toulon 2019, Univ. Pisa-online 2021, NOC-Southampton 2022, and UNIZG-FER-Sibenik 2023), in the Tenth Anniversary of the first edition held in CNR headquarters in Rome, the Institute of marine engineering of the Italian National Research Council (INM-CNR) will host the next Workshop on EU-funded Marine Robotics and Applications from 27th to 29th May 2024. This highly anticipated event brings together over 60 leading experts, researchers, and professionals in the field of marine robotics and applications. In a single-track conference programme over two days there will be 24 speakers with ample time for discussions and networking. Presentations from ongoing EU funded research projects will be mixed with presentations from industry and policy makers.
The workshop is organised within the framework of the MONUSEN, MAELSTROM, UWIN-LABUST, SeaTecHub, FAITH, and DIH InnovaMARE projects. UNIZG-FER coordinates the Horizon Europe ERA Chair UWIN-LABUST projects and is a partner of the Horizon Europe MONUSEN - Montenegrin Centre for Underwater Sensor Networks and the Horizon Europe SeaTecHub, showing the great involvement of UNIZG-FER in the organization of EMRA'2024 after having organized EMRA'2023.
Associate Professor Roee Diamant, ERA Chair of the UWIN-LABUST project will attend and present the UWIN-LABUST project, shedding light on their objectives, achievements, and future prospects.
EMRA 2024 features a pivotal roundtable discussion, addressing challenges and opportunities in bridging different funding instruments. This roundtable titled "Bridging research and innovation funding with regional funding in the area of marine research and engineering in Europe" will be moderated by Adeline Kroll from the European Commission's Directorate-General for Research and Development (DG R&D).
The EMRA 2024 workshop is organized as an event of the European Maritime Day In My Country 2024. More about the workshop and the program can be found at https://emra-24.marinerobotics.eu/.
F
rom the 15th to 19th April 2024, several LABUST members actively participated in the OCEANS 2024 Singapore organized by the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society (OES) and the Marine Technology Society. Namely, on 15th April, Prof. Roee Diamant, ERA Chair, delivered the tutorial Detection of Underwater Acoustic Signals - Theory and Techniques and mag. ing. Luka Mandić presented the tutorial Data meets Model Predictive Control: From classical MPC to an online adaptive direct data-driven navigation and control of autonomous vessels. In addition, Assist. Prof. Fausto Ferreira presented three articles: one related to the uBlueTec project, one related to an ROV simulator and one dealing with boat detection and classification using machine learning. Dr. Anja Babić presented the SOUND project and Prof. Nikola Mišković, head of LABUST presented the SeaTecHub project. Finally, Assist. Prof. Fausto Ferreira received the 2023 IEEE OES Distinguished Service Award.
The Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies in collaboration with IEEE OES University of Zagreb Student Branch Chapter is happy to invite you to the lecture titled
"Mining the deep-sea floor: treasure versus destruction in the oceans’ most pristine ecosystems"
held by Prof. Emeritus Craig Smith from University of Hawaii at Manoa. The lecture will take place on Monday, April 22nd, 2024 at 11:30 at the Gray Hall at FER, Unska 3 in Zagreb. The lecture will be held in person in English language and is estimated to last 60 minutes, including questions.
A summary of the lecture as well as the lecturer's biography can be found below.
Primary school students from the Matija Gubec International School STEM class visited the LABUST lab in Zagreb on March 19th, 2024. The students learned about acoustic communication and its role and application in marine robotics from a lecture by UWIN-LABUST ERA Chair Prof. Roee Diamant, then piloted a surface platform and two ROVs in the pool. For a student paper report on the visit, click on read more.
As part of the UWIN-LABUST and SOUND projects, field trials took place in Šibenik on March 7 and 8, 2024. The LABUST team worked with the Šibenik IRB team and tested the depth-keeping capabilities of the SOUND floater at sea, deployed an acoustic recorder for collecting seabed sediment data, and finally installed a long-term acoustic recorder to collect and analyse ship noise.
In the week of February 19, 2024, UWIN-LABUST ERA Chair Roee Diamant, along with Paolo Casari from the University of Trento and Jeff Neasham of Newcastle University, performed cyber security experiments in the Garda Lake. They investigated new ways to securely and reliably exchange secret keys for underwater acoustic communication.
The Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies in collaboration with IEEE OES University of Zagreb Student Branch Chapter is happy to invite you to the lecture titled
"The recent excitement around Generative Artificial Intelligence"
held by Asst. Prof. Alberto Testolin from University of Padova in Italy. The lecture will take place on Friday, March 15th, 2024 at 10:00 at the Gray Hall at FER, Unska 3 in Zagreb. The lecture will be held in person in English language and is estimated to last 60 minutes, including questions.
A summary of the lecture as well as the lecturer's biography can be found below.
In January this year, Marko Barišić headed towards South America, to the Commonwealth of Dominica for an in-depth glider training as part of UWIN-LABUST project. Together with colleagues from Harvard and Haifa University, among others from the CETI project, an intensive week of training was carried out with the help of ALSEAMAR experts to master managing the high-tech glider in the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
Operating the glider is essential for moving near the whales and capturing their communication to achieve advancements and breakthroughs in interspecies communication, essentially trying to understand whales.
Our member Nadir Kapetanović participated in the two-day "Seafloor Characterization for Offshore Infrastructure and Marine Planning" workshop held by Southampton Marine & Maritime Institute (SMMI) and hosted by the Cyprus Marine & Maritime Institute (CMMI) in Larnaca, Cyprus, on January 23-24th. On January 26th, he held a lecture at the CMMI about the recent research activities of LABUST and his PhD-related research.
Our member Nadir Kapetanović participated in an online meeting organized by the ISPRS WG II/7 and NAUTILUS teams that was held on January 15th. The event provided a platform for open dialogue and a unique chance to collectively review the findings of the NAUTILUS project, acknowledging the contributions of many participants and addressing the open challenges faced or identified by our communities in the future. Nadir presented recent research activities of LABUST from the point of view of multisensor datasets collection and processing.
The agenda of the meeting and the recordings can be found at this link.
On Monday, December 4th 2023 LABUST members Anja Babić and Ivan Oreč participated in the final project workshop of the Hybrid Energy Systems of Fishing Vessels (HENSUS) project. They presented work done during several LABUST projects, most notably HEKTOR, SOUND, and iVrša, and had an opportunity to exchange relevant experience with researchers from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture.
On the FER's Open Day 2023, 25. November 2023. citizens have the opportunity to visit the underwater robotics laboratory (LABUST), and see and try out a range of inventions in the fields of marine control engineering. Most visitors were graduating students interested in research, education, and technological details. Elementary school students were thrilled with driving mini speed-boats. Learning to drive a "working class" remotely operated vehicle was also a challenge. After countless tours over the pool and deep dives in the dark ocean, we just hope that some of the visitors will come back with good ideas and nice memories.
On 24 November 2023, at the celebration of the Day of FER, Nadir Kapetanović, PhD was awarded the Silver Plaque "Josip Lončar" for the academic year 2022/2023 for particularly successful doctoral dissertation and research work titled "Complete coverage of large seabed areas using sonar data-based path planning for an autonomous marine vehicle" under the mentorship of Prof. Nikola Mišković (UNIZG-FER) and Prof. Adnan Tahirović (UNISA-ETF). The award was presented by FER's Dean Prof. Vedran Bilas, PhD.
In the week of November 13th 2023, LABUST members Matej Ćosić, Eugen Kutleša, and Ivan Oreč deployed the iVrša (innovative fishing trap) as part of the project's first field trials. The iVrša was tested in the sea near an oyster and mussel farm in Šibenik.
On November 15 LABUST member Anja Babić was awarded the IEEE Croatia Section Student Volunteer Award for her work with the Oceanic Engineering Society University of Zagreb Student Branch Chapter. The award was given out at the IEEE Croatia Section annual gala dinner and award ceremony held at Hotel International in Zagreb attended by several LABUST members.
LABUST associate Matej Fabijanić participated in the 11th Croatian Computer Vision Workshop (CCVW 2023) on November 15th, 2023. He presented the Smart Blue Tourism project and shared his experience of being on the winning team of the Maritime Computer Vision (MaCVi) USV-based Obstacle Detection Challenge 2023. Moreover, Matej and Magdalena Šimunec also participated in the poster session of the CCVW 2023.
On the occasion of the celebration of University Day in Zagreb, in the ceremonial hall of the Regional Center for the Development of Entrepreneurial Competences for Southeast European Countries - SEECEL, 08.11.2023. a solemn session of the Senate was held as part of the University Week. During the session, special awards were also given to students and professors who contributed to the University during the past academic year or during many years of work.
A special award was given to Matej Fabijanić, a graduate student in Software Engineering and Information Systems, for his international success in scientific and professional work as part of FER's Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technology in the scope of the HEKTOR project, and for having published papers at the international peer-reviewed conference OCEANS 2022, Hampton Roads and in Q1 MDPI JMSE 2023 Journal of Marine Science and Engineering.
The honorary title of professor emeritus was awarded to prof. Ph.D. Željko Štih from the Department of Electrical Engineering Fundamentals and Measurements. The award "Fran Bošnjaković" was given to prof. Ph.D. Igor Kuzle from the Institute for Department of Energy and Power Systems.
LABUST members and associates Matej Fabijanić, Matko Batoš, Marko Barišić, Kristijan Krčmar, and Mak Gračić presented not only our research laboratory and equipment but also the whole UNIZG-FER at this year's edition of the University of Zagreb Fair from November 9th to 11th. They showcased their student demo about the remote control of the Blueye Pro ROV from the Fair to our lab pool that had obstacle course to test the piloting skills of the interested Fair visitors.
Visitors had the opportunity to see and try out other selected student demos and talk with students attending FER to get useful information. Interest in FER was not only shown by high-school graduates but there were various ages of children and adults who were interested in what FER offers. We hope that we have helped all interested visitors in the difficult decision that awaits them at the end of this school year, and next year we are waiting for you with new interesting demos! The Virtual FER stand will remain active and available to all, same as the web-pages of student demos.
We are proud to announce that members of LABUST won the USV Obstacle Detection Challenge track organized by the University of Tübingen and the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Computer and Information Science. The challenge was to detect various objects on the surface of water and correctly classify them into various categories.
Matej Fabijanić and Magdalena Šimunec, the authors of the winning method, will be featured as co-authors in the challenge results paper. The results of the method will also be featured in the Maritime Computer Vision (MaCVi) workshop at the IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV) 2024 held in Waikoloa, Hawaii.
More about the challenge: https://macvi.org/workshop/macvi24/challenges/usv_det
More about the conference: https://wacv2024.thecvf.com/
The Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies in collaboration with IEEE OES University of Zagreb Student Branch Chapter is happy to invite you to the lecture titled
"How research infrastructure project can boost research and education activities and expand the project portfolio"
held by Antonio Vasiljević, Ph. D., Research Project Manager at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Norway. The lecture is organised as part of the UWIN-LABUST project and will take place on Friday, November 17th, 2023 at 12:00 at the Gray Hall at FER, Unska 3 in Zagreb. The lecture is in English.
A summary of the lecture as well as the lecturer's biography can be found below.
Our member Anja Babić participated in the IEEE 9th World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT) 2023 conference which was held from October 12 to 27, 2023 in Aveiro, Portugal and virtually. Anja presented the latest results of the SOUND project in the context of Underwater Internet of Things applications and participated in a roundtable on Maritime IoT - Deployed Sensing and Platforms.
The Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies in collaboration with IEEE OES University of Zagreb Student Branch Chapter is happy to invite you to the lecture titled
"From Subsea to Space: Integrated Research in Maritime and Space Robotics"
held by dr. sc. Ivan Stenius, Associate Professor at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. The lecture is organised as part of the UWIN-LABUST project and will take place on Friday, November 10th, 2023 at 12:00 at the Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies at FER, Miramarska 20 in Zagreb. The lecture is in English.
A summary of the lecture as well as the lecturer's biography can be found below.
As part of the UWIN-LABUST outreach efforts, primary school students from the Matija Gubec International School attended a lecture by UWIN-LABUST ERA Chair Prof. Roee Diamant and then visited the LABUST lab in Zagreb on October 18th, 2023. The students learned about acoustic communication and its role and application in marine robotics, then piloted a surface platform and an ROV in the pool. They went on a tour of the lab, becoming acquainted with the many vehicles in use there, as well as the tools and machines used to develop and make them.
On October 11, 2023 SOUND project trials took place in Rijeka near the former torpedo launching and testing station. The floater was deployed off a boat in the bay to depths of up to 50m.
UWIN-LABUST ERA Chair Prof. Roee Diamant will be giving a series of 5 lectures on the topic "Tools for efficient academic research". The lectures will be held from 10:00 to 11:00 in the FER Grey Hall on the following Tuesdays: 7.11., 21.11., 5.12., 12.12. and 19.12. 2023.
The workshop will provide tools for conducting effective high-level research with focus on defining research objectives, conducting efficient literature surveys, planning ahead of experiments, paper and rebuttal writeup, and preparation of presentation slides.
The workshop is intended for PhD students and postdocs, and will be given in English. A summary of the contents of each lecture is given below.
High school and university students from Sarajevo visited the University of Zareb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (UNIZG-FER) on September 29, 2023. The visit was organized as part of the project "Employability and Jobs of the Future" by SOS Children's Villages Bosnia and Herzegovina, the AeroSTREAM project, and FER's science popularization program "ŠUZA – from school to science and academic community".
As part of the visit, about twenty students, along with their supervisors, had the opportunity to visit two robotics laboratories - the Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies (LABUST), where they had the chance to see a pool for conducting projects in marine robotics and learn more about ongoing projects, and the Laboratory for Robotics and Intelligent Systems Control (LARICS), where they learned more about aerial robotics and robotic manipulators. The visitors also participated in a workshop on assembling and programming LEGO Spike Essentials educational sets. All participants left FER with wonderful impressions.
Our member Nadir Kapetanović participated in the New Era of Mobility conference which was held on October 10th in Zagreb, Croatia. Nadir presented recent research of LABUST on situational awareness in a lecture titled "Autonomous ships: Towards situational awareness at sea".
As part of the UWIN-LABUST project, the Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies in collaboration with the IEEE Croatia Section - Robotics and Automation Chapter, the IEEE OES University of Zagreb Student Branch Chapter and IEEE Life Member Affinity Group - Croatia is happy to invite you to the lecture
"Research activities at the Visual Cognitive Systems Laboratory at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Computer and Information Science"
held by Engr. Matej Dobrevski - Ph.D. student at the Visual Cognitive Systems Laboratory at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Computer and Information Science. The lecture will take place on Friday, October 20th, 2023 at 13:00 in the Grey Hall of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER). The lecture is in English.
The lecturer’s CV and the summary of the lecture can be found below.
The Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies (LABUST) members attended the 15th International Interdisciplinary Field Workshop of Maritime Robotics and Applications Breaking the Surface - BtS held from 24th September until 1st October 2023 in Kumbor, Montenegro, organized by LABUST and supported by projects UWIN-LABUST, SeaTecHub, MARBLE and Monusen.
LABUST members participated as lecturers and demonstrators during a week-long workshop.
Anja Babić held a lecture on “Developing A Swarm Of Low-Cost Floaters To Acoustically Perform In-situ Fish Stock Assessment In Remote Areas”, Đula Nađ presented the Hackathon info implemented during the Marble project and Luka Mandić was involved during the demonstration.
From July 18th to 20th, field trials for the SOUND project took place in Eilat, Israel. This area of the Red Sea was chosen due to its steep bathymetry, enabling measurements at a great variety of depths. Five joint sea experiments were performed by the researchers from the University of Haifa and the University of Zagreb in order to check the integrated operation of the developed floater and the acoustic unit.
The SOUND team from LABUST visited Haifa, Israel and the ANL facilities from July 16th to 20th, 2023.
As part of this visit, a meeting was held with the Croatian Ambassador to Israel Vesela Mrđen Korać in order to discuss both ongoing and future collaboration between the two countries. The Ambassador toured the laboratory facilities, met the various research teams, learned about current projects, and provided valuable insight into potential avenues for strengthening cooperative efforts.
Three of our members participated in the ICRA conference that took place at London Excel! At one of the largest robotic conferences, our members Ivan Lončar, Natko Kraševac, and Juraj Obradović conducted a tutorial titled "TEAM – Technology Enablers for Autonomous Maritime Robots: Digital Twins with Simulations and Cloud-enabled Massive Scale Datasets for Experimentation and Validation."
This tutorial was conducted in collaboration with the research group Reeds (https://reeds.opendata.chalmers.se/) from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. The collaboration between LABUST and Reeds began during the unmanned ship project with a common goal of creating large datasets for research and development in the field of autonomous boat driving. Although both groups shared the same goal, they chose different approaches. The Reed group acquired large amounts of data from their custom-made ship, equipped with a variety of sensors, while LABUST decided to take a different approach by creating a realistic simulation of the marine environment and tools for automatic data labeling using the MARUS simulator. For this tutorial, we decided to test the fusion of these two approaches in a Digital Twin, combining the best of both worlds to provide the best possible results for anyone using the data. The tutorial was a half-day event that took place on the first day of the conference, May 29, 2023.
On the final day of the conference, Natko Kraševac and Juraj Obradović participated in the Scalable Autonomous Driving tutorial, where they had the opportunity to listen to presentations from leading companies in the autonomous driving field, such as Nvidia and Cruise.
As part of the UWIN-LABUST project, the Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies in collaboration with the IEEE Croatia Section - Robotics and Automation Chapter, the IEEE OES University of Zagreb Student Branch Chapter and IEEE Life Member Affinity Group - Croatia is happy to invite you to the lecture
"Technologies for underwater surveying: Workflow for 3D reconstruction of UCH sites"
held by Engr. Umberto Severino - Ph.D. student, Department of Mechanical, Energetic and Management Engineering (DIMEG), University of Calabria, Arcavacata di Rende, Italy. The lecture will take place on Friday, July 14th, 2023 at 10:00 in the LABUST pool laboratory, Martinovka building, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER). The lecture is in English.
The lecturer’s CV and the summary of the lecture can be found below.
During 5-8 June LABUST participated in the OCEANS 2023 Limerick conference with several different activities. More than 10 members of LABUST were in Limerick to present their work, connect with the community, and learn about new academic achievements in the field. We had multiple activities which include tutorials, 3 papers, and a booth presenting the collaboration with the University of Montenegro in the scope of the MONUSEN project.
Our members Ivan Lončar, Natko Kraševac, Fausto Ferreira, and Juraj Obradović conducted a tutorial titled MARUS - Unity Based Simulator for Marine Robotics. During this tutorial participants learned how to use MARUS simulator which was fully developed in LABUST and is finding many implementations in the academy and industry. Additionally, we conducted a citizen science experiment in which we compared the performance of participants to the previously developed algorithm in following COLREG rules. The same citizen science experiment was conducted in the MONUSEN booth. During the conference the startup company H2O Robotics which originated from LABUST had a booth where they presented their technologies to the community.
In the session Maritime Vehicle Navigation 1 our member Vladimir Slošić had a presentation for his paper titled "Underwater breadcrumb localization". In the session Pollution Monitoring our members Anja Babić and Nadir Kapetanović had a presentation for their paper titled "Cooperative marine litter detection and environmental monitoring using heterogeneous robotic agents". Additionally, Anja Babić chaired this session. In session Maritime Vehicle Navigation 2 our member Juraj Obradović had a presentation for the paper titled "Navigation, Guidance and Control of a catamaran robust to external disturbances".
On the occasion of marking the tenth anniversary of the Republic of Croatia's accession to the European Union, on Friday, June 30, 2023, from 09:00 to 15:00, FER's Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies - LABUST will open its doors to all interested students and citizens.
The aim of holding "Open Doors" is to present activities and projects that have contributed to the development of higher education and technologies in the field of underwater systems.
As part of the UWIN-LABUST project, the Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies in collaboration with the IEEE Croatia Section - Robotics and Automation Chapter, the IEEE OES University of Zagreb Student Branch Chapter and IEEE Life Member Affinity Group - Croatia is happy to invite you to the lecture
"Underwater remote sensing systems simulation for synthetic dataset generation"
held by dr. sc. Antonio Lagudi, Department of Mechanical, Energetics and Management Engineering (DIMEG), University of Calabria (UNICAL), Arcavacata di Rende, Italy. The lecture will take place on Tuesday June 27th, 2023 at 11:00 in the Grey Hall at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER). The lecture is in English and is open to all interested participants.
The lecturer’s CV and the summary of the lecture can be found below.
As part of the UWIN-LABUST project, the Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies in collaboration with the IEEE Croatia Section - Robotics and Automation Chapter, the IEEE OES University of Zagreb Student Branch Chapter and IEEE Life Member Affinity Group - Croatia is happy to invite you to the lecture
"Communicating and raising awareness about Underwater Natural and Cultural Heritage"
held by assoc. prof. dr. Fabio Bruno, Department of Mechanical, Energetics and Management Engineering (DIMEG), University of Calabria (UNICAL), Arcavacata di Rende, Italy. The lecture will take place on Tuesday June 27th, 2023 at 10:00 in the Grey Hall at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER). The lecture is in English and is open to all interested participants.
The lecturer’s CV and the summary of the lecture can be found below.
For the sixteenth year in a row, companies and students had a unique opportunity to meet at the Job Fair, which was held on May 17 and 18, 2023 at the Zagreb Fair. The Job Fair was organized by FER, the FER Career Center, the FER Student Union (SS FER), and the Electrical Engineering Students Club (KSET). This year 152 companies participated. Moreover, 17 workshops, 24 invited talks, and various round table sessions were held. LABUST members Vladimir Slošić and Nadir Kapetanović presented our laboratory’s research projects and job opportunities.
First field trials of the SOUND project took place in Šibenik from May 15 to May 18 2023. Teams from Haifa, Zagreb, and Šibenik gathered datasets at a fish farm, tested the initial floater prototype, and deployed an acoustic recorder for long-term monitoring of shipping noise in the Šibenik aquatorium.
Students from the Technical school Ruđer Bošković in Zagreb visited the LABUST laboratory facilities on Monday, April 1st as part of their extracurricular activity focusing on autonomous systems. They had a chance to test their Chasing Gladius Mini S ROV in the laboratory pool as well as to get to know LABUST projects and vehicles. A video report by prof. Robert Ljubek can be seen on YouTube.
Our members Nadir Kapetanović and Kristijan Krčmar participated in the "ROBOTIMA – my sea robotics" event organized in the scope of Innovamare project. The event was held in Trieste, Italy on May 3rd, 2023. Nadir gave a presentation about LABUST's current research activities, and later on, held a demo of the ASV H2Omni-X.
As a part of the SOUND project and a collaboration with the University of Haifa, from March 7th to March 10th 2023, Martin Oreč from LABUST visited the National Institute for Oceanography and the Underwater Acoustic & Navigation Lab which is led by prof. Roee Diamant. The goal of this visit was to share knowledge and analyse floater vehicles developed during earlier projects. Martin had a chance to observe the advantages and disadvantages of the available floater design and make conclusions and gather ideas for future work, as well as tour the facility and see equipment, technologies, and teams who work in the institute.
Martin Oreč and Benjamin Pavišić from LABUST visited Industrial Fair in Celje (SLO), the largest fair in the fields of machine manufacturing and toolmaking, welding, and cutting in SE Europe.
Students from Technical school Zagreb, accompanied by teacher Željko Vrabec and Siniša Tevely, visited our laboratory and learned about potential applications of marine systems. The lecture discussed also how they could apply their high-school knowledge in electronics and computing towards application in the maritime domain. After the lecture, the students operated the local surface vehicle in the pool and, as usual, performed an informaln competition.
MASK project partner Bedekovčina High School visited LABUST, FER on 21st March 2023. The students had to opportunity to learn more about LABUST projects during a presentation by Assistant Professor Đula Nađ. After, they had the opportunity of driving different types of robots in LABUST pool, both surface vehicles and ROVs. The students considered it a fun activity and are looking forward to the more challenging task of remoting control the same ROVs, an activity forecast in the Erasmus+ MASK project. The remote control of ROVs will act as preparation to the trials at sea in May in Baška, that will take place during the 16th Baška GNSS Conference, organized by the MASK project partner University of Rijeka, Faculty of Maritime Studies.
As part of the UWIN-LABUST project, the Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies in collaboration with the IEEE Croatia Section - Robotics and Automation Chapter, the IEEE OES University of Zagreb Student Branch Chapter and IEEE Life Member Affinity Group - Croatia is happy to invite you to the lecture
"Intelligent and Networked Robots - Navigating into the Future"
held by dr. sc. Marco Bibuli, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche – Istituto di Ingegneria del Mare, Genova, Italy. The lecture will take place on Monday February 27th, 2023. at 16:00 in the Grey Hall at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER). The lecture is in English and is open to all interested participants.
The lecturer’s CV and the summary of the lecture can be found below.
From February 15th to 17th, 2023 LABUST in Zagreb hosted prof. Nuno Alexandre Cruz of the University of Porto, Portugal. As part of his expert visit, he gave a lecture titled "Science-based Innovation in Marine Robotics" at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing. Prof. Cruz then participated in several days of invaluable planning, brainstorming, and know-how exchange with UWIN-LABUST researchers.
From February 13th to 16th, 2023 LABUST in Zagreb hosted Liav Nagar and Alik Chebotar from the University of Haifa, Underwater Acoustic & Navigation Lab. Liav and Alik participated in extensive planning and conceptualising of both hardware and software systems related to the SOUND project.
On February 13th, 2023 LABUST in Zagreb hosted dr.sc. Neven Cukrov of the Institute Ruđer Bošković in Zagreb. As part of his expert visit, Neven participated in extensive brainstorming and experiment design related to the SOUND project, leveraging his expertise and connections to plan field trials and provide access to relevant deployment spots in fisheries across the Adriatic. Neven also participated in discussions of potential future projects related to marine noise pollution.
The SOUND project kickoff meeting took place on Friday, January 13th 2023. Project coordinator prof. Roee Diamant (University of Haifa), project partner representatives prof. Nikola Mišković (UNIZG-FER) and dr.sc. Neven Cukrov (Institut Ruđer Bošković), as well as researchers Anja Babić and Martin Oreč laid the groundwork for the first year of the project.
The UWIN-LABUST research group has been selected as a grant recipient of Schmidt Marine’s Global Fisheries Technology Initiative! This support will help us increase the sustainability of fisheries around the world. Coordinator prof. Roee Diamant, University of Haifa, Israel, describes the project concept as a series of low-cost devices that coordinate with each other to capture better acoustic data for assessing the diversity and quantity of fish populations.
As part of the UWIN-LABUST project, the Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies in collaboration with the IEEE Croatia Section - Robotics and Automation Chapter and IEEE OES University of Zagreb Student Branch Chapter is happy to invite you to the lecture
"Science-based Innovation in Marine Robotics"
held by Prof. Nuno Alexandre Cruz, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal. The lecture will take place on Wednesday February 15th, 2023. at 11:00 AM in the Grey Hall at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER). The lecture is in English and is open for all interested participants.
The lecturer’s CV and the summary of the lecture can be found below.
As part of the UWIN-LABUST project, the Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies in collaboration with the IEEE Croatia Section - Robotics and Automation Chapter and IEEE OES University of Zagreb Student Branch Chapter is happy to invite you to the lecture
"How to explore the world of marine fauna using underwater acoustic signal processing"
held by Prof. Roee Diamant, Dept. of Marine Technologies, University of Haifa, Israel. The lecture will take place on Wednesday February 15th, 2023. at 10:00 AM in the Grey Hall at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER). The lecture is in English and is open for all interested participants.
The lecturer’s CV and the summary of the lecture can be found below.
UWIN-LABUST project started on January 1, 2023. In the following 5 years, and with the help of ERA Chair Prof. Roee Diamant and his team, we aim to achieve excellence in the broad application of Internet of Underwater Things through three main strategic research domains: underwater sensor communications, underwater acoustic signal processing, and underwater collaborative autonomy. Stay tuned to learn more about our activities and results!