At ICRA 2026, NOKOV will co-sponsor 9 workshops covering a wide range of topics, including embodied intelligence, multi-modal spatial perception, aerial and underwater inspection, soft and origami robotics, and autonomous medical robotics.
Among them, the Aerial Inspection for Marine Infrastructures Workshop @ ICRA 2026, organized by leading researchers from the Horizon Europe AUTOASSESS project, will host a webinar on April 24 at 13:00 (UTC+02), featuring keynote talks and panel discussion.
The invited speakers include:
Prof. Evangelos Boukas, coordinator of the Horizon Europe AUTOASSESS project
Prof. Antonio Franchi, leading expert in aerial physical interaction
Prof. Konstantinos Alexis, leader of the winning team CERBERUS in the DARPA Subterranean Challenge
Registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/2417762347600/WN_JevSDvlxRgS5RBXCro9KEg
Prof. Evangelos Boukas recently published “Model Predictive Manhole Traversal with LiDAR-based View Synthesis” at IEEE IST 2025.
This work addresses the challenge of UAV navigation through narrow manholes during ballast tank inspection. The proposed method transforms dense LiDAR point clouds into 360° panoramic representations to localize manholes, and integrates the result into a Model Predictive Control (MPC) framework for trajectory optimization .
The system achieves a manhole localization success rate of up to 94%, and demonstrates robust autonomous traversal in both simulation and real-world experiments . The approach effectively combines perception and control, enabling reliable navigation in confined and GPS-denied environments.
Evangelos Boukas is an Associate Professor at Technical University of Denmark (DTU-Electro), affiliated with the Group of Automation and Control in the Department of Electrical and Photonics Engineering. He is the coordinator and Lead-PI of the Horizon EU project AUTOASSESS, and serves as the Head of Education for the Masters in Autonomous Systems.
His research focuses on Active Perception in the Field. His expertise includes Robot Vision, Mobile and Aerial Robots, State Estimation, Machine Learning and Autonomous Robotics. He brings along significant experience from both national and European projects in field robotics, space robotics, inspection robotics and industrial robotics. His research interests in AUTOASSESS are Autonomous Robot Operation and Machine Learning for Intelligent Robot Perception.
He has authored more than 70 publications in journals such as IJRR, Journal of Field Robotics, and Robotics and Autonomous Systems, and has served as Associate Editor for IEEE RA-L, ICRA, and IROS.
Antonio Franchi
Prof. Antonio Franchi recently published the paper “Aerial Robots Carrying Flexible Cables: Dynamic Shape Optimal Control via Spectral Method Model” in IEEE Transactions on Robotics.
This work introduces an optimal control framework for aerial robots carrying flexible cables, where the cable is modeled as a distributed-parameter system described by PDEs. By leveraging Proper Orthogonal Decomposition and nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC), the system enables simultaneous tracking of both the quadrotor motion and the cable shape trajectory .
Unlike conventional approaches that focus only on vehicle position or rigid payloads, this study explicitly incorporates cable shape dynamics into the control objective, allowing the aerial robot to actively regulate the spatial configuration of the cable during flight. Experimental results demonstrate stable and accurate shape control under dynamic motion, enabling more precise aerial manipulation.
This work provides a foundation for applications such as tethered inspection, cable-assisted operations, and aerial transportation, significantly expanding the capability of aerial robotic systems.
Antonio Franchi is a Full Professor at the University of Twente and Sapienza University of Rome, and an IEEE Fellow. His research focuses on aerial robotics with an emphasis on safety, intelligence, and physical interaction.
He has authored over 180 publications including journals such as Science Robotics, IJRR, and IEEE TRO, delivered more than 100 invited/plenary talks, and secured over €35 million+ in research funding. He is a co founder and emeritus co chair of the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Multiple Robot System, and has served on the editorial boards of IJRR, IEEE TRO, IEEE RAM, as well as major conferences including ICRA and IROS.
Konstantinos Alexis
Prof. Konstantinos Alexis led the team CERBERUS winning DARPA Subterranean Challenge (2021), and co-authored the Science Robotics paper “CERBERUS in the DARPA Subterranean Challenge”.
The work presents a multi-robot system-of-systems capable of autonomous exploration, mapping, and artifact search in complex subterranean environments. The system integrates legged and aerial robots with multi-modal perception, enabling operation under GPS-denied, visually degraded, and communication-constrained conditions .
To further enhance inspection efficiency in complex environments, his team recently published “Semantics-aware Predictive Inspection Path Planning” in IEEE Transactions on Field Robotics.
This work introduces a Semantics-aware Predictive Planning (SPP) paradigm, which leverages structured and repetitive semantic patterns in industrial environments (e.g., ballast water tanks) to predict unseen regions and guide inspection strategies .
By constructing semantic scene graphs and exploiting spatial regularities, the method enables robots to prioritize inspection targets. Both simulation and real-world experiments demonstrate a 25%–60% reduction in inspection time while maintaining or improving coverage, highlighting strong practical deployment potential .
Konstantinos Alexis is a Full Professor at Department of Engineering Cybernetics at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and is the Head of the Autonomous Robots Lab.
His research focuses on resilient robotic autonomy, spanning robot control, path planning, and SLAM, with a holistic approach to enabling resilient autonomy in complex environments. He led Team CERBERUS to win the DARPA Subterranean Challenge (2021), with the associated work published in Science Robotics.
He has authored over 200 publications in leading Journals such as Science Robotics, IEEE TRO, IJRR, and Journal of Field Robotics. He has received the IET 2014 Premium Award for Best Paper in Control Theory & Applications, and has served as Specialty Chief Editor of Field Robotics for Frontiers in Robotics and AI, as well as Associate Editor for IEEE RA-L, ICRA etc. He has led multiple major research projects supported by Horizon Europe, DARPA, NSF, and other agencies.
On April 24 at 13:00 (UTC+02), Prof. Evangelos Boukas, Prof. Antonio Franchi and Prof. Konstantinos Alexis will initiate a webinar on the latest advances in aerial inspection of marine infrastructures.
We warmly invite you to join the webinar and exchange with leading experts in the field.
Registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/2417762347600/WN_JevSDvlxRgS5RBXCro9KEg
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