Announcements
14 August 2024
Drones Accepted into Ei Compendex
14 August 2024
Topics Webinar | Drones for Rural Development II, 19 September 2024
In recent years, the utilization of drones has increased globally, with fresh applications and uses continually emerging. In remote, rural regions, drones have the potential to perform a wide range of tasks, including surveillance via cameras or other sensors; this enables them to act as mobile gateways and provide connectivity or facilitate the transportation of goods to challenging, remote locations. While many of these applications are closely associated with primary sector activities such as agriculture and livestock, their adaptability extends to various other industries and urban areas.
This webinar will present three referent European projects associated with the development of rural areas, and it will use drones as the main thread. The scope of drone utilization in rural regions is extensive, spanning sectors such as agriculture, forestry, livestock, other industrial domains, environmental monitoring, and the assessment of water quality in rivers and lakes. Drones also play a vital role in firefighting efforts and provide assistance to the population, particularly elderly individuals.
We are privileged to feature recognized industry and academic experts who will share their experiences and insights regarding the effective leveraging of these technologies to achieve enhanced results and elevate the productivity of drones. So, whether you are a researcher, applied scientist, commercial drone user, or simply interested in the development of drones, we invite you to join us for this webinar.
Additionally, CHAMELEON, ICAERUS and SPADE are the organizations working with us for this webinar. Kindly find more information about the organizations below:
- CHAMELEON is a Horizon Europe Project that aims to optimize production and identify potential problems in agriculture, livestock, forestry and rural areas. For more information, kindly visit https://chameleon-heu.eu;
- ICAERUS is an EU-funded project that aspires to advance the use of drones in agricultural production, forestry and rural communities. For more information, kindly visit https://icaerus.eu/;
- SPADE is a project funded by the European Union within the Horizon Europe program, with 21 partners from 10 European countries. For more information, kindly visit https://spade-horizon.eu/.
Date: 19 September 2024 at 02.00 p.m. CEST | 8:00 a.m. EDT | 8:00 p.m. CST Asia
Webinar ID: 892 0367 9034
Webinar Announcement: https://sciforum.net/event/Topics-26
Register now for free!
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Speaker/Presentation |
Time in CEST |
Time in EDT |
|
Prof. Dr. Diego González-Aguilera & Dr. Pablo Rodríguez-Gonzálvez |
2:00–2:10 p.m. |
8:00–8:10 a.m. |
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Dr. David Sánchez-Jiménez |
2:10–2:30 p.m. |
8:10–8:30 a.m. |
|
Q&A Session |
2:30–2:35 p.m. |
8:30–8:35 a.m. |
|
Dr. Costas T. Davarakis |
2:35–2:55 p.m. |
8:35–8:55 a.m. |
|
Q&A Session |
2:55–3:00 p.m. |
8:55–9:00 a.m. |
|
Dr. Vasilis Psiroukis & Ms. Esther Vera Moreno |
3:00–3:20 p.m. |
9:00–9:20 a.m. |
|
Q&A Session |
3:20–3:25 p.m. |
9:20–9:25 a.m. |
|
Prof. Dr. Diego González-Aguilera & Dr. Pablo Rodríguez-Gonzálvez |
3:25–3:30 p.m. |
9:25–9:30 a.m. |
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. Registrations with academic institutional email addresses will be prioritized.
Unable to attend? Register anyway and we will let you know when the recording is available.
Webinar Chairs and Keynote Speakers:
- Prof. Dr. Diego González-Aguilera (Chair), Cartographic and Land Engineering Department, Higher Polytechnic School of Avila, University of Salamanca, Hornos Caleros, Avila, Spain;
- Prof. Dr. Pablo Rodríguez-Gonzálvez (Chair), Department of Mining Technology, Topography and Structures, University of León, Avda. Astorga, Ponferrada, Spain;
- Dr. David Sánchez-Jiménez, Departamento de Ingeniería Cartográfica y del Terreno, Universidad de Salamanca, Spain;
- Dr. Costas T. Davarakis, Nydor System Technologies AE, Athens, Greece;
- Dr. Vasilis Psiroukis, Agricultural University of Athens, Athens, Greece;
- Ms. Esther Vera Moreno, Noumena, Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes 690, Barcelona, Spain.
Relevant Special Issues:
“Aerial and Drone LiDAR Data for Geomorphological Mapping, Landform Extraction and Landscape Evolution”
Guest Editors: Dr. Dario Gioia, Dr. Nicodemo Abate, Dr. Giuseppe Corrado, Dr. Antonio Minervino Amodio and Prof. Marcello Schiattarella
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 September 2024
“UAV Agricultural Management: Recent Advances and Future Prospects”
Guest Editors: Dr. Hamdi Zurqani and Dr. Alessandro Matese
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 December 2024
“Geographic Information Technologies and the New Challenges of Globalization in a Changing Environment”
Guest Editors: Prof. Dr. Ana Nieto Masot, Prof. Dr. Gema Cárdenas and Dr. José A. Gutiérrez Gallego
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 December 2024
“Spatial Information for Improved Living Spaces”
Guest Editors: Dr. Ivana Ivánová, Dr. Yongze Song and Prof. Dr. Sisi Zlatanova
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 October 2025
Relevant Papers:
“Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Agro-Terrestrial Surveys Comparison for Generating Digital Elevation Surfaces for Irrigation and Precision Grading”
by Richard A. Pickett, John W. Nowlin, Ahmed A. Hashem, Michele L. Reba, Joseph H. Massey and Scott Alsbrook
Drones 2023, 7(11), 649; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones7110649
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2504-446X/7/11/649
“Recent Advances in Crop Disease Detection Using UAV and Deep Learning Techniques”
by Tej Bahadur Shahi, Cheng-Yuan Xu, Arjun Neupane and William Guo
Remote Sens. 2023, 15(9), 2450; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15092450
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/15/9/2450
“Review of Remote Sensing Approaches and Soft Computing for Infrastructure Monitoring”
by Aggeliki Kyriou, Vassiliki Mpelogianni, Konstantinos Nikolakopoulos and Peter P. Groumpos
Geomatics 2023, 3(3), 367-392; https://doi.org/10.3390/geomatics3030021
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7418/3/3/21
“Analysis of Landscape Character Assessment and Cultural Ecosystem Services Evaluation Frameworks for Peri-Urban Landscape Planning: A Case Study of Harku Municipality, Estonia”
Fiona Nevzati, Martti Veldi, Mart Külvik and Simon Bell
Land 2023, 12(10), 1825; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12101825
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/10/1825
“Assessment of Ecosystem Service Value in Response to LULC Changes Using Geospatial Techniques: A Case Study in the Merbil Wetland of the Brahmaputra Valley, Assam, India”
by Durlov Lahon, Dhrubajyoti Sahariah, Jatan Debnath, Nityaranjan Nath, Gowhar Meraj, Pankaj Kumar, Shizuka Hashimoto and Majid Farooq
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2023, 12(4), 165; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi12040165
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/12/4/165
12 August 2024
Drones | Top 10 Viewed Papers in 2023
7 August 2024
Recruiting Early Career Editorial Board Members for Drones
7 August 2024
MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter #14 - New Headquarters, Marketing, Poland
Welcome to the MDPI Insights: The CEO's Letter.
In these monthly letters, I will showcase two key aspects of our work at MDPI: our commitment to empowering researchers and our determination to facilitating open scientific exchange.
Opening Thoughts
MDPI Moves to New Headquarters in Basel, Switzerland
I am excited to share that MDPI has moved to a new state-of-the-art office space in Basel, Switzerland. This move consolidates our operations by bringing together our two previously separated Basel offices into one central location.
We are always growing our talent pool and encourage you to view our Careers Page for the positions available in Basel and across our offices.
New Address: Grosspeteranlage 5, CH-4052 Basel, Switzerland
Effective Date: 1 July 2024
This new chapter in our company’s journey is designed to continue our mission of positioning MDPI as a leader in Open Access (OA) publishing, highlighting our commitment to making scholarly research accessible to everyone.
Boasting modern amenities, improved meeting and event spaces designed to support our growing needs, the new location provides a more collaborative and efficient working environment for our employees. The location offers convenient accessibility to public transportation and is situated near the Basel SBB railway station, with a variety of nearby services and amenities.
In fact, I can see the trains right outside of my window as I write these lines!
This move marks an exciting milestone in MDPI’s development, and I am confident that the new headquarters will serve as an inspiring and productive space for everyone. We also very much look forward to welcoming visitors here. You can read more about MDPI's history here.
“This new chapter continues our mission of positioning MDPI as a leader in OA publishing”
For Those New to MDPI
A pioneer in scholarly, Open Access publishing, MDPI has supported academic communities since 1996. MDPI is leading the transition to Open Science by making a greater proportion of the research conducted worldwide free and accessible to everyone. To date, over 3.5 million researchers have entrusted MDPI with publishing their scientific discoveries. MDPI’s editorial process is bolstered by a network of dedicated reviewers, a team of 6,000 professional, well-trained staff members, and an in-house article submission platform designed to ensure efficient processes within its 440 fully Open Access titles. MDPI supports more than 800 academic institutions worldwide, helping them adhere to national mandates while facilitating authors’ publication in fully compliant (CC BY) Open Access journals.
Impactful Research
New and Emerging MDPI Journals Making an Immediate Impact
Unpacking some of the Impact Factor updates from the June CEO Letter, I wanted to dive a little deeper into the 137 MDPI journals which received Impact Factor for the first time.
Academic authors highly value efficient publishing processes, robust editorial support, and the opportunity to publish in high-impact journals. We are proud that our newly launched journals typically achieve coverage in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) of the Web of Science within just a few years, with a median time of only three years from release to inclusion.
As part of our commitment to advancing academic research and providing high-quality OA publishing, we actively seek new research areas to expand our portfolio of journals. We have a proven track record of successfully establishing new journals.
Our dedicated teams excel in fostering dynamic editorial boards and working closely with Editors-in-Chief (EiC) to define the precise scope and focus of each new journal. Our expertise extends to collaborating with indexing services, ensuring that our journals comply with best practices and are indexed promptly in all relevant databases.
Emerging Titles Ranked for the First Time
Our commitment to excellence is reflected in the annual impact metrics released this past June. The latest edition of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) showcases the integration of journals from the ESCI in the new unified category rankings, providing a simplified and more complete view of all journals within each subject category, including newly established titles.
Out of 137 new and developing MDPI journals ranked in the 2024 release, 79 are in the top half (Q1 or Q2) of their categories. Here is a breakdown of the number of MDPI’s ESCI-indexed journals by quartile in the JCR:
| Quartile | No. of journals |
| Q1 | 17 (12.4%) |
| Q2 | 62 (45.3%) |
| Q3 | 43 (31.4%) |
| Q4 | 15 (10.9%) |
| Not ranked (humanities-related journals) | 2 |
These rankings highlight our success in rapidly establishing high-impact new journals. Among those that made it directly into the top 25% of their category are the International Journal of Neonatal Screening, Journal of Xenobiotics, Polysaccharides, Smart Cities, and thirteen other journals.
You can browse MDPI journals by Indexing. Simply visit our Journals page and select from the list of Indexing bodies in the top left-hand corner.
Inside MDPI
MDPI Corporate Marketing Strategy and Team Meeting 2024
In July, I hosted the annual Corporate Marketing strategy and team-building activity with 15 of our team members.
The aim was to align the Corporate Marketing strategy with MDPI's goal of becoming the world's most trusted OA publisher. While we provide a high-level publishing experience for our authors, as seen from our surveys, we need to keep building on our transparent and open communication to foster trust within the scholarly community and continue enhancing our reputation.
The Corporate Marketing team plays an important role as the mouthpiece for all our major activities within MDPI, especially those that model what it means to be a trusted partner. The purpose of the strategy meeting was to develop a feeling of trust in one another and an understanding of how to inspire trust in the stakeholders with whom we interact.
“We need to keep building on our transparent and open communication to foster trust within the scholarly community”
We conducted a set of activities to facilitate that sense of mutual trust and trustworthiness. Examples of some activities we worked on during this strategy-building event include:
- Exploring what trust means
- ‘Letter to self’
- ‘The brand I most trust’
- Most Trusted Academic Publisher
- ‘The brand I would like MDPI to become’
- ‘The 2029 MDPI Annual Report’
- Voice of Customer and Share of Voice – survey/data update on MDPI Brand Experience and Brand Perception
- Integrate Trust-Based Objective into Marketing Plan
- ‘Becoming the MDPI experience’
- ‘Trusting the next steps’
While two days is not enough to finalize a marketing strategy, it is sufficient to get everyone who attended into the mindset of the direction in which we are working. From here, we will develop a program with next steps on main projects, update communications, and collaborate with team leads to incorporate this approach into our work going forward.
As a marketing team, we can communicate our messages, but trust has to be built at every touchpoint in the stakeholder journey. Just talking about it isn’t enough. We need to be about it. That’s a role each of us plays, from editorial to IT, from marketing to HR. We must build trust from the inside out. It starts with each manager and resonates out via every team member.
As a company, our goal is to give all stakeholders with whom we interact – whether internal or external – the experience of working with an organization it can trust.
Coming Together for Science
MDPI in Poland: Krakow Office
In July, I had the pleasure of visiting our Krakow office, following my recent trip to Warsaw to meet with the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.
During these visits, I prioritized meeting with our Office Manager, Editorial Director, Group Leads, and members from various teams, including editorial, production, marketing, and journal relationship specialists, to understand their roles and current challenges. Instead of a formal presentation, I opted for an open discussion, sharing updates from headquarters to engage with colleagues in a more personal way.
Our Krakow office has many things to be proud of, including a large number of PhD colleagues (over a third of its staff holds a PhD degree). Krakow provides an opportunity for expanding beyond the 100 colleagues we currently have, by adding new hires in departments including editorial, production and marketing, among others.
About our Krakow office
- Opened in 2020
- 99 staff members as at 1 August 2024
- Main Departments include Editorial, Production, English Department, JRS, PR
Our Krakow office participates in international conferences, conducts author trainings and scholar visits, and engages in local market outreach. The office is also a member of the Polish Chamber of Commerce for High Technology (IZTECH) and is working on expanding its local engagement.
Krakow is the second-largest city in Poland, with a population of about 800,000. It also has a large student population of around 128,000, with seven universities. This means that roughly one in every eight residents is a student.
Poland and MDPI
Poland is a crucial market for MDPI. From 2020 to June 2024, Poland ranked 7th in submissions and 5th in publications for MDPI research articles. As at 31 July 2024, Poland ranks 7th in total MDPI publications, with approximately 70,000 research papers.
Between 2020 and June 2024, 61,500 authors from Poland published with MDPI. As at 30 June 2024, there are 1,205 active Editorial Board Members (EBMs) from Poland, with 661 EBMs (55% of the total) having an H-index over 25.
We also have four Editors-in-Chief (EiC) from Poland leading our journals: Coatings, Venereology, Advances in Respiratory Medicine, and Limnological Review, along with six Section EiC.
In 2023, we received approximately 21,000 submissions from Polish-affiliated authors, of which 12,032 were published.
“Poland is a crucial market for MDPI”
Meeting with Ministry of Education
On 22 July, we visited Warsaw to meet with the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.
We were pleased to learn that they are strong supporters of the OA publishing model and value MDPI’s approach to the peer-review process, including our high ethical standards for quality control.
In 2023 Polish authors predominantly published their papers in OA, with MDPI holding the largest market share in OA publications within the country.
Our commitment to collaborating with Polish institutions is evident through our 33 Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP) agreements with prestigious institutions such as the University of Warsaw, the University of Wroclaw, the Jagiellonian University, and Gdańsk University of Technology. Through IOAP discounts, a healthy waiver rate, and our peer-review voucher system, we provide the Polish scholarly community with significant savings in OA publishing. The Minister greatly appreciated these efforts and our commitment to offsetting some of the APC costs.
We discussed industry concerns about the threat of papermills and presented the preventive measures MDPI has in place to mitigate this risk and uphold high ethical standards. We informed them of our commitment to combating papermills, including our involvement with United2Act and the STM Research Integrity Hub, as well as our efforts to expand our research integrity team and explore proactive measures.
Closing Thoughts
MDPI Thought Leadership Op-ed on Open Access is Now Live on Politico
I am pleased to share that our thought leadership Op-ed piece on Open Access (OA) is now live on Politico. This is a nice push for continued influence and support of OA among policymakers and industry leaders.
Why Politico?
Politico's reputation as a highly credible and influential news platform makes it an important venue to reach key opinion leaders (KOL) from academia, policymakers, and thought leaders from many industries. This visibility helps promote the OA philosophy.
Open Access: A Moral Imperative for Progress
In this piece, I discuss the necessity of making scientific research freely available to all. I argue that publicly funded research should be publicly accessible, highlighting how OA democratizes scientific knowledge, accelerates research availability, and fosters collaboration.
“Open Access is a fundamental right for all citizens”
Democratizing scientific communication
The impulse to democratize scientific communication is nothing new. OA may seem like a recent innovation, but its principles have historical roots traceable to Europe in the 15th century. Just as the printing revolution accelerated the dissemination of new ideas, OA publishing unlocks new scientific insights that would otherwise only be accessible to a few.
Benefits for scholars: amplifying impact through Open Access
Authors publishing in an OA journal can expect more citations of their work, increasing its potential impact. Research findings that are freely available are more likely to be cited than those hidden behind a paywall. Freedom of access greatly increases the potential audience for each paper, fostering a sense of community among researchers worldwide. Heightened visibility can attract prospective collaborators and employers for young scientists. At MDPI, we believe that all these factors can only accelerate the advance of science. Additionally, authors retain copyright in their work instead of signing it away, permitting broader dissemination under Creative Commons licenses and increasing its capacity for impact.
The moral imperative
OA is not just a matter of scientific policy; it is a fundamental right for all citizens and a prerequisite for a brighter, more informed future. Publicly funded research should be a top priority, and I am pleased to see policy moving in this direction. Our capacity to generate transformative scientific insights has to be democratized. The question today is no longer whether we can afford to embrace OA; rather, it is whether we can afford not to.
Chief Executive Officer
MDPI AG
2 August 2024
Drones | Selected Editor’s Choice Articles in 2023
2 August 2024
MDPI Romania Author Training Sessions in May
In May, MDPI Romania held three author training sessions – one endorsing an external event and two stand-alone sessions.
The National Session of Scientific Student Communications took place at Technical University Cluj on 17 and 18 May 2024. MDPI Romania sponsored this event and contributed an author training session on the production of research papers and case study analyses. JRS Norbert Kiss gave a presentation called The World of Open Access to explain different open access publishing models and the benefits of open access publishing. His presentation highlighted the impact of open access publishing on scientific progress and innovation.
On 29 May 2024, MDPI Romania hosted an author training session for Ph.D. students, early career researchers, and professors at the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy. In collaboration with Prof. Andreea Arsene, JRS Ioana Paunescu prepared two presentations: The Steps of the Publishing Process and Elaboration of a Peer Review Report. In her first presentation, she delved into MDPI’s history and mission, MDPI’s editorial process, and MDPI journals of various scopes that are accepting submissions. Her second presentation outlined the types of peer review, the contents of a peer review report by an MDPI reviewer, and the responsibilities of an MDPI reviewer.
MDPI Romania also hosted an author training session at the Iasi University of Life Sciences on 29 May 2024. JRSs Laurentiu Preda and Cosmin Artan gave four presentations: Efficient Writing of an ISI-Indexed Scientific Article, Benefits of Publishing in the Open Access Model, Various Methods of Open Access Publishing, and MDPI Guide for the Article Review Process. The first three presentations offered guidance on how to improve academic writing, the fourth focused on how to write peer review reports. A highly interactive discussion followed the presentations, during which the JRSs provided extensive answers to attendees’ questions.
MDPI is grateful for all the attendees, speakers, and organizers involved in these events. Through their enthusiasm and dedication, these events were great successes.
31 July 2024
Meet Us at the 36th EUROSENSORS Conference, 1–4 September 2024, Debrecen, Hungary
30 July 2024
Meet Us at the 1st International Conference on AI Sensors & the 10th International Symposium on Sensor Science, 1–4 August 2024, Singapore
19 July 2024
Interview with Dr. Rohan Chandra—Winner of Drones 2023 Young Investigator Award
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Dr. Rohan Chandra is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at Texas Robotics, advised by Dr. Joydeep Biswas and Dr. Peter Stone, at the University of Texas, Austin, USA. His research focuses on algorithms and systems for enabling robots to navigate safely and efficiently among humans, like humans. Dr. Chandra obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. in 2018 and 2022 from the University of Maryland, USA, advised by Dr. Dinesh Manocha, and completed his B.Tech at Delhi Technological University, New Delhi, India in 2016. His doctoral thesis focused on autonomous driving in dense, heterogeneous, and unstructured traffic environments. |
The following is an interview with Dr. Rohan Chandra:
1. Can you tell us a little about your background and what initially sparked your interest in your field of research?I completed my bachelor’s in India in 2016 in the field of electronics and communication. Following that, I went on to complete my graduate degrees in computer science from the University of Maryland and at UMD. My doctoral dissertation was focused on autonomous driving in challenging highly unstructured environments. I just recently completed a two-year postdoc at the University of Texas at Austin, and now I will be joining the University of Virginia as an assistant professor this fall in the Department of Computer Science. However, my initial interest was not always in robotics. I was always interested in math and problem solving. When I was in grad school, my advisor gave me a thesis topic to work on in the field of autonomous driving. Along the way, I just figured out how to combine my research interest with my passion for mathematical problem solving. This journey led me to make significant progress in the field of autonomous driving and robotics.
2. Did you face any challenges and, if so, what challenges did you face during your research and how did you overcome them?One of the challenges in my field, especially in robotics, is the availability of data, because you have to train machine learning models and neural networks based on data. And when I was working on my thesis, which as I mentioned, was on autonomous driving in very challenging traffic environments, some of the most challenging traffic environments were those found in Asian countries, like India, China, or Singapore. Most of the datasets that are available or that were available at the time were on easier traffic environments like those found in the Western parts of the world such as the US or Europe. So, this lack of data presented a huge problem because then you're not able to move forward in your research. To overcome this issue, I traveled to these regions to collect data myself. For example, I flew to Singapore to gather traffic data and collaborated with a company in India to collect data on Indian traffic. Just last year, we published the dataset that we collected in India at a conference. Another challenge in robotics is dealing with real physical systems. Unlike software, real robots can break down, making it difficult to keep them operational. During my graduate studies, I had no experience with physical robots, which is why I pursued a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas. This experience allowed me to gain practical knowledge and hands-on experience with real robots, furthering my expertise in the field.
3. How do you believe open access contributes to the advancement of knowledge and accessibility within your field?I firmly believe in open access research. There was a recent discussion on social media among prominent scientists and engineers about what defines science and what drives scientific progress. A key point that emerged in that discussion was that science thrives when ideas can collide and challenge each other, which can only happen if those ideas are open and accessible. If you're doing the research behind closed doors, then those ideas are not allowed to be vetted in peer-reviewed venues and it's difficult for science to progress. It is essential for ideas to be vetted, questioned, and challenged repeatedly, which is a part of the definition of open science. In robotics, open research is particularly crucial. Access to code and hardware specifications from previous experiments is vital. Without open infrastructure, researchers risk constantly reinventing the wheel instead of building on prior work. Open access allows for rapid prototyping and progress by enabling researchers to build on existing experiments, which is especially important in the fast-evolving field of robotics.
4. When it comes to your goals, what are your short-term and long-term research goals?I will answer that question in reverse order, starting with my long-term goals. My long-term goal is to enable mobile robots to collaborate with and assist humans in homes, public spaces (e.g., airports, hospitals, etc.), and transportation. There are several objectives to complete towards achieving this goal. First, we need multiple robots to navigate complex human environments in a fully decentralized manner both safely and efficiently. Second, we need to build a new paradigm for human–robot interaction that can facilitate complex natural language communication between humans and robots. Third, we need to extend autonomous driving towards highly dense, heterogeneous, and unstructured traffic. I have several active projects that fulfill these objectives.
5. What research topics do you think will be of particular interest to the research community in the coming years?I’ve been thinking about that, and I believe that it's a great time to be in robotics right now, especially with recent advancements. But also, if you look at deep learning, in deep learning we had the ideas and algorithms all the way from the 1980–1990s. But it was only 12 years ago, in 2012, that the engineering and the infrastructure caught up with the GPUs and then the revolution came. In robotics right now, it’s the other way around, where we are making significant progress in terms of infrastructure, with more GPUs, more data, and more foundational models. However, we are still relying on outdated methodologies, ideologies, and algorithms. What’s needed in robotics now is an algorithmic shift in how we approach manipulation, locomotion, navigation, and human–robot interaction. In the next 5–10 years, alongside the industry's efforts to scale infrastructure, researchers need to develop new algorithmic paradigms in human–robot interaction, multi-robot systems, and robot learning to drive a revolution similar to what deep learning achieved.
6. Can you share any advice for young researchers who are just starting out in your field?One crucial aspect, especially in robotics, is maintaining strong foundational knowledge and fundamentals. While having AI skills is essential in fields like computer vision or natural language processing, where the focus is on images, text, or speech, robotics requires dealing with real physical systems. Operating these systems effectively demands a solid engineering and mathematical background in addition to AI expertise. To be a leader in robotics, it is important not to solely focus on AI skills but to also ensure a strong foundation in engineering principles. This approach will be invaluable in advancing your career and contributing to the field's progress.
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Rohan Chandra on winning the Drones 2023 Young Investigator Award!
