Publication date: 
2024/10/18
Scientists from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering (FEE), Czech Technical University (CTU) and experts from the Czech Aerospace Research Centre will collaborate with global security and aerospace company Lockheed Martin to support academic research into high maneuverability unmanned aerial vehicles capable of flying at low altitudes near obstacles without global navigation support. The respective organizations signed the mutual cooperation agreement today and will collaborate on the project over the next five years. On behalf of the Czech Technical University in Prague the agreement was signed by the rector doc. Vojtěch Petráček.

Thanks to artificial intelligence methods, the new aircraft will enable maneuvers that are difficult for a human pilot to achieve. FEE CTU will use its expertise in machine learning and automatic control in the research.

"This project opens the door to a long-term research cooperation with Lockheed Martin, a global leader in its segment. I consider it important that alongside our scientists, four to five PhD students will be able to develop their scientific careers working on cutting-edge research. The project gives us the means to involve them," said Prof. Tomáš Svoboda, the head of the Vision for Robotics and Autonomous Systems group, who will lead the team.

The team will also include Martin Saska, Associate Professor, the head of the Multi-robot Systems group, which is a world leader in the development of autonomous drones using onboard artificial intelligence. Associate professor Karel Zimmermann from the Department of Cybernetics will enrich the research with his expertise in the promising field of Physics-Based Learning. In the project, Associate Professor. Martin Hromčík from the Department of Control Engineering will use his experience with aircraft control systems as well as his knowledge of automatic control system algorithms. Thanks to this, FEE CTU will be able to participate in designing the aircraft, which will be built by experts from the Czech Aerospace Research Centre.

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ZDROJ FOTOGRAFIÍ: PETR NEUGEBAUER, FEE CTU