2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Abu Dhabi
- Year: 2024
- Description: We have won the Second Prize in the “Multi-Robot Perception and Navigation Challenges in Logistics and Inspection Tasks” competition, held as part of the prestigious 2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2024) in Abu Dhabi, October 14-18, 2024. The competition focused on advancing efficient multi-UAV systems for complex inspection tasks, challenging teams to leverage open-source tools to inspect infrastructure across diverse scenarios. Our team developed an intelligent decentralized control framework to coordinate a heterogeneous fleet of drones for inspecting complex structures in realistic environments. The proposed approach integrates cooperative multi-tasking algorithms and co-optimizes the UAVs’ sensing and actuation capabilities. This enabled us to achieve state-of-the-art inspection accuracy in unknown, complex environments, securing second place in a highly competitive international competition.
62nd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC 2023), Singapore
- Year: 2023
- Description: I am thrilled to share that, representing our KIOS CoE team, I received the First Prize at the Cooperative Aerial Robots Inspection Challenge (CARIC) during the flagship 62nd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC 2023), 13-15 December 2023, held in Singapore.
Our team consisting of Angelos Zacharia, Research Engineer, Andreas Anastasiou, PhD Candidate, Dr. Savvas Papaioannou, Research Associate, Research Assist. Prof. Panayiotis Kolios, as well as Professors Christos Panayiotou and Marios Polycarpou proposed an innovative solution that effectively coordinated multiple aerial robots (i.e., drones) for automated infrastructure inspection. We developed a distributed cooperative control system, enabling a team of drones to efficiently address the infrastructure inspection problem. Our approach, which outperformed competing methods, involved a two-stage innovative methodology. Initially, it entailed reconstructing the search area optimally for obstacle avoidance. This was followed by enabling the 3D inspection of the infrastructure (both outdoors and indoors) through a cooperative control scheme that jointly optimized guidance and camera controls of multiple aerial robots.
This solution earned us the top spot among 19 international teams. The solutions were evaluated by the organizing committee, comprising five experts in the field, with criteria including inspection quality, infrastructure coverage, and execution time.
Technical Chamber of Greece (TEE-TCG), GR
- Year: 2017
- Description: Distinction for my outstanding academic performance. This prestigious national award is bestowed by the Technical Chamber of Greece upon top graduates from Polytechnic Universities in Greece, recognizing exceptional academic performance.
University of Oxford, UK
- Year: 2013
- Description: Postgraduate Studentship (DPhil Scholarship funded by Laing O’Rourke).
IEEE ESTIMedia, Finland
- Year: 2012
- Description: Best Paper Award at the 10th IEEE Symposium on Embedded Systems for Real-time Multimedia (ESTIMedia) for the paper “A novel low-power embedded object recognition system working at multi-frames per second”, by Antonis, Nikitakis, Savvas Papaioannou and Ioannis Papaefstathiou.
Yale University, USA
- Year: 2011
- Description: Graduate Student Fellowship (PhD Scholarship)
Technical University of Crete, Greece
- Year: 2011
- Description: Distinction awarded for graduating at the top of my class with a GPA of 9.14 (out of 10).
Technical University of Crete, Greece
- Year: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011
- Description: Distinction awarded for achieving the highest academic performance (ranking 1st) in my class over the annual period.
Greek National Scholarship Foundation (I.K.Y), Greece
- Year: 2006, 2007, 2008
- Description: Distinction awarded for my academic performance i.e., ranking 1st in my class.