The past few months have been a particularly productive period for the ROBOPROX project, with the team presenting research at top international conferences, receiving awards for innovative work, and launching new collaborations.
At the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2025 in Atlanta, ROBOPROX made a significant impact. Matěj Hoffmann from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at Czech Technical University delivered the keynote Humanoid and Cognitive Robotics: Robots with a Sense of Touch, highlighting advances in tactile sensing that enable safer and more natural human–robot interaction. Ondřej Holešovský presented the paper MovingCables: Moving Cable Segmentation Method and Dataset, co-authored with Radoslav Škoviera and Václav Hlaváč, published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RAL). This work also inspired a follow-up article on interactive segmentation using motion correlation, improving robots’ ability to handle flexible, dynamic objects. In collaboration with Imperial College London, the G7 and G9 teams (Michał Nazarczuk, Jan Behrens, Karla Štěpánová, Matěj Hoffmann, and Krystian Mikolajczyk) presented Closed-Loop Interactive Embodied Reasoning for Robot Manipulation, demonstrating how robots can become more adaptive and context-aware during physical tasks.
Beyond ICRA, several other achievements highlight ROBOPROX’s progress. Jan Kristof Behrens supervised a thesis by Marina Ionova that won the Werner von Siemens Award 2024 for Best Thesis on Industry 4.0, focusing on human-robot collaboration under uncertainty. Martin Saska showcased robotic shepherding at the AgriFoRwArdS CDT Summer School at the University of Lincoln, engaging 30 PhD students in discussions about integrating aerial and ground autonomy.
Jiří Kubalík, together with Robert Babuška, presented a neuro-evolutionary approach to physics-aware symbolic regression at GECCO 2025. Tomáš Vyhlídal, in collaboration with KU Leuven, shared research on non-collocated vibration absorption using delayed resonators, balancing fatigue resistance with energy efficiency in mechanical engineering and structural design.
The team of Robert Babuška also continues to expand its collaborations, with new partnerships forming with the University of Freiburg while existing projects with TU Delft remain strong. Furthermore, Karla Štěpánová and Robert Babuška, together with Josef Šivic and Vladimír Petrík, contribute to the €25M Horizon Europe ELLIOT project, developing large multi-modal models for robust generalization across diverse data streams.
