Filip Zorić

Filip Zorić, CEO, is currently finishing his PhD at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing at the University of Zagreb. His research sits at the intersection of aerial manipulation, human-robot interaction, and robot control. Before becoming a research assistant at FER, from 2018-2020, he was working as a robotics engineer at Gideon where he worked on the autonomous mobile manipulator for service tasks. As part of his tasks, he developed from scratch, with the help of computer vision and deep learning, an autonomous gauge reading algorithm. Besides that, he worked on the CAN communication and development of the API that exposed low-level control of the forklift to Gideon’s proprietary autonomous stack. As a research assistant at FER, he worked on the AerialCORE project, which researched unmanned aerial systems for high-voltage transmission line maintenance. Besides that, he contributed to the MBZIRC2023, on the task of the GNSS denied aerial object transportation. In 2023, he attended the IEEE RAS Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems in Prague, Czech Republic. Filip is a euroBIN Brain Magnet scholarship recipient and collaborates with the Robotics and Mechatronics Group at the University of Twente, Netherlands, within the scope of the AUTOASSESS project that develops UAVs for autonomous vessel inspection. He was a visiting researcher at the EPFL, Switzerland, and at the University of Seville, Spain. He is the author of 1 paper published in a peer-reviewed journal, and 6 papers presented at international conferences. The full list of publications can be found here. Besides being passionate about robotics, he is particularly interested in business development, digital economics, and capital markets. READ MORE SHOW LESS

Ana Milas, PhD

Ana Milas, PhD, is the COO of our team. She received her PhD at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing on autonomous exploration of unknown 3D environments using UAVs, focusing on disaster scenarios. She has worked on several international and domestic scientific projects. As a part of the ERL 2019 (European Robotics League), she worked on the development of an algorithm for simultaneous localization and mapping. She participated in the MBZIRC2020 (Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge), working on a task related to autonomous exploration of the environment and firefighting. She also participated in MBZIRC2023, where she led the autonomous search team. In the HEKTOR (Heterogeneous autonomous robotic system in viticulture and mariculture), she developed the algorithm for autonomous exploration and mapping of the vineyard while in the VIRTUALUAV (Development of a system of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) controlled in virtual environments) she worked on autonomous exploration of warehouses, boxes and shelves detection and labeling in the map. In 2019, she did an internship at the University of Seville, Spain, where she collaborated on work related to mobile and aerial robot collaboration as a part of the AeRoTwin project. In 2020, she attended the IEEE RAS Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems in Prague, Czech Republic. In 2023, as a part of the program Outgoing mobility of assistants of the Croatian Science Foundation (HRZZ), she participated in a research visit at CATEC (Advanced Center for Aerospace Technologies) on the project BEEYONDERS, where she developed an algorithm for autonomous exploration of the environment, construction site-like object detection and mapping. She completed her doctoral studies within the “Young researchers career development project--training of doctoral students” of the Croatian Science Foundation. Her research interests are unmanned aerial vehicles, autonomous systems, autonomous 2D and 3D mapping and exploration, and autonomous navigation with obstacle avoidance in 3D environments. Ana has been active in IEEE for 10 years. She is the treasurer of the IEEE Croatia Section, the Vice Chair of the IEEE Young Professionals Croatia Section interest group, as well as the coordinator of student activities. As part of IEEE, she organizes conferences, workshops, and technical lectures. She is an author or co-author of 4 papers published in peer-reviewed journals, 6 papers presented at international conferences, and a book chapter. The full list of publications is given here. READ MORE SHOW LESS

Marko Križmančić

Marko Križmančić, CTO, is a research assistant at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, where he is completing his PhD on optimizing communication topology in multi-agent systems using consensus protocol and graph neural networks. He has contributed to multiple national and international scientific projects. In the EU Horizon project WatchPlant, he led the development of an embedded computer system for innovative plant-based environmental monitoring. He participated in the MBZIRC2020 (Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge), working on task allocation and scheduling in a heterogeneous multi-robot team for autonomous wall construction. In MBZIRC2023, where the Zagreb team won first place, he was responsible for long-range intra-robot communication, video streaming, and mission coordination. In 2020, he attended the IEEE RAS Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems in Prague, Czech Republic, where he won an award for the best solution to the practical assignment. During his time at the Faculty, Marko has developed software solutions for several multi-robot systems that have been successfully applied in simulation and real-world scenarios including factory automation, swarming, and decentralized decision-making. As a result of his work, he has extensive experience with wireless communication, networking, embedded programming, remote computer systems, electronics, computer vision, and robotics. Besides robotics and multi-agent systems, Marko’s research interests include graph theory, machine learning on graphs, and distributed systems. He has authored or co-authored two peer-reviewed journal papers and five papers presented at international conferences. The full list of publications is available here. In addition to his technical work, Marko is actively involved in the popularization of science. He regularly presents his research and projects to a broader audience, engaging with young children, high school students, and university students, promoting STEM education, and inspiring the next generation of scientists. READ MORE SHOW LESS