Overview
Perspective graduate students for 2020 please read here!
The Mobile Autonomous Robotic Systems Lab (MARS Lab) at ShanghaiTech University is dedicated to research on intelligent and novel algorithms, software and also hardware for various robotic applications. It was found in August 2014 by Prof. Sören Schwertfeger of the School of Information Science and Technology of ShanghaiTech University. The lab is dedicated to excellence in research and teaching in robotics and is part of the STAR Center. Additionally Prof. Schwertfeger and the MARS Lab are part of the Shanghai Institute of Fog Computing Technology (SHIFT). If you are interested in joining or visiting the lab, please refer to the respective advertisement on the openings page.
The lab, student and professor offices are all located in the STAR Center. Please find the directions on how to reach the STAR Center here.
News
Undergraduates win first prize in Challenge Cup Shanghai
Undergraduate student team from MARS Lab won one first prize in “Challenge Cup” National Undergraduate Curricular Academic Science and Technology Works (Shanghai division) and they will participant the national competition on behalf of Shanghai later this year. The members include Zehao Zhao, Xiting Zhao, Yiming Yin, Zhihao Zhang, Zhijie Yang and Hankai Liu and they are supervised by Prof. Sören Schwertfeger. Their topic is about SLAM rescue robots suitable for all terrain. The robot is designed to collect data in post-disaster environments inappropriate for rescue crews either automaticly or by remote control. Motion detection, thermal imaging and carbon dioxide sensors are also attached to it to get more information. The idea of this project is comes from their Robocup Rescue Robot participation, which is also supervised by Prof. Schwertfeger. The Shanghaitech Student Innovation Center also gives a lot of support on this project.
(Images: click here)
Best Workshop Paper Award at ICRA 2019
Haofei Kuang, master student in the MARS Lab, presented our work at the Workshop on Underwater Robotics Perception at the 2019 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Montreal, Canada. For this work we received the a Best Paper Award from the workshop.
MARS Rescue at RoboCup German Open 2019
The MARS group was participating at the RoboCup German Open 2019 with our small rescue robot. The six students and Prof. Schwertfeger went to Magdeburg, Germany with two robots. For a new team we performed very well, scoring points in every run. In July we will participate in the RoboCup Worldcup 2019 in Sydney, Australia. The lessons learned at the German Open will help us to prepare.
(Images and Video: click here)
Two new members join the MARS Lab
Finally, our two newest members of the MARS Lab arrived - two Fetch Robotics Mobile Manipulation Systems. We will pursue research on mobile manipulation with them, specifically in the areas of service robotics and mobile manipulation for life science (i.e. the robots should do experiments with pipettes and so on.)
Student Yijun Yuan presents paper in Singapore
The MARS Lab student Yijun Yuan 元祎君 went to Singapore to present our paper Fast Gaussian Process Occupancy Maps (PDF) at the International Conference on Control Automation Robotics & Vision (ICARCV).
Yijun in Singapore
PhD students went abroad
The PhD student Qingwen Xu got a DAAD scholarship for a 5 months research visit to Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany. She will joined the robotics group of Prof. Birk and do reseaerch on visual odometry and visual SLAM between May and August 2018
Also the PhD student Jiawei Hou is currently at a 6 month research visit to Oerebro University in Örebro, Sweden, where shejoined the Mobile Robotics and Olfaction lab of Prof. Lilienthal. She is staying there between August 2018 and February 2019.
Prof. Schwertfeger speaks at Petersberger Gespräche 2018
Prof. Schwertfeger was invited to give a talk (in German) about AI research in China at the Petersberger Gesrpäche 2018. This is a very high-profile conference for IT and Research Executives organized by the Comma Soft AG, a german IT consulting company. The conference was held at Villa Hammerschmidt, the (second) official seat of the German president.
MARS Lab participates at RoboCup China Open 2018
This years RoboCup China Open was held in Shaoxing, China, between April 12 and 14. The Mars Lab participated as MARZ (sic!) team. We all had a wonderful experience and learned a lot - we hope to participate in the international competition next year!
The Mars Lab Team.
Prof. Schwertfeger featured in Education TV Show
The Shanghai Education Television Network (上海教育电视台) on April 13 aired an episode of a Science TV show called "Open the Mind" (打开吧脑洞). It starred three Professors, among them Prof. Schwertfeger from the MARS lab. He talked about the mapping robot and rescue robotics. The episode was actually already filmed in winter 2017.
Second Annual Group Party
On March 23, 2018, the (newly renamed) MARS group had it's second annual group party! The news about the first party can be found here.
First we went to the MoMo restaurant in Chantime and had some awesome "all you can eat" HotPot.
Afterwards we went to the KTV and sang for three hours.
HotPot at MoMo
Re-branded lab name: MARS Lab
In order to avoid confusion with the STAR Center, the lab of Prof. Sören Schwertfeger has been renamed to "Mobile Autonomous Robotic Systems Lab - MARS Lab". Formerly it was referred to as the STAR Lab. The new Chinese name of the lab is: 自主移动机器人实验室
Robotics Course Fall 2017 Project Videos online!
The Robotics Course of Fall 2017 is finished. In the second half of the project the students worked in small groups to realize 12 different projects. Two of these project were actually supervised by Prof. Andre Rosendo. The course webiste lists the projects and provides links to the project reports and the project pages.
Project topics range from 3D SLAM ( _1_, _2_, _3_, _4_, _5_), over maniupulation ( _6_, _7_) to mobile navigation (_7_, _8_, _9_, _10_, _11_).
Most of the project pages also feature a video highlighting the work - go check them out!
STAR Lab featured in Nature
The January 18, 2018, issue of Nature includes a NatureJobs Carerr Guide: China. Among others it has an article called "China’s AI dreams" prominently featuring Prof. Sören Schwertfeger and his lab. It shows our Jackal Mapping Robot, that uses a Clearpath Jackal base together with some advanced sensors, like two Velodyne HDL32e 3D laser scanners and four 5MP Pointgrey cameras. Another picture is showing the PhD student Jiawei Hou and Prof. Schwertfeger working in the STAR Lab on antoher robot.
ABB and STAR Lab join in Collaboration Project
ABB and the STAR Lab are joining in a collaboration project to make the awesome ABB Yumi collaborative dual arm mobile. The ABB Robotics Research Center China is located just 7 km from ShanghaiTech University. The STAR Lab under the guidance of Prof. Sören Schwertfeger is providing expertise on mobile robots, localization and mapping as well as planning and control, while ABB is working on the mobile manipulation aspects. See a picture of an early prototype below.