Héctor García de Marina (University of Granada)

Talk's title: "Inverse-Kinematics Guiding Vector Fields"

Héctor García de Marina received the Ph.D. degree in systems and control from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, in 2016. He was a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the Ecole Nationale de l’viation Civile, Toulouse, France, and an Assistant Professor with the Unmanned Aerial Systems Center, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark. Since 2022, he has been a Ramón y Cajal Researcher with the Department of Computer Engineering, Automation and Robotics, and with CITIC, Universidad de Granada, Spain. He is the recipient of an ERC Starting Grant and an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Robotics. His current research interests include multiagent systems and the design of guidance navigation and control systems for autonomous vehicles.

Sha Luo (University of Groningen)

Sha Luo is an assistant professor at Hunan Normal University, China. She received her Ph.D. in intelligent robotics from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, in 2024. She was a finalist for the Robotica Best Conference Paper Award at ROBIO in 2022. Her research interest includes robotic grasping, neural-based motion planning and robotic vision.

Ming Cao (University of Groningen)

Talk's title: "Guiding Vector Fields for Multi-Robot Coordinated Motion on Manifolds"

Ming Cao has since 2016 been a professor of networks and robotics with the Engineering and Technology Institute (ENTEG) at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, where he started as an assistant professor in 2008. Since 2022 he is the director of the Jantina Tammes School of Digital Society, Technology and AI at the same university. He received the Bachelor degree in 1999 and the Master degree in 2002 from Tsinghua University, China, and the Ph.D. degree in 2007 from Yale University, USA. From 2007 to 2008, he was a Research Associate at Princeton University, USA. He worked as a research intern in 2006 at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, USA. He is the 2017 and inaugural recipient of the Manfred Thoma medal from the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) and the 2016 recipient of the European Control Award sponsored by the European Control Association (EUCA). He is an IEEE fellow. He is a Senior Editor for Systems and Control Letters, an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, IEEE Transaction of Control of Network Systems and IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, and was an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems and IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine. He is a member of the IFAC Council and a vice chair of the IFAC Technical Committee on Large-Scale Complex Systems. His research interests include autonomous robots and multi-agent systems, complex networks and decision-making processes.

Xiaodong He (University of Science and Technology Beijing)

Talk's title: "Vector-Field-Based Motion Planning for Nonholonomic Robots"

Xiaodong He received the B.Eng. degree in mechanical engineering from the China University of Petroleum, China, in 2016, and the Ph.D. degree in dynamics and control from the Peking University, China, in 2021. From 2021 to 2024, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher and an Associate Researcher with the College of Engineering, Peking University, China. Since 2024, he has been an Associate Professor with the School of Automation and Electrical Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, China. His research interests include motion planning and control of nonholonomic systems.

Dr. He was a finalist for the Zhang Si-Ying Outstanding Youth Paper Award of Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC) in 2023.

Zirui Chen (Westlake University)

Talk's title: "Exploring Vector Field Construction Methods for Different Types of Paths"

Zirui Chen received his B.Eng. degree in Automation and M.A.Eng. degree in Control Theory and Applications from Beihang University (BUAA), Beijing, China, in 2021 and 2024, respectively. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Technology at Westlake University, Hangzhou, China.

His research interests lie in the fields of nonlinear system control and reinforcement learning.

Jesús Bautista Villar (University of Granada)

Talk's title: "Practical Experiences with Guiding Vector Fields and Drones Tutorials"

Jesus Bautista Villar received his B.S. degree in Physics from the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, in 2022 and his M.S. degree in Data Science and Computer Engineering from the University of Granada, Spain, in 2023. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Information and Communication Technologies at the University of Granada, specializing in Cognitive Systems and Robotics.