Formulate, plan and manage research on perception technologies and software developments at CATEC. Involvement in multiple research projects related with perception systems such as RPAS-based inspection, RPAS autonomous navigation, environmental monitoring, or Factory of the Future.Preparation and support of engineering project proposals. Review plans and technical specifications for new projects and products. Focal point for customers.Team coordination and management for schedule, quality and under budget achievements.

Manage R&D activities on Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) at the Avionics & Systems Department of CATEC, with special focus on Computer Vision applications. Identification and implementation of novel and innovative applications and processing algorithms for obtaining useful information from different heterogeneous sensors.Preparation and support of engineering project proposals. Review plans and technical specifications for new projects and products. Focal point for customers. Coordination of several interns for their Master Thesis projects.Agile software development: Certified ScrumMaster, TDD.Extensive use of management tools: Atlassian's JIRA and Bitbucket.Hardware and software integration of heterogeneous sensor suites onboard aerial platforms: RGB / IR / RGB-D cameras, 2D and 3D LIDAR, proximity sensors.Design and development of Computer Vision algorithms and techniques, mainly using OpenCV, PCL and ROS (C/C++, Python), including:- Feature detection and tracking using different descriptors and techniques.- SLAM based on cameras (EO/Stereo/RGB-D) and LIDAR.- Object recognition and classification based on machine learning techniques (SVM, MLP).- Localization and navigation for autonomous mobile robots.

R&D activities on Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS), at the Avionics & Systems Department of CATEC, with special focus on embedded systems integration and Computer Vision.Preparation and support of engineering project proposals, and development of their technical work.Design and development of real-time data processing systems with sensors onboard manned and unmanned aircrafts. Aerial data acquisition from heterogeneous sensor suites (EO/IR cameras, LIDAR, multispectral cameras) with heterogeneous interfaces (serial, USB, FireWire, GigE) for a number of national and EU funded research projects.Agile software development: Certified ScrumMaster.- Integration of Windows and Linux distributions in embedded systems (x86, ARM).- Development of several Computer Vision techniques using OpenCV, including image mosaicing and georeferencing, DEM generation, feature detection and tracking or image segmentation.- Real-time communications for distributed systems using RTI's DDS middleware.- Development of graphical user interfaces using Qt.- Data integration using GIS software such as ArcGIS, QGIS or Google Earth.- Extensive use of IDEs (VisualStudio, Eclipse, QtCreator), virtualization tools (VMware, VirtualBox) and version control systems (Subversion, Mercurial and Git).

Associate professor in the post-graduate course 'Expert on Unmanned Aircraft Systems and their Civil Applications'.Theoretical training on photogrammetry techniques and hands-on practical training in order to obtain georeferenced 2D maps and 3D models out of aerial images, based on ArduPilot's Mission Planer and Pix4Dmapper.

Research stay at the Robotics and Perception Group (RPG) for research on conventional and neuromorphic cameras as the main sensors for the autonomous navigation of aerial robots.Development of a ROS-based framework for comparing vision-based localization solutions using a standard camera and an event camera. In particular, working with Ultimate SLAM on challenging high-speed datasets, using standard frames and/or events.Supported by a Scientific Exchange grant from SNSF (Swiss National Science Foundation).

Associate professor in the Master's Programme on 'Development and Experimentation of Unmanned Aircraft Systems'.Practical training on Computer Vision research and applications based on ROS (Robot Operating System), and hands-on data processing using web cameras and RGB-D sensors.Code can be found in https://github.com/fjperezgrau/unia_perception

Research stay at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR) for the development and implementation of an autonomous navigation system for MAMMOTH, a wheel-on-leg rover prototype for Mars exploration.Development of an actively articulated suspension solution based on an RGB-D sensor, fusing the information from both images and point clouds using OpenCV and PCL libraries. Hardware and software integration of the sensor onboard the rover and the existing framework based on ROS (perception functionalities) and MATLAB/Simulink (control functionalities).

Research on computer vision applied to autonomous aircraft landing on mobile platforms, based on pattern recognition and feature tracking using a monocular camera system and AR markers.Development of C/C++ applications based on OpenCV for markers detection and tracking, and 6D pose estimation of the camera system.

Staff position at the Human Sensing Lab at The Robotics Institute. Research on Computer Vision applied to facial expression analysis using Active Appearance Models (AAM) and statistical learning methods. Participation in several projects regarding optimal facial feature selection and detection.Development of MATLAB applications and graphical user interfaces, such as early versions of the IntraFace software, a popular software application that is able to detect and track 66 facial features landmarks in video files, and recognize facial attributes (http://humansensing.cs.cmu.edu/experience).Collaboration with the Affect Analysis Group at University of Pittsburgh in order to perform vision-based deception detection.Attendance as a free listener at several classes of the Robotics Program (Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence) and The Robotics Institute Seminar Series.