Flight Robotics

Within the research area of aerial robotics, our institute focuses on aerial visual sensing (detection and tracking), autonomous navigation, and formation control of multiple aerial robots. Our approach includes classical control approaches as well as learning-based methods, in particular Deep Reinforcement Learning. For more information, please visit https://www.aamirahmad.de/projects.

Projects

For the most up-to-date information on Flugrobotik/Flight Robotics projects, please visit:

 

Publications

  1. Journal Articles

    1. 56.
      Price, E., Khandelwal, P. C., Rubenstein, D. I., & Ahmad, A. (2025). A framework for fast, large‐scale, semi‐automatic inference of animal behaviour from monocular videos. Methods in Ecology and Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210x.70124
    2. 55.
      Bonetto, E., Xu, C., & Ahmad, A. (2025). GRADE: Generating Realistic and Dynamic Environments for robotics research with Isaac Sim. The International Journal of Robotics Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/02783649251346211
    3. 54.
      Goldschmid, P., & Ahmad, A. (2024). Reinforcement learning based autonomous multi-rotor landing on moving platforms. Autonomous Robots, 48, Article 4. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-024-10162-8
    4. 53.
      Saini, N., Huang, C.-H. P., Black, M. J., & Ahmad, A. (2023). SmartMocap: Joint Estimation of Human and Camera Motion Using Uncalibrated RGB Cameras. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 8, Article 6. https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2023.3264743
    5. 52.
      Price, E., Black, M. J., & Ahmad, A. (2023). Viewpoint-Driven Formation Control of Airships for Cooperative Target Tracking. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 8, Article 6. https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2023.3264727
    6. 51.
      Bonetto, E., Goldschmid, P., Pabst, M., Black, M. J., & Ahmad, A. (2022). iRotate: Active visual SLAM for omnidirectional robots. Robotics and Autonomous Systems. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2022.104102
    7. 50.
      Saini, N., Bonetto, E., Price, E., Ahmad, A., & Black, M. J. (2022). AirPose: Multi-View Fusion Network for Aerial 3D Human Pose and Shape Estimation. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 7, Article 2. https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2022.3145494
    8. 49.
      Tallamraju, R., Saini, N., Bonetto, E., Pabst, M., Liu, Y. T., Black, M., & Ahmad, A. (2020). AirCapRL: Autonomous Aerial Human Motion Capture Using Deep Reinforcement Learning. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 5, Article 4. https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2020.3013906
    9. 48.
      Tallamraju, R., Price, E., Ludwig, R., Karlapalem, K., Bülthoff, H. H., Black, M. J., & Ahmad, A. (2019). Active Perception based Formation Control for Multiple Aerial Vehicles. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 4, Article 4. https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2019.2932570
    10. 47.
      Price, E., Lawless, G., Ludwig, R., Martinovic, I., Buelthoff, H. H., Black, M. J., & Ahmad, A. (2018). Deep Neural Network-based Cooperative Visual Tracking through Multiple Micro Aerial Vehicles. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 3, Article 4. https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2018.2850224
    11. 46.
      Ahmad, A., Lawless, G., & Lima, P. (2017). An Online Scalable Approach to Unified Multirobot Cooperative Localization and Object Tracking. IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 33, 1184–1199. https://doi.org/10.1109/TRO.2017.2715342
    12. 45.
      Ahmad, A., & Bülthoff, H. (2016). Moving-horizon Nonlinear Least Squares-based Multirobot Cooperative Perception. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 83, 275–286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2016.06.002
    13. 44.
      Lima, P., Ahmad, A., Dias, A., Conceicão, A., Moreira, A., Silva, E., Almeida, L., Oliveira, L., & Nascimento, T. (2015). Formation control driven by cooperative object tracking. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 63, Article 1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2014.08.018
    14. 43.
      Ahmad, A., Xavier, J., Santos-Victor, J., & Lima, P. (2014). 3D to 2D bijection for spherical objects under equidistant fisheye projection. Computer Vision and Image Understanding, 125, 172–183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cviu.2014.04.004
    15. 42.
      Ahmad, A., & Lima, P. (2013). Multi-robot cooperative spherical-object tracking in 3D space based on particle filters. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 61, Article 10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2012.12.008

  2. Conference Papers

    1. 41.
      Liu, Y. T., Vale, A., Ahmad, A., Ventura, R., & Basiri, M. (2025). Multitask Reinforcement Learning for Quadcopter Attitude Stabilization and Tracking using Graph Policy. In 2025 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2025).
    2. 40.
      Klar, N., Gifary, N., Ziegler, F. P. G., Sehnke, F., Kaifel, A., Price, E., & Ahmad, A. (2025). BirdRecorder’s AI on Sky: Safeguarding birds of prey by detection and classification of tiny objects around wind turbines. 18th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS 18).
    3. 39.
      Xu, C., Bonetto, E., & Ahmad, A. (2025). DynaPix SLAM: A Pixel-Based Dynamic Visual SLAM Approach. In D. Cremers, Z. Lähner, M. Moeller, M. Nießner, B. Ommer, & R. Triebel (Eds.), Pattern Recognition (pp. 168–184). Springer Nature Switzerland.
    4. 38.
      Goldschmid, P., & Ahmad, A. (2025). A Multi-Simulation Approach with Model Predictive Control for Anafi Drones. IEEE European Conference on Mobile Robots (ECMR 2025).
    5. 37.
      Liu, Y. T., & Ahmad, A. (2024). Multi-Task Reinforcement Learning in Continuous Control with Successor Feature-Based Concurrent Composition. 2024 European Control Conference (ECC), 3860–3867. https://doi.org/10.23919/ECC64448.2024.10591301
    6. 36.
      Gall, C., Fichter, W., & Ahmad, A. (2024). End-to-End Thermal Updraft Detection and Estimation for Autonomous Soaring Using Temporal Convolutional Networks. 2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 17875–17881. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA57147.2024.10611479
    7. 35.
      Liu, Y. T., Singh, N., & Ahmad, A. (2024). Task and Domain Adaptive Reinforcement Learning for Robot Control. 2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 656–663. https://doi.org/10.1109/IROS58592.2024.10801963
    8. 34.
      Price, E., & Ahmad, A. (2024). Airship Formations for Animal Motion Capture and Behavior Analysis. In 2nd International Conference on Design and Engineering of Lighter-than-Air Systems (DELTAs 2024). https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.08986
    9. 33.
      Patel, M., Bandopadhyay, A., & Ahmad, A. (2022). Collaborative Mapping of Archaeological Sites Using Multiple UAVs. In M. H. Ang Jr, H. Asama, W. Lin, & S. Foong (Eds.), Intelligent Autonomous Systems 16 (pp. 54–70). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95892-3_5
    10. 32.
      Price, E., Liu, Y. T., Black, M. J., & Ahmad, A. (2022). Simulation and Control of Deformable Autonomous Airships in Turbulent Wind. In M. H. Ang Jr, H. Asama, W. Lin, & S. Foong (Eds.), Intelligent Autonomous Systems 16 (pp. 608–626). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95892-3_46
    11. 31.
      Price, E., Liu, Y. T., Black, M. J., & Ahmad, A. (2021, June). Simulation and Control of Deformable Autonomous Airships in Turbulent Wind. 16th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous System (IAS).
    12. 30.
      Bonetto, E., Goldschmid, P., Black, M. J., & Ahmad, A. (2021). Active Visual SLAM with Independently Rotating Camera. 2021 European Conference on Mobile Robots (ECMR), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1109/ECMR50962.2021.9568791
    13. 29.
      Tallamraju, R., Salunkhe, D., Rajappa, S., Ahmad, A., Karlapalem, K., & Shah, S. V. (2019). Motion Planning for Multi-Mobile-Manipulator Payload Transport Systems. 15th IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering, 1469–1474. https://doi.org/10.1109/COASE.2019.8842840
    14. 28.
      Ahmad, A., Price, E., Tallamraju, R., Saini, N., Lawless, G., Ludwig, R., Martinovic, I., Bülthoff, H. H., & Black, M. J. (2019, November). AirCap -- Aerial Outdoor Motion Capture. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2019), Workshop on Aerial Swarms.
    15. 27.
      Saini, N., Price, E., Tallamraju, R., Enficiaud, R., Ludwig, R., Martinović, I., Ahmad, A., & Black, M. (2019). Markerless Outdoor Human Motion Capture Using Multiple Autonomous Micro Aerial Vehicles. Proceedings 2019 IEEE/CVF International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), 823–832. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCV.2019.00091
    16. 26.
      Tallamraju, R., Rajappa, S., Black, M. J., Karlapalem, K., & Ahmad, A. (2018). Decentralized MPC based Obstacle Avoidance for Multi-Robot Target Tracking Scenarios. 2018 IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics (SSRR), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1109/SSRR.2018.8468655
    17. 25.
      Ahmad, A., Ruff, E., & Bülthoff, H. (2016). Dynamic baseline stereo vision-based cooperative target tracking. 19th International Conference on Information Fusion, 1728–1734. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7528092
    18. 24.
      Sanz, D., Ahmad, A., & Lima, P. (2015). Onboard robust person detection and tracking for domestic service robots. Robot 2015: Second Iberian Robotics Conference, 547–559. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27149-1_42
    19. 23.
      Ventura, R., & Ahmad, A. (2015). Towards Optimal Robot Navigation in Urban Homes. RoboCup 2014: Robot World Cup XVIII, 318–331. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18615-3_26
    20. 22.
      Ahmad, A., & Lima, P. (2015). Dataset Suite for Benchmarking Perception in Robotics. International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2015.
    21. 21.
      Odelga, M., Stegagno, P., Bülthoff, H., & Ahmad, A. (2015). A Setup for multi-UAV hardware-in-the-loop simulations. 204–210. https://doi.org/10.1109/RED-UAS.2015.7441008
    22. 20.
      Ahmad, A., & Bülthoff, H. (2015). Moving-horizon Nonlinear Least Squares-based Multirobot Cooperative Perception. 7th European Conference on Mobile Robots, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1109/ECMR.2015.7324197
    23. 19.
      Troppan, A., Guerreiro, E., Celiberti, F., Santos, G., Ahmad, A., & Lima, P. (2013). Unknown-color spherical object detection and tracking. 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1109/Robotica.2013.6623533
    24. 18.
      Ahmad, A., Nascimento, T., Conceicao, A., Moreira, A., & Lima, P. (2013). Perception-driven multi-robot formation control. 1851–1856. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2013.6630821
    25. 17.
      Ahmad, A., Tipaldi, G., Lima, P., & Burgard, W. (2013). Cooperative Robot Localization and Target Tracking based on Least Squares Minimization. 5696–5701. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2013.6631396
    26. 16.
      Ahmad, A., & Lima, P. (2013). Multi-Robot Cooperative Object Tracking Based on Particle Filters. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 61, Article 10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2012.12.008
    27. 15.
      Lima, P., Santos, P., Oliveira, R., Ahmad, A., & Santos, J. (2011). Cooperative Localization Based on Visually Shared Objects. RoboCup 2010: Robot Soccer World Cup XIV, 350–361. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20217-9_30
    28. 14.
      Ahmad, A., Del Bue, A., & Lima, P. (2009). Background Subtraction Based on Rank Constraint for Point Trajectories. 1–3.
    29. 13.
      Ahmad, A., & Dhang, N. (2008). Probabilistic Roadmap Method and Real Time Gait Changing Technique Implementation for Travel Time Optimization on a Designed Six-legged Robot. 1–5.

  3. Other

    1. 12.
      Ahmad, A. (2025). DAZZLE: Drone-Acquired Zebra data for Large-scale Ecology research. https://doi.org/10.18419/darus-5162

  4. Conference Proceedings

    1. 11.
      Price, E., & Ahmad., A. (2024). Airship Formations for Animal Motion Capture and Behavior Analysis: Vol. In 2nd International Conference on Design and Engineering of Lighter-Than-Air systems (DELTAs 2024). https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.08986

  5. Technical Reports

    1. 10.
      Dwiputra, R., Berghofer, J., Amigoni, F., Bischoff, R., Bonarini, A., Iocchi, L., Kraetzschmar, G., Lima, P., Matteucci, M., Nardi, D., Ahmad, A., Awaad, I., Fontana, G., Hegger, F., Hochgeschwender, N., Schiaffonati, V., & Schneider, S. (2014). Overview on the RoCKIn@Work Challenge.
    2. 9.
      Ahmad, A., Amigoni, F., Awaad, I., Berghofer, J., Bischoff, R., Bonarini, A., Dwiputra, R., Fontana, G., Hegger, F., Hochgeschwender, N., Iocchi, L., Kraetzschmar, G., Lima, P., Matteucci, M., Nardi, D., & Schneider, S. (2014). RoCKIn@Home in a Nutshell (No. FP7-ICT-601012 Revision 0.8). RoCKIn - Robot Competitions Kick Innovation in Cognitive Systems and Robotics.
    3. 8.
      Ahmad, A., Amigoni, A., Awaad, I., Berghofer, J., Bischoff, R., Bonarini, A., Dwiputra, R., Fontana, G., Hegger, F., Hochgeschwender, N., Iocchi, L., Kraetzschmar, G., Lima, P., Matteucci, M., Nardi, D., Schiaffonati, V., & Schneider, S. (2014). RoCKIn@Work in a Nutshell (No. FP7-ICT-601012 Revision 1.2). RoCKIn - Robot Competitions Kick Innovation in Cognitive Systems and Robotics.
    4. 7.
      Schneider, S., Hegger, F., Kraetzschmar, G., Amigoni, F., Berghofer, J., Bischoff, R., Bonarini, A., Dwiputra, R., Iocchi, L., Lima, P., Matteucci, M., Nardi, D., Awaad, I., Ahmad, A., Fontana, G., Hochgeschwender, N., & Schiaffonati, V. (2014). The RoCKIn@Home User Story.
    5. 6.
      Ahmad, A., Awaad, I., Amigoni, F., Berghofer, J., Bischoff, R., Bonarini, A., Dwiputra, R., Hegger, F., Hochgeschwender, N., Iocchi, L., Kraetzschmar, G., Lima, P., Matteucci, M., Nardi, D., & Schneider, S. (2013). D2.1.4 RoCKIn@Work - Innovation in Mobile Industrial Manipulation Competition Design, Rule Book, and Scenario Construction (No. FP7-ICT-601012 Revision 0.7). RoCKIn - Robot Competitions Kick Innovation in Cognitive Systems and Robotics.
    6. 5.
      Messias, J., Ahmad, A., Reis, J., Serafim, M., & Lima, P. (2013). SocRob-MSL 2013 Team Description Paper for Middle Sized League. 17th Annual RoboCup International Symposium 2013.
    7. 4.
      Ahmad, A., Awaad, I., Amigoni, F., Berghofer, J., Bischoff, R., Bonarini, A., Dwiputra, R., Hegger, F., Hochgeschwender, N., Iocchi, L., Kraetzschmar, G., Lima, P., Matteucci, M., Nardi, D., & Schneider, S. (2013). D2.1.1 RoCKIn@Home - A Competition for Domestic Service Robots Competition Design, Rule Book, and Scenario Construction (No. FP7-ICT-601012 Revision 0.7). RoCKIn - Robot Competitions Kick Innovation in Cognitive Systems and Robotics.
    8. 3.
      Ahmad, A., Awaad, I., Amigoni, F., Berghofer, J., Bischoff, R., Bonarini, A., Dwiputra, R., Fontana, G., Hegger, F., Hochgeschwender, N., Iocchi, L., Kraetzschmar, G., Lima, P., Matteucci, M., Nardi, D., Schiaffonati, V., & Schneider, S. (2013). D1.1 Specification of General Features of Scenarios and Robots for Benchmarking Through Competitions (No. FP7-ICT-601012 Revision 1.0). RoCKIn - Robot Competitions Kick Innovation in Cognitive Systems and Robotics.
    9. 2.
      Messias, J., Ahmad, A., Reis, J., Sousa, J., & Lima, P. (2011). ISocRob-MSL 2011 Team Description Paper for Middle Sized League. 15th Annual RoboCup International Symposium 2011.
    10. 1.
      Lima, P., Santos, J., Estilita, J., Barbosa, M., Ahmad, A., & Carreira, J. (2009). ISocRob-MSL 2009 Team Description Paper for Middle Sized League. 13th Annual RoboCup International Symposium 2009.
This image shows Aamir Ahmad

Aamir Ahmad

Jun.-Prof. Dr.-Ing.

Deputy Director (Research)

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