IFAC IAV 2019 Symposium
The 10th IFAC Symposium on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles (IAV 2019) was held from 3–
5 July 2019 in Gdansk, Poland. With traces of early medieval settlement discovered on the
top of archeological remains of the Roman settlement of Iron Age and a history of 1000
years, today Gdańsk is an important point on the tourist map of the world. One of the
greatest treasures of the Baltic sea has long been amber, which is one of the famous symbols
of the city, which, due to its uniqueness, is also called the amber capital of the world.
The 10th IFAC Symposium on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles 2019 in Gdańsk was
organized by the Gdańsk University of Technology, under the Patronage of His Magnificence
Rector of the GUT, at its Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics. It
provided an opportunity to get to know each other and present and discuss research and
development works in a wide range of autonomy, mobility and applied intelligence.
Advanced mobile vehicles and robots have long been one of the main issues in engineering.
They have various applications in emergency, lifeguarding and entertainment as well as in
various industrial, civil and military systems. Among them, you can distinguish robots that
can move in an open environment or operate only in predetermined confined spaces. Open
world robots are very demanding because they have to map their environment, adapt to
changes and make their own decisions. In addition, current trends in robotics point to
different social aspects and the importance of robot friendliness for humans.
Students and young scientists in this field were able to discuss theoretical and practical
problems, describe scientific and commercial applications, and explore the directions and
possibilities for future research.
This even followed the former IFAC symposia in the United Kingdom (1993), Finland (1995),
Spain (1998), Japan (2001) and Portugal (2004), France (2007), Italy (2010), Australia (2013)
and Germany (2016). And now the list has been completed by Poland (2019).
The same as the past 9 IFAC symposia, IAV 2019 continues to provide an excellent
opportunity to present and discuss research and development work in the general area of
intelligent autonomous vehicles. Researchers and practitioners in the field of land, air and
marine robotics were brought together to discuss common problems of theoretical and
practical applications, describe scientific and commercial applications and explore the
possibilities for future research.
Papers describing original research were expected to cover the following areas:
architectures for intelligent autonomous systems (land, marine, aerial and space); smart
sensors, networks and sensor integration for autonomous vehicles and robots; navigation,
guidance and control, motion control, controller design, stability analysis; fault detection and
diagnosis in intelligent autonomous systems; decision making for autonomous driving in a
real‐time; planning and mission control; multiple vehicle systems and networks of
autonomous vehicles; human vehicle interaction; medical robots, domestic robots, service
and rehabilitation robots; applications of Autonomous Intelligent Vehicles: case studies, test
evaluations.
The selected subjects were grouped in the following 10 technical sessions: Controller Design
and Control Systems (CSD); Robot Vision (VIS); Estimation and Sensor Fusion (EST); Advanced
Driver Assistance Systems (DAS); Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS, 2 issues); Path
Planning, Localization and SLAM (SLM, 2 issues); Robot Navigation and Sensors (NAV); Multi‐
Vehicle Systems (VEH). Moreover, there was a Poster interactive session (including the
submissions related to the accompanying IAV Student Workshop)
In addition to the technical sessions, there were keynote addresses and lectures covering the
state‐of‐the‐art in IAV, including:
- Klaus Schilling, Robotics & Telematics, J.Maximilians-University Wuerzburg,
GERMANY (Autonomous Reaction Capabilities for Networked Control of
Cooperating, Distributed Small Satellites) - Manuel López Martínez, European GNSS Agency, Prague, CZECH REPUBLIC
(European GNSS: Contribution for Autonomous Vehicles) - Ikuo Yamamoto, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, JAPAN (Autonomous Underwater
Vehicles and Aviation Robots) - Bogdan Wiszniewski, Polish Space Agency & Gdańsk University of Technology
(Building Polish Space Sector – from Small Islands of Excellence to a National
Innovation Ecosystem) - Maciej Marcin Michałek, Poznań University of Technology (Agile Maneuvering
with Intelligent Articulated Vehicles: a Look from a Control Perspective) - Roman Szewczyk, Industrial Institute of Automation and Measurements, Warsaw
(Industry4.0 in Agriculture)
On the third day of the conference, the Discussion Panel titled "Autonomous Navigation of
Vehicles – Opportunities and Challenges" was conducted in an interesting way by Jacek
Stefański from the Gdańsk University of Technology.
Moreover, a special session on “Mode Switching Strategies in Cellular‐V2X” was prepared by
Bassam Alrifaee and Christoph Stiller.
In this way, we have met the goal of enabling people to meet and present and discuss
research work in a wide range of autonomy, mobility and applied intelligence.
The principal proceedings of accepted papers have been included in the Elsevier journal
IFAC‐PapersOnLine. On the occasion of the popularization of the IFAC IAV Symposium, also
other magazines that supported and patronized the IAV had a chance to initiate calls for
publishing special editions on topics related to the IAV domain.
Participants came from 19 countries of the world representing 80 institutions (14 industrial
and 66 scientific). We had several institutional sponsors, including the Polish Space Agency,
Polish Academy of Science, Polish Society for Measurement, Automation Control and
Robotics, Polish Consultants Society, as well as INTEL Technology Poland, Industrial Research
Institute (PIAP) for Automation and Measurements (now placed within the Research
Network of Łukasiewicz), Aerologin, Arrow Electronics and Aldec, as well as a number of
Media Patronships, like Robotics, Sensors, Intelligent Unmanned Systems, PAR
(Measurements Automation Robotics), and Radio Gdańsk and student television "Struna".
The conference can also boast the implementation of prize programs, both in its main
scientific track (the flagship IFAC award programs), as well as in the area of robot
construction and proficiency competitions designed for youngest people.
Among others, selection of the candidates for IAV 2019 Young Author Award Nomination
was based on the notes of reviewer reports on the papers presented at the conference
whose primary author was a student at the time of the initial submission. 10 nominations
resulted from the work of the IAA 2019 YAA Committee. Next, based on the detailed
reviewers assessments, the IAV YAA Nominations were limited to seven papers. For the
nominees eligibility criteria were additionally chosen to be (the main author of the paper, a
student at the time of paper submission, a presenter of the paper at the conference, and 30
years old or younger at the time of the event). These criteria were met by the following 5
finalists for IFAC IAV 2019 YAA:
- Alexander Wischnewski for the paper Vehicle Dynamics State Estimation and
Localization for High Performance Race Cars, co-authored by Tim Stahl, Betz
Johannes, Boris Lohmann, Germany. - Faïza Enfel Khelladi for the paper Direct Yaw Control Based on a Phase Plan
Decomposition for Enhanced Vehicle Stability, co-authored by Rodolfo Orjuela,
Michel Basset, France. - Samuel Pinto for the paper Reconstruction of Ultrasound Signals Using Randomly
Acquired Samples in a Sparse Environment, co-authored by Sean Sanchez, Liam
Doran, Aidan Ryan, Sean Andersson, USA. - Juqi Hu for the paper Tire-Road Friction Coefficient Estimation under Constant
Vehicle Speed Control, co-authored by Subhash Rakheja, Youmin Zhang, Canada. - Filippo Bertoncelli for the paper Wheel Slip Avoidance through a Nonlinear Model
Predictive Control for Object Pushing with a Mobile Robot, co-authored by Fabio
Ruggiero, Lorenzo Sabattini, Italy.
The IAV 2019 YAA Committee selected the best paper among those eligible based on the
quality of the paper, contribution of the research, reviewers report as well as on the quality
of the presentation at the conference. Due to this procedure, the IFAC IAV 2019 YAA winner
was Alexander Wischnewski with the paper “Vehicle Dynamics State Estimation and
Localization for High Performance Race Cars”, co‐authored by Tim Stahl, Betz Johannes,
Boris Lohmann, from Germany. The winner as well as all finalists were provided with suitable
certificates during closing ceremony.
The accompanying IAV conference, IAV Cup 2019, which took place on the pitch of the
Academic Sport Center at the Gdańsk University of Technology, was attended by nearly 30
competitors. Similarly to the last year's trial edition of this competition, three competitions
were held: Drone Race (professional and open tracks), Agile Marker Search and Construction
Challenge. We estimate that about 150 people visited the event throughout the day (at the
peak it was 88 people), despite not good weather this day. During the tournament, viewers
could admire own constructions, such as search drones, magnetic field mapping robots, or a
3mobile robot wandering the wall. During this event, stands of two business partners of the
IAV Cup competition, Arrow Electronics and Aldec were organized. The tournament was
supported by local Radio Gdańsk and student television (Struna.tv). The selected winners
received 13 material prizes funded by the business partners. The main organizer of the IAV
cup competition was doctoral student Marek Tatara and students of the SafeIDEA Scientific
Circle (at TUG, ETI Faculty).
Generally, in the scientific part of the IAV conference participated: 105 authors (out of 223
coauthors from ), 21 others (including students), together about 140 participants, and the
other 150 people participated in the one‐day IAV Cup (including the Robot Exhibition and
the Drone Race). Together, it's almost 300 people.
As the IAV place of informal social gathering we used the Hevelianum on Castle Hill
(Grodzisko), and a formal dinner (along with an ennobling musical concert) took place in the
spacious courtyard of the Gdańsk University of Technology dedicated to Fahrenheit. We also
had the opportunity to organize an IFAC TC 7.5 meeting and choose a next place at the IFAC
symposium on IAV in the Czech Republic in 2022.
Zdzisław Kowalczuk