Seminar on Navigating Safely in Cluttered and GPS-Denied Environments

28 Aug 2026 02.30 PM - 03.30 PM MAE Meeting Room B (Blk N3-02b-65) Current Students, Public

Professor Erdal Kayacan

Paderborn University, Germany

This seminar will be chaired by A/P Lyu Chen.

Seminar Abstract

Modern autonomous systems must operate in cluttered, dynamic, and GPS-denied environments, where navigation is not merely a perception task but a safety-critical decision problem under uncertainty. This demands algorithms that are not only high performing, but also robust, safe, and interpretable. In this talk, I present three complementary perspectives that together enable safe robot navigation.

Speaker's Biography 
Erdal Kayacan is Full Professor at Paderborn University, Germany, in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology. His research focuses on machine learning–enhanced control systems, with applications in guidance, navigation, and automation of unmanned ground, aerial, and underwater vehicles. He has served as General Co-Chair of the IEEE SSCI 2025, hosted in Trondheim, Norway. He previously chaired the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS) Conferences Strategic Planning Subcommittee and currently serves as Chair of the IEEE CIS Summer School Subcommittee and as an Administrative Committee (AdCom) Member of CIS. From January 2017 to January 2023, he was an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems. He is currently an Associate Editor of IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters.

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