Autonomous Mobile Systems for Long-Term Operations in Spatio-Temporal Environments

This document reports on research conducted between 2001 and 2015 in the field of au-tonomous mobile robotics, specifically in what became known “field robotics”: a focus ofrobotics on outdoor, little-structured environments close to industrial applications. Chap-ter 2 describes a number of research projects, starting with activities initiated during mydoctorate research at INRIA between 2001 and 2004, followed by a post-doctoral fellowshipat CSIRO, in Canberra and Brisbane, Australia between 2004 and 2007. From 2007 to 2012,my role as Deputy-Director of the Autonomous Systems Lab at ETH Z ̈urich, Switzerland,gave me the opportunity to supervise a number of projects ranging from space robotics andmechatronic design to European projects on indoor navigation or autonomous driving. Onthe other hand, the last chapter will describe my reseach plan stemming from this experience andpreliminary results from projects started in my current position as Associate Professor atGeorgiaTech Lorraine, the French campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology, also knownas GeorgiaTech, located in Atlanta, US