Welcome / Bienvenid@

Welcome to my blog.

My name is Juan Jesús Roldán Gómez. I am assistant professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM). I got a PhD in Automation and Robotics (2014-2018), Bsc+MSc in Industrial Engineering (2006-2012) and MSc in Automation and Robotics (2013-2014) from the Technical University of Madrid (UPM). I did a postdoc at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), I took part in robotics projects with SENER and Airbus, and I performed a research stay at the University of Luxembourg. During the last years, I have researched about robotics, robotics applied to agriculture, adaptive & immersive interfaces, artificial intelligence, and virtual & augmented reality.

If you are interested in my work, please send me an email:

Until next time!

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Bienvenid@ a mi blog.

Mi nombre es Juan Jesús Roldán Gómez. Soy profesor ayudante doctor en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). Hice el Doctorado en Automática y Robótica (2014-2018), Ingeniería Industrial (2006-2012) y el Máster en Automática y Robótica (2013-2014) en la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM). Hice un postdoc en el Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), he participado en proyectos de robótica con SENER y Airbus y realicé una estancia de investigación en la Universidad de Luxemburgo. Durante los últimos años, he investigado sobre robótica, robótica aplicada a la agricultura, interfaces adaptativas e inmersivas, inteligencia artificial y realidades virtual y aumentada.

Si estás interesad@ en mi trabajo, por favor envíame un correo:

¡Hasta la próxima!

Our research in press

 

Our research about robotics in disaster scenarios has appeared in press:

Diseñan un robot para ayudar a los bomberos - UAM

Diseñan un robot para ayudar a los bomberos - URJC

Universidades madrileñas crean un robot bombero - Telemadrid

Diseñan un robot para dar a los bomberos datos que ayuden en sus rescates - La Vanguardia

Investigadores de la UAM y la URJC diseñan un robot para ayudar a los bomberos - Madrid24horas

Diseñan un robot para ayudar a los bomberos - NCYT

Diseñan un robot para ayudar a los bomberos - myScience

My talk at the Retiro park

Today, I have done my talk "How to train your robot" at the Eugenio Trías library (also known as Casa de Fieras) at the Retiro park in Madrid. In this iconic place, I presented my works in robotics applied to agriculture, adaptive and immersive interfaces, robot swarms, and robot learning to a general audience. It was a very nice surprise to meet such a diverse public interested in my research. These things help me to keep working hard at this difficult time in my life. I want to thank the Unidad de Cultura Científica of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid for the invitation. 

I'm on the radio!

Hey man, look at me rockin' out, I'm on the radio! Today, I have been invited to talk about my research on robot learning on the Onda Cero Madrid Norte radio. I want to thank Iván Narváez from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Sonia Crespo from Onda Cero Madrid Norte for this opportunity. Here you can see the video of the interview:

Video game workshop at the Campus Engineering Girl

This week I had the opportunity to teach the video game workshop at the Campus Engineering Girl 2022. The "Quiero Ser Ingeniera" project of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid searches to promote engineering among girls. You can find more information on the website and Instagram of the project. And here you can see some of the video games developed by the girls on the campus!

Leonardo Project: Reinforcement Learning

The fourth video is out! This video describes the models (neural networks) and training (reinforcement learning) used by the robot to learn its tasks. Don't miss it!

Work produced with the support of a 2020 Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators, BBVA Foundation. The Foundation takes no responsibility for the opinions, statements and contents of this project, which are entirely the responsibility of its authors.

Leonardo Project: The simulator

The third video of my project "Training robots for intervening in dangerous environments: development and application of reinforcement learning models" granted by a Leonardo Fellowship of the BBVA Foundation is out! This video shows the simulator developed to train the artificial intelligence models that control the robot in its mission. 

Work produced with the support of a 2020 Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators, BBVA Foundation. The Foundation takes no responsibility for the opinions, statements and contents of this project, which are entirely the responsibility of its authors.

Leonardo Project: Mission and robot

The second video of my project "Training robots for intervening in dangerous environments: development and application of reinforcement learning models" granted by a Leonardo Fellowship of the BBVA Foundation is out! In this video, I present the search and rescue mission and the robot that performs it. 

Work produced with the support of a 2020 Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators, BBVA Foundation. The Foundation takes no responsibility for the opinions, statements and contents of this project, which are entirely the responsibility of its authors.

Leonardo Project: An introduction

My project "Training robots for intervening in dangerous environments: development and application of reinforcement learning models" granted by a Leonardo Fellowship of the BBVA Foundation is finishing soon. For this reason, I have prepared a series of videos where I explain the project. In this first video I present the project, talking among other things about robotics, autonomy, artificial intelligence, machine learning, reinforcement learning or imitation learning. 

Work produced with the support of a 2020 Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators, BBVA Foundation. The Foundation takes no responsibility for the opinions, statements and contents of this project, which are entirely the responsibility of its authors.

Videogames developed in class in 2021-2022

These videogames have been developed by the students of Introduction to Videogame Programming (Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science and Engineering, Autonomous University of Madrid) during the academic year 2021-2022. Proud of how far we have come in such a short time!

Somos Científicos y Científicas

 

This month I have taken part in the Somos Científicos y Científicas initiative of the Fundación Española para la Ciencia y Tecnología (FECYT). During this time, I have had the opportunity to answer the questions of high-school students from all over Spain. They have asked me amazing questions about robotics and artificial intelligence, researchers' life, and how to become a robotics researcher. "Will robots take away our jobs?", "What will robots do in 20 years?", "How does AI work with robots?" or "What is the relationship between Maths and AI?" were some of these questions. 

A new office partner!

The works of my Leonardo Fellowship are progressing. I have acquired an autonomous ground robot to perform the experiments. However, this robot will be important beyond this project. It will support my research on multi-robot systems, machine learning in robotics, adaptive and immersive interfaces, and robotics applied to agriculture.

Videogames developed in class in 2020-2021

This academic year I had the opportunity to teach Introduction to Videogame Programming (Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science and Engineering, Autonomous University of Madrid). My students learned the main concepts of videogame programming and developed dozens of awesome videogames. In this video you can see some of them:

Swarm vs Fire Project

Swarm vs Fire Project proposes the use of drone swarm to support the tasks of prevention, surveillance, and extinguishing of forest fires. Currently, a business model and a minimum viable product are being developed under the UAM Emprende initiative of the Autonomous University of Madrid.

We performed a first survey to analyze the problems of professionals in the tasks of fire prevention, surveillance, and extinguishing. The preliminary results of this survey are shown in the following infographics:

Then, we performed a second survey to collect their opinions about different technologies that can help to solve these problems. The preliminary results of this survey are shown in the following infographics:

We used this information to propose a concept of operation for applying drone swarms in firefighting activities. The proposed system is a fleet of quadcopters that individually are only able to visit waypoints and use payloads, but collectively can perform tasks of surveillance, mapping, monitoring, etc. We define three operator roles with different access to information and functions in the mission: mission commander, team leaders, and team members. These operators take advantage of virtual and augmented reality interfaces to get the information of the scenario and, in the case of the mission commander, control the drone swarm. The system is described in more detail in this article. 

ROSEN 2020

I have taken part in the 1st International Workshop Drones Software Programming (ROSEN 2020), organized by the Information Technology Group of the Wageningen University & Research. My presentation "Adaptive & Immersive Interfaces for Drones" described how immersive technologies and artificial intelligence can lead to better human-robot interfaces. 

Leonardo Fellowship of BBVA Foundation

 

I have been awarded a Leonardo Fellowship of the BBVA Foundation. These fellowships provide 40,000€ to develop research projects with a duration between 12 and 18 months. Only 59 fellowships have been awarded out of 1,580 applicants (5 out of 144 in the area of engineering and architecture). 

My project is entitled "Training robots for intervening in dangerous environments: development and application of reinforcement learning models". I will be writing here about how the project is developing. Meanwhile, you can find more information at the official website.

SwarmCity Project on TV!

The spanish public television has made a report about SwarmCity Project. The piece has appeared in the program Zoom Net of TVE 1, TVE Internacional and 24h. I am very proud to see the new result of our project. We have worked very hard to carry out this project, although we did not get the financial support from public and private organizations. In three years we have developed a city simulator, swarm intelligence and data fusion algorithms, and an adaptive and immersive interface. Additionally, we have published two articles in journals (Cognitive Systems Research and Personal and Ubiquitous Computing) and other two in conferences (IEEE IROS 2018 and IEEE PerCom 2019). Finally, some students have done their BSc and MSc theses in the context of SwarmCity Project. I hope this is not the end...

Extraordinary PhD Award of the Technical University of Madrid!

I have received the extraordinary PhD award from the Technical University of Madrid (UPM). This distinction is granted by the UPM to the best PhD thesis presented in this university during the last academic year. One more year I have attended the Santo Tomás de Aquino celebration, but this time the dress code has been a little bit more flexible. I am very happy with this last award for my PhD thesis, but as I usually say: the best things in this period have been the knowledge I got and the people I met.

Our research in press

SwarmCity, the project that we created, directed and developed, has appeared in press:

¿Pueden los drones ayudarnos a mejorar nuestras ciudades? - UPM - Madri+d - ambientum

Enjambres de drones para mejorar la vida en la ciudad - Sinc - eldiario.es - nobbot

La UPM lidera un proyecto de "enjambre de drones" para supervisar ciudades - La Vanguardia

Una flota de drones inteligentes para garantizar la seguridad en las ciudades del futuro - Cuadernos de Seguridad

La UPM y el CSIC desarrollan un enjambre de drones para monitorizar ciudades - infodron.es

Un 'enjambre de drones' para supervisar el tráfico y la contaminación de la ciudad - La Razón

A year of changes

I started the year 2019 becoming unemployed. Then, I worked for the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), I taught "Design, Integration and Verification of Machines" at the Comillas Pontifical University, and I created my enterprise Aibot, at the same time. During this year I suffered the main problems of researchers in Spain: unemployment periods, rigged selection processes, project delays, lack of resources... However, I finished this year finding a great opportunity.

I have joined as Assistant Professor to the Department of Computer Science of the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM). During two years, I will teach "Software Analysis and Design Project" in the BSc in Computer Engineering (Spanish and English), while I will continue researching in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. I am very grateful to the people of the UAM for trusting me despite they did not know me before.