This group is an interdisciplinary research team constituted by academics from the Department of Electronic Engineering, the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the Department of Mathematics and the Product Design Department, from UTFSM, and the Department of Electrical Engineering, from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

The team is involved in both applied and scientific research, covering the most important aspects of the robotics research field: hardware development, integration and programming, statistical and experimental validation and the final product or prototype design. The group is involved in the following topics: autonomous machinery for industrial processes (agriculture and mining), extero-ceptive sensors’ information processing, mechatronic designs, control systems, outdoors navigation strategies, human-robot interaction, GPS-free localization techniques, advanced mapping and 3D modeling and visualization. The team also has strong connections with the Australian Center of Field Robotics and the University of New South Wales (both from Australia), the University of Pisa (Italy), the Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (Brazil) and Brunel University (England), among other recognized Institutions. In addition, the group has demonstrated active scientific production and leads the applied research efforts of the proposal for the agricultural and mining industry of Chile.

• Farm automation technologies for seeding, fertilizing, pesticide management, pruning and harvesting; development of non-invasive sensors for crop monitoring and robotic-based technology for handling and packaging of fruit and vegetables.
• Autonomous and tele-operated driving systems for mining machinery; base stations for worker’s remote training for underground mining; technology for improvement of workers safeness in mining processes and innovation in 3D modeling and visualization of underground mining.
• Technology development for secondary processes in the industrial field, including fault-tolerant operation systems, wireless communications and energy management.