Alberto Elfes

Senior Principal Research Scientist & Science Leader Robotics

Contact

Autonomous Systems Lab
ICT Centre - QCAT
1 Technology Court
Pullenvale, QLD 4069
Australia

Tel: + 61 7 3327 4355
Fax: +61 7 3327 4455
Email

Science Area

• Robotics

Biography

Alberto Elfes has an B.Eng. degree in Electronics Engineering and a M.Sc. in Computer Science, both from the Aeronautics Institute of Technology (ITA), Brazil, and a Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University. For his doctoral dissertation he developed the Occupancy Grid framework, a random lattice-based approach to autonomous robot perception, mapping, and navigation that has been widely adopted by the robotics community.
Alberto has held research scientist positions at the Robotics Institute and the Engineering Design Research Center, CMU, and the Department of Computer Sciences, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center. From 1993 to 1998 he worked for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as the Coordinator of Research and Education Programs for a pilot project in strategic information technologies in Brazil. From 1994 to 2000 Alberto also served as director of the Automation Institute, one of the research centers of the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology. There he founded several new laboratories and projects, and also initiated the development of AURORA, the first autonomous robotic airship reported in the literature.
During 2000, Alberto was on sabbatical at the University of Ulm and at the FAW research institute, Germany, as recipient of the Mercator Professorship Award of the German Research Foundation (DFG).
From 2001 to 2011, Alberto was a Principal Researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where he led projects in autonomous aerial, ocean and ground robots for planetary exploration and Earth science missions. He also led the development of decision-theoretic methods for space mission planning and optimization.
In August 2011 Alberto joined CSIRO's Autonomous Systems Laboratory, where he is a Senior Principal Research Scientist and Science Leader for the Robotics area. He has over 140 publications in international journals, conferences and books, and has lectured extensively in North America, Europe, Brazil and Japan.

Academic Qualifications

1989	Ph.D. Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie-Mellon University
1980	M.Sc. Computer Science, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA), Brazil
1975	B.Eng. Electronics Engineering, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA), Brazil

Recent Professional Experience

August-2011:	Senior Principal Research Scientist & Science Leader Robotics, CSIRO
2001-2011:	Principal Researcher, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Achievements & Awards

2009	NASA Group Achievement Award, Titan Aerobot Prototype System
2008	NASA Group Achievement Award, Lunar Architecture Team
2004	Best Paper Award, Journal of Systems Engineering
2000	Mercator Professorship Award, German Research Foundation (DFG)

Summary of Science & Technical Output

Top 10 Publications

Publication details
A. Elfes, K. Reh, P. Beauchamp, N. Fathpour, L. Blackmore, C. Newman, Y. Kuwata, M. Wolf, and C. Assad. “Implications of Wind-Assisted Aerial Navigation for Titan Mission Planning and Science Exploration”. In Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, March 2010.
A. Elfes, J. L. Hall, E. A. Kulczycki, D. S. Clouse, A. C. Morfopoulos, J. F. Montgomery, J. M. Cameron, A. Ansar, and R. J. Machuzak. “An Autonomy Architecture for Aerobot Exploration of the Saturnian Moon Titan”. IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine, v. 23, n. 7. IEEE, July 2008. Invited paper.
A. Elfes, G. W. Podnar, J. M. Dolan, S. Stancliff, E. Lin, J. C. Hosler, T. J. Ames, J. Higinbotham, J. R. Moisan, T. A. Moisan, and E. A. Kulczycki. “The Telesupervised Adaptive Ocean Sensor Fleet (TAOSF) Architecture: Coordination of Multiple Oceanic Robot Boats”. In Proceedings of the 2008 IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, March 2008.
C. R. Weisbin, G. Rodriguez, A. Elfes and J. H. Smith. “Toward a Systematic Approach for Selection of NASA Technology Portfolios”, Systems Engineering Journal, v. 7, n. 4, 2004. Received the INCOSE Outstanding Paper Award for best journal paper in 2004.
A. Elfes, S. S. Bueno, M. Bergerman, E. C. de Paiva, J. J. G. Ramos and J. R. Azinheira. “Robotic Airships for Exploration of Planetary Bodies with an Atmosphere: Autonomy Challenges”. Autonomous Robots Journal, v. 14, n. 2/3, March/May 2003. Kluwer, Netherlands.
A. Elfes, S. S. Bueno, J. J. G. Ramos, E. C. de Paiva, M. Bergerman, J. R. H. Carvalho, S. M. Maeta, L. G. B. Mirisola, B. G. Faria and J. R. Azinheira. “Modelling, Control and Perception for an Autonomous Robotic Airship”. In H. I. Christensen, G. D. Hager, H. Bunke and R. Klein (eds.), Sensor Based Intelligent Robots, Lecture Notes in Computer Science LNCS 2238, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2002.
A. Elfes. “Robot Navigation: Integrating Perception, Environmental Constraints and Task Execution Within a Probabilistic Framework”. In L. Dorst, M. van Lambalgen, and F. Voorbraak (eds.), Reasoning With Uncertainty in Robotics, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence v. 1093, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany, 1996. Invited paper.
A. Elfes. “Multi-Source Spatial Fusion Using Bayesian Reasoning”. In M. A. Abidi and R. C. Gonzalez (eds.), Data Fusion in Robotics and Machine Intelligence, Academic Press, San Diego, CA, 1992. Invited chapter.
A. Elfes. “Using Occupancy Grids for Mobile Robot Perception and Navigation”. IEEE Computer Magazine, Special Issue on Autonomous Intelligent Machines, v. 22, n. 6, June 1989. Invited paper.
A. Elfes. “Sonar-Based Real-World Mapping and Navigation”. IEEE Journal of Robotics and Automation, RA-3(3), June 1987.

Number of citations