Building on the success of our previous Summer Schools held in 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, we are pleased to announce the IEEE RAS Summer School 2026, which will take place from July 29 to August 4, 2026. As in previous years, the event will be hosted at the Czech Technical University, situated in the heart of one of Europe’s most beautiful and historic cities. The Summer School is dedicated to showcasing the latest advancements in Multi-Robot Systems research and is aimed at students, academic researchers, and industry professionals. The program seeks to bridge the gap between theory and practice, supporting the real-world application of cooperating robotic systems while fostering collaboration and knowledge exchange among participants.
Summer School 2026 is designed to equip students and early-career researchers with in-depth insights and practical knowledge from world-renowned specialists in Multi-Robot Systems. The program offers a well-balanced mix of theory and hands-on experience, aimed at helping participants transform cutting-edge research into real-world applications and validated solutions. Our focus is on providing the tools and understanding needed to successfully move from academic concepts to operational deployment of multi-robot technologies.
Participants will be grouped according to their research interests, creating opportunities for focused collaboration and peer learning. These small-group sessions are designed to foster discussion, exchange of ideas, and deeper exploration of specific topics within Multi-Robot Systems. Each group will work on domain-relevant tasks, allowing participants to apply their knowledge in a more targeted and interactive way.
After the lectures, you’ll have the chance to apply the concepts and methods you've learned by implementing them in real robotic systems. These practical sessions will culminate in live experiments, where you'll test your solutions on actual platforms under the guidance of experienced swarm robotics researchers. It’s a unique opportunity to bridge theory with practice and see your work come to life
A highlight of the Summer School is the final-day outdoor experiment, where all participants put their newly acquired knowledge into practice by working directly with real aerial multi-robot systems. This hands-on experience offers a rare chance to test and validate your solutions in a real-world setting and may become a valuable asset in your future research. As a bonus, the most successful teams or individuals will receive a small token of recognition.
Throughout the Summer School, a diverse evening program will give you the chance to unwind after intensive sessions while connecting with fellow participants and lecturers in a relaxed atmosphere. The schedule includes a guided tour of historic Prague, welcome and farewell gatherings, as well as a formal banquet with accompanying entertainment. These events are designed to foster informal discussions, new friendships, and lasting professional connections.
Watch the highlights video here or visit the 2025 Summer School website for more information.
The 2025 IEEE RAS Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems was a significant gathering of students, researchers, and industry professionals who came together to explore the latest trends in cooperative robotic technologies. The program featured lectures by leading experts covering both theoretical foundations and practical applications of multi-robot systems. Participants also took part in interactive workshops, gaining hands-on experience with modern aerial platforms specifically designed for this field. These sessions provided valuable insights into real-world deployment of multi-robot systems and helped deepen understanding of their capabilities and challenges. The event also served as a platform for networking between academia and industry, fostering collaboration and inspiring future innovations in the field of robotics.
Watch the highlights video here or check the 2024 Summer School website to see more.
The 2024 IEEE RAS Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems was a pivotal event that brought together students, researchers, and industry professionals to explore the latest advancements in cooperative robotic systems. The program featured expert lectures on the theory and applications of multi-robot technologies, alongside hands-on experiments with cutting-edge aerial platforms developed for this field. Participants gained practical experience in deploying multi-robot systems, deepening their understanding of the challenges and potential of these technologies. The event also fostered valuable networking opportunities, connecting academia with industry and paving the way for future innovations in multi-robot systems.
Watch the highlights video here or check the 2023 Summer School website to see more.
The 2023 IEEE RAS Summer School featured a dynamic program that combined theoretical lectures, seminars and practical exercises. The participants had the unique opportunity to implement learned methodology into a fully functional robotic system. One of the Summer School’s highlights was the outdoor practical task, which involved the inspection of electrical power infrastructure using real UAVs.
You can either visit the 2022 Summer School website or watch the highlights video.
The 2022 IEEE RAS Summer School was focused on deployment of MRS in real-world conditions being motivated by EU Aerial-Core project and DARPA SubTChallenge. The Summer School promoted the newest achievements in Multi-Robot Systems research to students, academic researchers, and industrial practitioners to enable putting systems of cooperating robots into practice.
You can find the 2020 Summer School highlights here! You can also visit the past website.
The main scope of the 2020 IEEE RAS Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems focused on swarm robotics, including lectures by well-recognized experts in the field, and hands-on experience with real-world experiments using state-of-the-art aerial platforms developed for Multi-Robot research.
Check out this short video and be sure to visit the Summer School 2019 website.
The content for this year was focused on cooperating aerial vehicles. The topics addressed by the attending expert lecturers were structured to give the participants the necessary knowledge for understanding existing theory and for realisation of real-world experiments with a fleet of autonomous micro aerial vehicles.
Interesting and recognized experts in the field will come to Prague and give lectures on MRS related topics. To see who came to Prague during the last sessions, check the respective sites 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Stanford University
Oussama Khatib received his PhD from Sup'Aero, Toulouse, France, in 1980. He is Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Robotics Laboratory at Stanford University.
His research in robotics focuses on novel control architectures, algorithms, sensing, and human-friendly designs for advanced capabilities in complex environments. With an emphasis on enabling robots to interact cooperatively and safely with humans and the physical world, his work also contributes to the understanding of human movement for therapy, athletic training, and performance enhancement. Research on cognitive task representation and physical skills further supports the transfer of these insights toward greater robot autonomy.
Building on these core capabilities, his work explores applications in healthcare and wellness, industry and services, agriculture and smart cities, as well as in dangerous and inaccessible environments such as deep oceans, mines, and space.
He is President of the International Foundation of Robotics Research (IFRR) and a Fellow of IEEE. He serves as Editor of the Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR) series and the Springer Handbook of Robotics, which received the American Publishers Award for Excellence in Physical Sciences and Mathematics.
He is the recipient of numerous honors, including the IEEE Robotics and Automation (IEEE/RAS) Pioneering Award, the IEEE/RAS George Saridis Leadership Award, the Distinguished Service Award, the Japan Robot Association (JARA) Award, the Rudolf Kalman Award, the IEEE Technical Field Award, and the Engelberger Award. Professor Khatib is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Chuchu Fan is an Associate Professor (pre-tenure) in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro) and the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) at MIT.
Before that, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Caltech and earned her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University.
Her research group, Realm at MIT, focuses on using rigorous mathematics, including formal methods, machine learning, and control theory, for the design, analysis, and verification of safe autonomous systems.
Chuchu is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, an AFOSR Young Investigator Program (YIP) Award, and the 2020 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award.
Delft University of Technology
Marija Popović is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at TU Delft, where she is part of the Micro Air Vehicle Laboratory.
Previously, she was a Junior Research Group Leader at the Cluster of Excellence "PhenoRob" at the University of Bonn and a Research Associate at Imperial College London. She completed her PhD at ETH Zurich in 2019. Her research focuses on robotics and AI, focusing on robotic exploration, active sensing, mapping, computer vision and machine learning.
Dr. Jorge Peña Queralta received his Bachelor’s degrees in Mathematics and Engineering Physics from the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), Spain, in 2016. He subsequently completed a double Master’s degree in Electronics Engineering at Fudan University, China, and in Embedded Systems at the University of Turku, Finland, graduating in 2018. Since May 2024, he has been serving as an Adjunct Professor (Docent) at the University of Turku.
He completed his PhD in Robotics and Autonomous Systems at the University of Turku between 2019 and 2022. His research focused on multi-robot collaborative autonomy, distributed robotic systems, and cooperative localization. During his doctoral studies, he held research visits at EPFL and CATEC. After completing his PhD, he continued his research on multi-robot learning and collaborative situational awareness.
In 2023, he led the TIERS team at the ENRICH competition in Austria, where they achieved the best drone 3D map and autonomous exploration of the competition area. He has received several awards, including the Nokia Scholarship (2019, 2020) and a grant from the Finnish Foundation for Technology Promotion (2021).
From 2023 to 2024, he worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at ETH Zürich, focusing on perception and control for autonomous social navigation. He recently led technology development at the Swiss startup DAAV, which develops autonomous wheelchairs, and is a co-founder of the Finnish startup Skya, dedicated to improving the safety of autonomous drones.
Leonardo Innovation Hub, Leonardo S. p. A.
Fabrizio holds a Ph.D. in Robotics from the University of Rennes 1 and Inria Rennes. Following research positions at the Zentrum für Telematik (Germany), Boston University (USA), and EPFL (Switzerland)—where he specialized in drone swarms and human-robot interfaces—he joined Leonardo S.p.A. in 2021.
Currently, he is the Head of the Autonomous Systems Laboratory at Leonardo, managing a team of 15 researchers dedicated to advancing autonomous flight technologies.
CSMS, University of Haifa
Itzik Klein received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Aerospace Engineering from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, in 2004 and 2007, respectively, and a Ph.D. degree in Geo-information Engineering from the Technion in 2011.
He is an Associate Professor heading the Autonomous Navigation and Sensor Fusion Lab (ANSFL) and Chair of the Hatter Department of Marine Technologies at the Charney School of Marine Sciences, University of Haifa.
He is an IEEE Senior Member and an IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society (OES) Distinguished Lecturer. He serves on the editorial boards of the IEEE Journal of Indoor and Seamless Positioning and Navigation (J-ISPIN) and Elsevier Results in Engineering, and is the founding editor in the area of sensing and perception for automotive applications for the IEEE Open Journal of Vehicular Technology editorial board.
He is the director of the university’s AI Research Center and has a wide range of experience in navigation systems and sensor fusion from both industry and academic perspectives. His research interests lie at the intersection of artificial intelligence with inertial sensing, sensor fusion, and robotics.
MRS Group, FEE CTU
Martin Saska is full professor at Czech Technical University in Prague and founder of Fly4Future and Eagle.one companies. He received his Ph.D. degree at University of Wuerzburg, Germany, within the PhD program of Elite Network of Bavaria, 2009. Since 2009, he is a research fellow at Czech Technical University in Prague, where he founded and heads the Multi-Robot Systems lab (https://mrs.fel.cvut.cz) with more than 50 researchers.
He was a visiting scholar at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA in 2008, and at University of Pennsylvania, USA in 2012, 2014 and 2016, where he worked with Vijay Kumar's group within GRASP lab. He is an author or co-author of >200 publications in peer-reviewed conferences with multiple best paper awards and >150 publications in impacted journals, including IJRR, AURO, JFR, ASC, EJC, with >9000 citations indexed by Scholar and H-index 52.
His team won multiple robotic challenges in MBZIRC 2017, MBZIRC 2020 and DARPA SubT competitions (https://mrs.fel.cvut.cz/competitions/mbzirc2017-compe, https://mrs.fel.cvut.cz/competitions/mbzirc2020-compe, https://mrs.fel.cvut.cz/competitions/darpa-compe).
The Summer School adopts a selective approach to ensure a high standard of participants. There will be several selection rounds scheduled on the following dates: November 1, 2025; January 1, 2026; March 1, 2026; and May 1, 2026. After each round, applicants will be notified by email regarding their selection status. Successful applicants will also receive payment details - the payment deadline is within 14 days after providing payment information. Apply now! The capacity of the Summer School is limited.
