Inaugural Lecture by Lazaros Nalpantidis

Autonomous systems are entering our working, urban, and domestic environments, and will revolutionize our society—the way we live, work, and interact. With the ability to make decisions and perform tasks without human intervention, these systems are driving innovation and growth across industries by improving efficiency, safety, and sustainability. Ultimately, autonomous systems can help our society achieve the goal of the twin—green & digital—transition. In this talk, I will discuss how research can pave the way toward Autonomous Systems. I will argue that robust perception is the key to this direction and that the way to achieve it is through the incorporation of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques for adapting and coping with unforeseen situations.

Professor Lazaros Nalpantidis received his BSc (2003) and MSc (2005) from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and his PhD (2010) in Robot Vision from Democritus University of Thrace, Greece. Subsequently, he worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden. In 2012, he moved to Aalborg University in Copenhagen, where he worked as Assistant Professor, and later Associate Professor and Head of Section. Since 2019, Lazaros is with DTU initially as Associate and now as Full Professor. Lazaros’ academic interests focus on Autonomous Systems, lying at the intersection of robotics, AI and perception. Within the field of Autonomous Systems, Lazaros has exhibited a remarkable track of achievements both in research and teaching, promoting the field within Denmark and internationally.