As robots become smarter, more autonomous, valuable for various purposes, and increasingly interactive with humans, novel and unforeseen challenges emerge. Making complex robotic systems easier to program and use, endowing robots with capabilities to operate in complex and dynamic environments or allowing autonomous robots to work in areas shared with humans are examples of problems that
need new tools and paradigms.
DRIVOLUTION is one of the Mobilising Agendas under Portugal’s Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) and includes the participation of INESC TEC. The goal of this Agenda, which brings together 38 partners and involves an investment of over €50M, is to create a Factory of the Future model capable of addressing the challenges of the automotive sector. As a result of INESC TEC’s involvement, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle designed to carry out logistics operations in industrial warehouses has already been developed.
18th December 2025
Following earlier tests in Italy, INESC TEC researchers have returned to the Mediterranean Sea for a new round of demonstrations under the NETTAG+ project, this time off the coast of the island of Vis, in Croatia. Supported by the autonomous vehicle IRIS, the goal was to test the tools developed to locate lost fishing nets on the seabed.
18th December 2025
In October, INESC TEC researchers contributed to a new data collection and mapping campaign of the Madeira–Tore geological complex. With the support of the autonomous vehicle EVA, it was possible to collect data and images of the seabed at depths of up to 1,100 metres.
18th December 2025
One of the world’s largest and most prestigious robotics conferences, IROS (International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems), took place this year, in China (late October). INESC TEC was represented by four researchers who presented five papers at this event, which gathered more than 8,000 participants from across the globe.
14th November 2025
What is the importance of monitoring seabed exploration for the sustainability of the oceans? How is the sustainability of human activities on Earth closely associated with the global transfer of knowledge and technology? These and many other questions were at the centre of a high-level event promoted by the Portuguese Government and co-organised by INESC TEC and the University of Évora, held at the headquarters of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Kingston, Jamaica.
06th November 2025
