ROBOTICS · LULEÅ, SWEDEN
Postdoctoral researcher · Robotics & AI, Luleå University of Technology
PhD in autonomous robotic exploration, defended November 2025
I work on autonomy for aerial and ground robots in places without GPS, connectivity, or maps: underground mines, natural caves, and planetary analogs. The planners and mappers from my research have flown missions in an Icelandic lava tube and in operating mines, and the code is public on GitHub.
FIELD HIGHLIGHT
Over a series of flights, a drone explored a natural lava tube without a pilot or a prior map. The flights together covered more than a kilometre of passage and produced one 3D reconstruction.
The footage shows one of the flights in and the 3D reconstruction assembled from the campaign. Each flight ran from the entrance to its turnaround point and back with no pilot input. To our knowledge this was the first fully autonomous exploration of a natural lava tube. Lava tubes are also the closest terrestrial analog to caves on the Moon and Mars, the setting of my 2023 Advances in Space Research paper on lava-tube exploration with a Mars coaxial quadrotor.
Real-time exploration planning, traversability, and scene understanding for robots operating underground. Links go to the published version, the code, or the field video.
ERRT is a fully integrated, ROS-based planner that combines local exploration, safe path planning, and actuation into a real-time sampling framework. Validated in simulation and in real subterranean field trials.
A hierarchical graph-based framework for joint ground-aerial exploration using semantic traversability and a shared confidence metric, letting ground robots delegate unreachable regions to aerial counterparts in real subterranean missions.
A two-layered graph framework for large-scale exploration that reuses local sub-graphs and adapts to dynamic scene changes, updating a global navigation graph in real time to plan around blocked paths.
Belief scene graphs expand partial 3D scenes by computing the expectation of unseen objects, letting robots reason about what is likely beyond their current field of view.
A two-layer exploration and planning framework for autonomous MAVs enabling fast, continuous navigation in GPS-denied, multi-branched cave systems, with NMPC-based control for real-world subterranean deployment.
SPADE builds an actionable, multi-domain 3D scene-graph representation that scales path planning across large, semantically rich environments.
Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020 projects that put drones and ground robots into active underground mines, with industry partners including LKAB and Epiroc.
Field campaigns in operating mines, vertical shafts, and natural caves. Each entry names the environment and what the robot completed there.
Lava tube, Iceland · Field campaign
Fully autonomous aerial exploration and mapping of a natural lava tube. More than 1 km of passage covered over several flights, each from the entrance to its turnaround point and back, with no GPS and no pilot.
Iron-ore mine, Northern Sweden · Field campaign
Autonomous mapping and inspection of rockfall zones after a roof collapse in an operating iron-ore mine. The survey of the affected area was produced before any person entered it.
Vertical mine shaft · NexGen SIMS
Full autonomy in vertical shaft exploration with high-fidelity 3D reconstruction in real underground conditions.
Underground mines · Journal work
Autonomous post-blast gas-measurement runs in underground mines. Crews re-enter when the readings at the face show the air is clear.
Nordic mines, potash operations · Multi-year
Years of underground exploration and waypoint-navigation trials with Nordic mining companies, a mining-equipment manufacturer, and a European potash operator across EU- and industry-funded projects.
The planners, mappers, and control bridges behind the deployments. Each card states whether I authored or co-authored it; all are ROS-based and were run in the field.
RUNS ON
WORKS WITH
Luleå University of Technology · Luleå, Sweden · 2021 to Nov 2025
Autonomous exploration and path planning for UAVs and legged robots in GPS-denied environments: underground mines, caves, and planetary analogs. The thesis work shipped as field-tested software and was validated in real subterranean deployments. Defended November 2025.
Luleå University of Technology · Luleå, Sweden · 2018 to 2020
Joint program across European partner universities covering space physics, orbital mechanics, and autonomous robotics. Thesis: design, modeling, and control of a coaxial quadrotor for the Martian environment.
UPES, Dehradun · Dehradun, India · 2014 to 2018
Focus on aerodynamics, propulsion, and control of aerial vehicles. Final-year project: design and simulation of a UAV for flight in Mars' thin atmosphere and reduced gravity.
Course teaching at Luleå University of Technology.
Supervising Master's students on autonomy, mapping, and field robotics.
Write to me about research collaboration, thesis supervision, or underground operations. I answer every message myself.