Francisco Melendez

PhD student

PhD. student in Human Robot Interaction and Mobile Robotics

Welcome!!

I am Francisco Meléndez Fernández, a PhD student in the Machine Perception and Intelligent Robotics group (MAPIR) at the University of Málaga, Spain. My research interests include:

• Mobile robot navigation in human environments
• Task Planning, Task Execution
• Human-Robot Interaction
• Service Robotics: Robotic Telepresence, Personal Robotics, Socially Assistive Robotics
• System Integration: Internet of Things, Sensor Networks, Ambient Assisted Living environments

Brief CV

I was born in Málaga (Spain) in 1982. I received a B.Sc-M.Sc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Málaga in 2011. In March 2012 I joined the MAPIR group as a Researcher in Ambient Assisted Living applications of Robotic Telepresence. I received the M.Sc in Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence in 2013. Since I joined the MAPIR group,  I have been involved in two research projects funded by European Union Programmes, ExCITE and GiraffPlus (2012-2015). In February 2015 I started a PhD in mobile robotics, which is focused on new developments for personal robots aimed at helping people in daily life activities.

Ongoing Work

The first part of the PhD was focused on improvements for a semi-autonomous robotic telepresence system aimed at operating in Ambient Assisted Living contexts, it is now completed and has led to the publication of two conference papers and submission of a journal paper (currently under review). Now, the focus of my work is placed on the development of effective and efficient autonomous behaviors valid for mobile robots in daily life environments (e.g., homes). I am working on plan-based navigation and control strategies for a socially-aware service robot and, In particular, the ongoing work addresses problems arising from finding adequate navigation paths and adapting robot behaviors to maximize the robot acceptability in social contexts.

Technical Skills

 During my previous experience as a research assistant engineer and now as a PhD student, I have trained my skills in different areas:

• Programming Stuff: C++, Visual Studio, QT Creator, Java, Eclipse, Javascript, HTML5
• Robotic Frameworks: ROS, MOOS, OpenMORA, MRPT
• Robotics Applications: reactive planning, sensor-based mapping and localization, supervised autonomous navigation, assisted driving, robot teleoperation, robotic telepresence in AAL contexts
• Internet of Things: MQTT, AAL sensors, distributed network configuration
• Web Development: NodeJS, AngularJS
• Multimedia Streaming: WebRTC

Publications

@article{monroy2018sensors,
title = {A Semantic-Based Gas Source Localization with a Mobile Robot Combining Vision and Chemical Sensing},
author = {Monroy, Javier and Ruiz-Sarmiento, J. R. and Moreno, Francisco-Angel and Melendez-Fernandez, Francisco and Galindo, Cipriano and Gonzalez-Jimenez, Javier},
url = {https://mapir.isa.uma.es/papersrepo/2018/2018_monroy_SENSORS_semantic_gas_source_localization.pdf},
doi = {10.3390/s18124174},
issn = {1424-8220},
year  = {2018},
date = {2018-01-01},
journal = {Sensors},
volume = {18},
number = {12},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{melendez-2017,
title = {A web-based solution for robotic telepresence},
author = {Melendez-Fernandez, Francisco and Galindo, Cipriano and Gonzalez-Jimenez, Javier},
doi = {10.1177/1729881417743738},
year  = {2017},
date = {2017-01-01},
journal = {International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems},
volume = {14},
number = {6},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{orlandini2017,
title = {ExCITE Project: A Review of Forty-two Months of Robotic Telepresence Technology Evolution},
author = {Orlandini, Andrea and Kristoffersson, A. and Almquist, Lena and Björkman, Patrik and Cesta, Amedeo and Cortellessa, Gabriella and Galindo, Cipriano and Gonzalez-Jimenez, Javier and Gustafsson, Kalle and Kiselev, Andrey and Loufti, Amy and Melendez-Fernandez, Francisco and Nilsson, Malin and Odens Hedman, Lasse and Odontidou, Eleni and Ruiz-Sarmiento, J. R. and Scherlund, Marten and Tiberio, L. and Rump, Stephen Von and Coradeschi, Silvia},
url = {https://mapir.isa.uma.es/papersrepo/2017/2017-raul-KBS-Building_Multiversal_Semantic_Maps.pdf},
doi = {10.1162/PRES_a_00262},
year  = {2017},
date = {2017-01-01},
journal = {Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments},
abstract = {This paper reports on the EU project ExCITE with specific focus on the technical development of the telepresence platform over a period of 42 months. The aim of the project was to assess the robustness and validity of the mobile robotic telepresence (MRP) system Giraff as a means to support elderly and to foster their social interaction and participation. Embracing the idea of user-centered product refinement, the robot was tested over long periods of time in real homes. As such, the system development was driven by a strong involvement of elderly and their caregivers but also by technical challenges associated with deploying the robot in real-world contexts. The results of the 42-months-long evaluation is a system suitable for use in homes rather than a generic system suitable, for example, in office environments.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@inbook{melendezfernandez2016,
title = {An assisted navigation method for telepresence robots},
author = {Melendez-Fernandez, Francisco and Galindo, Cipriano and Gonzalez-Jimenez, Javier},
isbn = {978-3-319-48745-8},
year  = {2016},
date = {2016-01-01},
booktitle = {10th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing and Ambient Intelligence, Lecture Notes in Computer Science},
volume = {10069},
publisher = {Springer},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inbook}
}

@inproceedings{monroy_roman_2017,
title = {Integrating Olfaction in a Robotic Telepresence Loop},
author = {Monroy, Javier and Melendez-Fernandez, Francisco and Gongora, Andres and Gonzalez-Jimenez, Javier},
url = {https://mapir.isa.uma.es/papersrepo/2017/2017_jmonroy_RO-MAN_Integrating_Olfaction_in_the_Robotic_Telepresence_Loop.pdf},
doi = {10.1109/ROMAN.2017.8172427},
year  = {2017},
date = {2017-08-01},
booktitle = {2017 26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)},
pages = {1012-1017},
address = {Lisbon (Portugal)},
organization = {IEEE},
abstract = {In this work we propose enhancing a typical robotic telepresence architecture by considering olfactory and wind flow information in addition to the common audio and video channels.  The objective is to expand the range of applications where robotics telepresence can be applied, including those related to the detection of volatile chemical substances (e.g. land-mine detection, explosive deactivation, operations in noxious environments, etc.). Concretely, we analyze how the sense of smell can be integrated in the telepresence loop, covering the digitization of the gases and wind flow present in the remote environment, the transmission through the communication network, and their display at the user location. Experiments under different environmental conditions are presented to validate the proposed telepresence system when localizing a gas emission leak at the remote environment.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}

@inproceedings{kiselev2015,
title = {Evaluation of Using Semi-Autonomy Features in Mobile Robotic Telepresence Systems},
author = {Kiselev, Andrey and Kristoffersson, A. and Melendez-Fernandez, Francisco and Galindo, Cipriano and Loufti, Amy and Gonzalez-Jimenez, Javier and Coradeschi, Silvia},
year  = {2015},
date = {2015-01-01},
booktitle = {7th IEEE International Conference on Cybernetics and Intelligent Systems (CIS) and the 7th IEEE International Conference on Robotics, Automation and Mechatronics (RAM)},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}

@inproceedings{gonzalezjimenez2013b,
title = {Building and Exploiting Maps in a Telepresence Robotic Application},
author = {Gonzalez-Jimenez, Javier and Galindo, Cipriano and Melendez-Fernandez, Francisco and Ruiz-Sarmiento, J. R.},
url = {https://mapir.isa.uma.es/wp-content/uploads/publicaciones/legacy/cgalindo/papers/draft_ICINCO2013-Map.pdf},
year  = {2013},
date = {2013-01-01},
booktitle = {10th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (ICINCO)},
address = {Reykjavic, Iceland},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}

Contact

Francisco Meléndez Fernández

Dpto. Ingenieria de Sistemas y Automatica
E.T.S.I. Informatica – Telecomunicacion. Laboratorio 2.3.6
Universidad de Malaga

Campus Universitario de Teatinos
29071 Malaga, Spain
Phone: +34 952 13 3362

Skype: fco.melendez8

e-mail: fco.melendez.f@gmail.com; fco.melendez@uma.es