UASUV 2017 Med Unmanned Vehicles Technology | Page 54

Dr. Panagiotis PARTSINEVELOS
Asst. Professor, Senselab Research group,
Technical University of Crete
Dr. Partsinevelos is an Assistant Professor in the areas of Geographic Information Systems (GIS),
Satellite Remote Sensing and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAVs) in the Technical University of Crete. He
received his PhD in Spatial Information Science & Engineering from the University of Maine, part of the
National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) in USA and in a NASA sponsored
center of excellence Remote Sensing Laboratory. He holds a Dipl. Eng. degree in Surveying Engineering
from the National Technical University of Athens. He has worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the
Academic and Research Computer Technology Institute in Greece and as a GIS expert in the public
sector. Besides his scientific publications and research projects as a coordinator, Dr Partsinevelos has
served as an invited speaker on research and innovation, entrepreneurship, eGovernment, smart cities,
etc.
Dr. Partsinevelos directs the Spatial Informatics Research Team (SenseLab) comprising of more than 30
multi-disciplinary undergraduate and postgraduate students (Electronics and Computer Engineers,
Production Engineers, Mineral Resources Engineers, Architects, etc). Senselab research interests
besides drones include Location-based services, tangible GIS, gestural interfaces, spatial database
querying, satellite image processing, cognition, spatiotemporal data management, visualization,
algorithms, etc. SenseLab managed to become a world leading Reserarch Group in the areas of UAVs
and Geoinformatics, which is certified by a series of prestigious international awards and distinctions
during highly competitive contests including: 2016 European GNSS Service (GSA), 1st place in the world,
2016 ESNC Satellite masters, 2nd overall winners, (400 teams), Madrid, 2016 UAE Drones for Good (1st
in EU and 3rd internationally between 1017 applicants from 165 countries), Dubai, 2016 DJI drones
Developer Challenge (short-listed), USA, 2015 Copernicus Masters NCMA, 1st winner in Remote Sensing
visualization, Berlin, 2015 European Space Agency App Challenge (finalists).
"Unmanned Aerial Systems: Research on games or games in research?"
UAVs have been increasingly employed in various civil applications, demonstrating their high potential.
Nevertheless, the main bottleneck in their widespread acceptance resides in privacy and security issues
that translates to restricting horizontal legislations around the world. Accordingly, the second main
obstacle for the growth of UAVs is the inability of funding/support entities to recognize the difference
between common repetitive implementations and research. This vicious circle will most probably lead
to only a few successful corporations having the ability to adjust legislation to their advantage.
Furthermore, the majority of scientists provide simple integration of sensors to UAVs in terms of data
collection, mapping and monitoring, employment of common remote sensing techniques, visualization,
or creation of 3-dimensional models, which do not fall into a real research objective for UAVs to “adapt
automatically to the mission towards autonomous decision-making processes”.
Senselab research team demonstrates several UAS related solutions on real time on-board algorithms,
fleet management protocols, integrated systems and internet of things, including: a) UAV cooperation
for real-time animated maps, b) connection with embedded-virtual reality systems for gestural
navigation, c) real time precise coordinates of multiple moving people in search and rescue applications,
d) optimizing Global Navigation Satellite System’s precision in occluded environments.