Angel Santamaria Navarro

Angel Santamaria-Navarro serves as Associate Professor at Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) and Robotics Researcher at the Institute of Robotics and Industrial Informatics (IRI), a CSIC-UPC joint center in Barcelona. His work bridges academic research and real-world deployment in mobile robotics, with current leadership in European TRIFFID (autonomous first-responder systems) and national LENA (lifelong navigation learning) projects spanning urban logistics and emergency response applications.

His research centers on Mobile Robotics and Autonomous Systems with emphasis on human-robot collaboration in unstructured environments. Key focus areas include robot navigation in crowded urban settings, manipulation of deformable objects, and deployment of delivery systems like the LogiSmile project piloted across European cities. His work uniquely integrates machine learning with field robotics to solve practical challenges in last-mile logistics and disaster response.

Recent publications (2022-2025) reveal a concentrated shift toward real-world robotic deployment, particularly in emergency response (TRIFFID) and urban logistics. Dominant themes include communication-aware multi-robot coordination, probabilistic perception for dynamic environments, and human acceptance studies – reflecting his commitment to transitioning lab innovations to operational field systems through Horizon Europe and national projects.

Key recognitions include:

• 1st place at DARPA Subterranean Challenge, urban circuit (2020)
• 2nd place at DARPA Subterranean Challenge, tunnel circuit (2019)
• Beatriu de Pinós research fellowship (2021)
• Georges Giralt PhD award finalist (2018)
• R3 accreditation as consolidated researcher (2023)

He actively mentors next-generation researchers as supervisor of PhD candidate Hafsa Taher (deep learning for autonomous vehicles) and Master's student Joan Tur Ruiz (object pose tracking). His research portfolio includes €5M+ in competitive funding spanning Horizon Europe projects (TRIFFID, TORNADO), national initiatives (LENA, AUDEL), and industry partnerships like the Vaive Logistics spin-off co-founded in 2023.

As core member of UPC's robotics team, he contributed to the NeBula framework that won DARPA's Subterranean Challenge and currently leads development of TRIFFID's autonomous first-responder systems. His work with the LogiSmile consortium demonstrates practical urban deployment of delivery robots across Barcelona, Lisbon, and Milan, while the SOCIAL PIA project pioneers cybernetic avatars for cooperative human-robot teams.