Professor Ioannis Pitas
Department of Informatics
University of Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki 54124, PO BOX 451
Greece
Lecture title: “Deep learning for multiple drone vision systems”.
Abstract: The aim of drone cinematography is to develop innovative intelligent single- and multiple-drone platforms for media production to cover outdoor events (e.g., sports) that are typically distributed over large expanses, ranging, for example, from a stadium to an entire city. The drone or drone team, to be managed by the production director and his/her production crew, will have: a) increased multiple drone decisional autonomy, hence allowing event coverage in the time span of around one hour in an outdoor environment and b) improved multiple drone robustness and safety mechanisms (e.g., communication robustness/safety, embedded flight regulation compliance, enhanced crowd avoidance and emergency landing mechanisms), enabling it to carry out its mission against errors or crew inaction and to handle emergencies. Such robustness is particularly important, as the drones will operate close to crowds and/or may face environmental hazards (e.g., wind). Therefore, it must be contextually aware and adaptive, towards maximizing shooting creativity and productivity, while minimizing production costs.
Deep learning and drone vision play an important role towards this end, covering the following topics: a) drone visual mapping and localization, b) drone visual analysis for target/obstacle/crowd/POI detection, c) 2D/3D target tracking and d) privacy protection technologies in drones (face de-identification).
This lecture will offer an overview of current research efforts on all related topics, ranging from visual semantic world mapping to multiple drone mission planning and control and to drone perception for autonomous target following, tracking and AV shooting.
Short Biography
Ioannis Pitas received the Diploma of Electrical Engineering in 1980 and the PhD degree in Electrical Engineering in 1985, both from the University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
Since 1994 he has been a Professor at the Department of Informatics, University of Thessaloniki, Greece. From 1980 to 1993 he served as Scientific Assistant, Lecturer, Assistant Professor, and Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the same University. He leads funded research in CERTH/ITI. He is an IEEE fellow (2007), IEEE Distinguished Lecturer (2012) and EURASIP fellow (2013). He served as Visiting Professor and ASI fellow at the University of British Columbia, Canada, as Visiting Professor at Yonsei University, Korea, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland, at Tampere University of Technology, Finland, as Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto and as a Visiting Research Associate at the University of Toronto, Canada and at the University of Erlangen-Nuernberg, Germany. He was Chair of the School of Graduate studies in computer science at the University of Thessaloniki. His current interests are in the areas of intelligent digital media, digital image/video processing, multimedia signal processing, human centered computing computational intelligence and computer vision. He has published over 700papers, contributed in 39 books and authored, co-authored, edited, co-edited 8 books in his area of interest. He is the co-author of the books “Nonlinear Digital Filters: Principles and Applications” (Kluwer, 1990), ‘3D image processing algorithms’ (Wiley 2000). He is the author of the books ‘Digital Image Processing Algorithms’ (Prentice Hall, 1993), ‘Digital image processing algorithms and applications’ (Wiley 2000), ‘Digital image processing’ (in Greek, 1999). He is the editor of the book “Parallel Algorithms and Architectures for Digital Image Processing, Computer Vision and Neural Networks” (Wiley, 1993) and co-editor of the book ‘Nonlinear Model-Based Image/Video Processing and Analysis’ (Wiley 2000). He is also the editor of the book “Digital Television and digital video processing”(in Greek 2010).
Dr Pitas has been member of the European Community ESPRIT Parallel Action Committee. He had 10 academic occupation and visits in universities abroad. He co-organized 12 special sessions in conferences, 8 special issues in scientific journals. He is/was editor in 22 journals. He gave 49invited lectures, was member of the program committee of more than 248scientific conferences and workshops and was chair of more than 39conference sessions. He supervised 16 completed PhD theses. He was reviewer in 52 scientific journals, 290conferences, 33 R&D funding agencies and 4 publishers. He participated in 20national and international committees and he had a major role in the organization of 14conferences. He participated in 67 R&D projects,is/was principal investigator/researcher in 40 competitive R&D projects, mostly funded by the European Union. He is/was Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, IEEE Transactions on Image processing, IJIG Journal, IEICE, Circuits Systems and Signal Processing (CSSP), co-editor of Multidimensional Systems and Signal Processing, member of the editorial board of 6 journals and guest editor in 8 special journal issues. He was chair of the 1995 IEEE Workshop on Nonlinear Signal and Image Processing (NSIP95). He was technical chair of the 1998 European Signal Processing Conference. He was the general chair of IEEE ICIP2001. He was co-chair of the 2003 International workshop on Rich media content production. He was technical co-chair of the 2003 Greek Informatics conference (EPY). He was chair of the TC on Digital Signal Processing of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society. He was vice-chair of the TC on image processing and multidimensional signal processing of the IEEE Signal Processing Society. He was member of the National Research Council of Greece. He has received the 2009 best cited author award by Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
