This page collects the evolving course program, session themes, and the list of invited speakers and instructors for the Summer Course on Robotics for Wildfires 2026. We will update this page continuously as sessions and instructors are confirmed.

Course structure (overview)

The course combines:

  • Morning talks & technical sessions (state of the art + operational challenges)
  • Afternoon hands-on activities (practical workflows, tools, and field constraints)
  • Discussion blocks (case studies, lessons learned, and open problems)

Core module

The program is organized around four connected themes:

1) Ground Robots in Rough & Hazardous Environments
Mobility, dynamics, payload/power constraints, ruggedization, and real deployment considerations for wildfire operations.

2) SLAM & Navigation in Smoke and Low Visibility
Visual/LiDAR-based SLAM, multi-sensor fusion, degraded perception, uncertainty handling, and robust localization strategies.

3) Wearables, UX/UI & Human-in-the-Loop Systems
Operator workload, field-ready interfaces, alerts and confidence, AR/VR cues, and practical interaction design for real decision-making.

4) UAVs, Remote Sensing & Forest Digital Twins
UAV/satellite monitoring, mapping products, data integration, and how digital twins support situational awareness and planning.

Invited speakers & instructors

We are inviting leading researchers and practitioners from academia and industry working on robotics for wildfire environments.
Confirmed speakers/instructors will be listed here with:

  • Name, affiliation
  • Role (speaker / instructor / invited talk)
  • Session title and short bio

What to expect

By the end of the week, participants should be able to:

  • Understand key constraints of wildfire robotics (visibility, terrain, time pressure)
  • Connect sensing → mapping → navigation → decision support into one workflow
  • Evaluate practical trade-offs (accuracy vs robustness, performance vs energy, autonomy vs operator control)
  • Translate research ideas into deployment-aware engineering decisions

Updates

This page will be updated with:

  • The detailed day-by-day agenda
  • Confirmed instructor list and talk titles
  • Lab-group organization and session links/materials