AASS seminar: Marin Lujak, University Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid

Who: Associate Professor Marin Lujak, Associate Professor at the University Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid
Title: "Multi-agent coordination of robot fleets with reconfigurable tools"
When: August 28, 2025, at13:00
Where: Hörsal T, Teknikhuset 
Remote attendance: https://oru-se.zoom.us/j/65096623293 

Abstract
Specialized fleets across sectors such as emergency services, construction, maintenance, utilities, and agriculture require precise coordination between vehicles and tools for effective operation. Given the complex requirements and significant investments, particularly with autonomous vehicles, these fleets often rely on collaborative ownership models such as cooperatives, consortia, public-private partnerships, and leasing pools.

In this talk, we focus on dynamic vehicle-tool (re)configuration and fleet optimization through distributed decision-making, ensuring privacy protection and compliance with task requirements. We explore distributed multi-agent coordination for heterogeneous vehicle fleets, highlighting approaches that enable autonomous, scalable, and real-time operations without the need for a centralized control center. We will also discuss advanced solution methods for the three-index assignment problem and the dynamic vehicle routing problem, illustrating how these methods allow fleets to adapt seamlessly to changing conditions and tasks while minimizing human intervention.

The talk emphasizes the critical role of distributed optimization and multi-agent systems in balancing individual agent objectives with overall system performance. We describe models and architectures for task allocation and vehicle routing, underscoring distributed algorithms that promote fairness and efficiency at both local and global levels. Finally, we showcase how recent advances in digital twins empower autonomous vehicle-fleet coordination and illustrate how these methods can be applied to manage fleets in cooperative settings.

Bio: 
Marin Lujak is Associate Professor at the University Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, Spain, specializing in distributed and decentralized methodologies for coordinating large, complex multi-agent systems with limited resources. With over 80 published peer-reviewed papers, his research spans smart transport, emergency management, and multi-robot coordination. Previously an Associate Professor at IMT Lille Douai, University of Lille, France, Marin has held leadership roles in various academic organizations, including serving as a member and treasurer of the board of the European Association for Multi-Agent Systems. He is also an Associate Editor for the IET Collaborative Intelligent Manufacturing journal and a guest editor for seven special issues in internationally renowned peer-reviewed journals. Marin has co-chaired numerous international conferences and workshops (e.g., Poster Chair of the ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing SAC 2024, chair of the Agreement Technologies Conference AT 2018, co-chair of the workshops ASSIA@PAAMS’22-PAAMS’25 and the Workshop on Agents in Traffic and Transportation ATT 2020-2024) and has served as a PC member for over 100 conferences and workshops. He has been an independent expert and project evaluator for agencies such as the Spanish State Research Agency, the French National Research Agency, and the Israel Science Foundation. Fluent in multiple languages, Marin is a co-supervisor for PhD students in co-tutelle with other international universities and has served on doctoral thesis committees internationally.