Francisco Marques
Papers
20
Total Citations
295
H-Index
10
About
Francisco Marques is a robotics researcher whose work spans autonomous multi-robot systems, environmental monitoring, and human-robot interaction. He is best known for pioneering research in marsupial robotic teams — cooperative systems where one robot carries and deploys another — particularly combining Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASVs) with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for aquatic and riverine environments. His landmark project RIVERWATCH (2014) demonstrated how coordinated aerial, surface, and underwater perception could transform environmental monitoring, while his 2015 critical survey consolidated foundational knowledge in this emerging field. Marques has also made significant contributions to search-and-rescue robotics, with his cooperative multi-robot framework for locating shipwreck survivors at sea earning over 60 citations and representing his most impactful work to date. His development of Kelpie, a ROS-based multi-robot simulator for water surface and aerial vehicles, addressed critical challenges in safe testing of expensive aquatic hardware. Beyond water environments, his research extends into precision agriculture through semantic aerial mapping, intra-factory logistics navigation, and versatile all-terrain robotic platforms. With a portfolio accumulating over 230 citations across diverse application domains, Marques represents a versatile voice in field robotics pushing autonomous systems into complex, real-world deployment scenarios.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6Sediment Sampling in Estuarine Mudflats with an Aerial-Ground Robotic Team15 citations · 2016
- 7Semantic Navigation Mapping from Aerial Multispectral Imagery14 citations · 2019
- 8
- 9
- 10ARES-III: A versatile multi-purpose all-terrain robot10 citations · 2012