Logo
The A2R2 Group conducts research in reinforcement learning, robotics, and autonomous agents, developing algorithms that enable intelligent systems to learn, adapt, and collaborate in complex environments. Our work spans perception, multi-agent learning, robot control, and decision-making under uncertainty, with a focus on bridging theory and real-world deployment. Some highlightee research projects are listed below:

Activity Monitoring under Occlusion Conditions
Activity Monitoring under Occlusion Conditions.







PIs: Dr. Francisco Cruz, Dr. Eduardo Benitez Sandoval, Prof. Erik Meijering
Associates: Marsha Mariya Kappan

Augmented Reality Assistance for Drone Wayfinding and Precision Landing on Specific Point Target
Augmented Reality Assistance for Drone Wayfinding and Precision Landing on Specific Point Target.





PIs: Dr. Francisco Cruz, Dr. Imran Razzak
Associates: Abdulrahman Althobaiti

Applications of Spiking Neural Networks in Robotics
Applications of Spiking Neural Networks in Robotics.







PIs: Dr. Francisco Cruz, A/Prof. Leo Wu
Associates: Oltan Sevinc

Emotional Sensitivity in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) for Explainability upon Decision-Making Reasoning
Emotional Sensitivity in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) for Explainability upon Decision-Making Reasoning.





PIs: Dr. Francisco Cruz, Prof. Flora Salim, Dr. Benjamin Tag
Associates: Chris Lee

Multimodal robot learning via proactive human-robot collaboration
Multimodal robot learning via proactive human-robot collaboration.







PIs: Dr. Francisco Cruz, Dr Shadi Abpeikar, A/Prof. Vidhyasaharan Sethu
Associates: Hadha Afrisal

Adaptive Ensemble Weighting for Online Reinforcement Learning
Adaptive Ensemble Weighting for Online Reinforcement Learning.







PIs: Dr. Francisco Cruz, Dr. Eduardo Benitez Sandoval, Prof. Richard Dazeley, Prof. Peter Vamplew
Associates: Charlie Stinson

Exploring Multi-Agent Human Interaction Scenarios in Reinforcement Learning: Coordination, Conflict Resolution, and User Experience
Exploring Multi-Agent Human Interaction Scenarios in Reinforcement Learning: Coordination, Conflict Resolution, and User Experience.





PIs: Dr. Francisco Cruz, Dr. Pamela Carreno-Medrano, Prof. Claude Sammut
Associates: Maher Mesto

Robust Skill Chaining In Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning
Robust Skill Chaining In Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning.







PIs: A/Prof. Gelareh Mohammadi, Prof. Arcot Sowmya, Dr. Francisco Cruz
Associates: Madeleine Nouri

TWIRL

Teaching With Interactive Reinforcement Learning (TWIRL)
Reinforcement Learning has been a very useful approach, but often works slowly, because of large-scale exploration. A variant of RL, that tries to improve speed of convergence, and that has been rarely used until now is Interactive Reinforcement Learning (IRL), that is, RL is supported by a human trainer who gives some directions on how to tackle the problem.



PIs: Prof. Dr. Stefan Wermter
Associates: Dr. Francisco Cruz, Dr. Sven Magg, Dr. Cornelius Weber
Date: July 2013 - July 2017

PREVIOUS RESEARCH PROJECTS

ProjectPIsAssociatesDate
Decoupled sensorimotor self-predictive representation for object-goal autonomous navigation with a quadcopterProf. Bruno Fernandes, Dr. Francisco CruzDr. Angel Ayala2022 - 2025
An Axiomatic Approach to Explainable Artificial IntelligenceDr. Francisco Cruz, Dr. Ali Darejeh, Prof. Haris AzizDr. Maryam Hashemi2021 - 2025
Teaching Proxemic Behavior to Cognitive Agents with Reinforcement LearningProf. Bruno Fernandes, Dr. Francisco CruzDr. Cristian Millán-Arias2021 - 2024
Interactive Assisted Reinforcement Learning (IARL) Prof. Peter Vamplew, Prof. Richard Dazeley, Dr. Cameron FoaleDr. Adam Bignold, Dr. Francisco Cruz2021 - 2022
Human-aligned Explainable Reinforcement Learning (HXRL) Prof. Richard DazeleyDr. Francisco Cruz, Prof. Peter Vamplew2019 - 2021
Teaching With Interactive Reinforcement Learning (TWIRL)Prof. Dr. Stefan WermterDr. Francisco Cruz, Dr. Sven Magg, Dr. Cornelius Weber2013 - 2017