The Intelligent Robotics and Automation Laboratory (IRAL) was established in 1985 by (+)Em.Prof. Spyros Tzafestas at the National Technical University of Athens. Since 2009 its director is Prof. Petros Maragos. The mission of  IRAL is to advance and sustain research and to support teaching in the broad fields of Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Signal & Information Processing, Machine Learning, Control and Automation, Perception and Cognitive Systems. Basic and applied research is conducted in both theoretical and application problems.

To build robotic systems that are capable of performing complex tasks in unstructured and dynamic environments requires the combination of various perception, reasoning and action capabilities, which calls for joining research and development efforts from various scientific disciplines covering the broad field of cognitive and robotic systems. Driving application areas of our research activities focus primarily on human-centered environments, including assistive robotic technologies, social and medical robotics, but also span other domains including, but not limited to, industrial robot-integrated automation processes, as well as bioengineering, digital arts, and intelligent sensor networks.

At IRAL there are  currently two closely collaborating and interacting groups of research activities:

1) Intelligent Robotics: 

• Robot Control and Learning
• Haptics and Telerobotics, with focus on medical applications
• Mobile Robotics, with emphasis on autonomous mobile robot navigation
• Assistive and Social Robotics
• Human-Robot interaction, communication and cooperation

2) Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning:

• Computer Vision and Image/Video Analysis
• Computer Audio, Speech and Language Processing
• Multimodal Data Processing, Fusion, and Robot Perception
• Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning

The research activities in the above areas are in close collaboration with the Computer Vision, Speech Communication and Signal Processing Group at NTUA, as well as with the recently founded Institute of Robotics at the Athena Research & Innovation Center.