Aim of the workshop
The 4th Workshop on Intelligent and Automated Waterway Transportation, which will take place on November 18th, 2025 at the 28th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems in Gold Coast, Australia, aims to foster technical and scientific exchange between academia, industry, and public authorities in the rapidly evolving fields of autonomous waterborne transportation and smart intermodal logistics. It serves as a platform to present and discuss recent advancements in intelligent and automated systems for inland, coastal and off-shore maritime transportation. Key topics include autonomous vessel development, advanced assistance systems, modeling and simulation, digital twins for waterways, navigation and control strategies, as well as automation of cargo handling. By bringing together experts from research institutions, industry leaders, consultants, and regulatory bodies, the workshop encourages interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration. As an integral part of the broader Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) community, the workshop emphasizes the role of autonomous shipping in shaping the future of transportation. Presentations by invited experts will provide exciting insights into recent research achievements and innovative projects. Additionally, researchers will have the opportunity to present their work and connect with peers during the poster session.
Workshop schedule
| Time | Title | Speaker | Affiliation | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 08:40–09:00 | Opening and warm up | Dr. Philipp Sieberg | Schotte Automotive, Germany | Organization |
| 09:00–09:25 | Optimized Lock Scheduling with Methods of Reinforcement Learning | Tom Legel | Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute, Germany | Invited expert's presentation |
| 09:25–09:50 | Test, Evaluation & Assurance of Autonomous System Capabilities | Dr. Tristan Perez | The Boeing Company, Australia | Invited expert's presentation |
| 09:50–10:00 | Lightning Talks by Poster Contributors | |||
| 10:00–10:30 | Coffee Break | |||
| 10:30–11:15 | Poster Session | |||
| 11:15–11:40 | Autonomous Vehicles: Where Learning Meets Control | Dr. Andreas Malikopoulos | Cornell University, USA | Invited expert's presentation |
| 11:40–12:20 | Panel Discussion (Moderation: Dr. Frederic Kracht, Development Centre for Ship Technology and Transport Systems, Germany) | |||
| 12:20–12:30 | Closing | Dr. Hanna Krasowski | UC Berkeley, USA | Organization |
Please note: This schedule is tentative and subject to change.
Accepted Posters
Florian Finkeldei
Falsification-Driven Reinforcement Learning for Maritime Motion Planning
Frederic Kracht
NOVA – The Smart & Green Ship for Sustainable and Innovative Inland Waterway Transport
Hanna Krasowski
CommonOcean-Sim: A Traffic Simulation Environment for Unmanned Surface Vessels
Haoze Zhang
MADRL: A Framework for MASS Sea Surface Image Defogging
Jiangpeng Li
Deep Reinforcement Learning-based Hierarchical Framework for Collaborative Multi-UUV Underwater Target Search
Sivakumar Rathinam
Robust Simulation Framework Towards Certification of Autonomous Navigation Functions for Marine Vessels
Invited experts
Dr. Andreas Malikopoulos
Andreas is a Professor in the School of Civil & Environmental Engineering and the Director of the Information and Decision Science Lab at Cornell University. He received a Diploma from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2004 and 2008, respectively, all in Mechanical Engineering. His research interests are grounded at the intersection of learning and control to enable systems - whether vehicles, robots, or large-scale infrastructures - to operate autonomously and achieve near-optimal performance while safely adapting to and interacting with dynamic environments. His work integrates decision-theoretic foundations with learning-based methods to endow engineered systems with the capability to reason, learn, and act in real time.
Title of talk: Autonomous Vehicles: Where Learning Meets Control
Tom Legel
Tom works at the Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute (BAW) in the department for Hydraulic Engineering in Inland Areas. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Humboldt University of Berlin and previously worked in Business Intelligence consulting from 2018 to 2021. To deepen his understanding of complex data processing, he pursued a degree in Computer Science at the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW) in Karlsruhe, with BAW as his dual partner. His work focuses on the analysis of traffic-related data, particularly data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS), to promote safety and efficiency in inland navigation using machine learning techniques.
Title of talk: Optimized lock scheduling with methods of Reinforcement Learning
Dr. Tristan Perez
Tristan is a distinguished expert in the field of autonomy and robotics. Originally from Argentina, he pursued his studies in Electrical and Control Engineering, laying a strong foundation for his future endeavours. Tristan further advanced his credentials by completing a PhD in Control Theory at the University of Newcastle in Australia.
Currently, he serves as the Chief Scientist for Autonomy Capabilities in the Boeing CTO Office, where he plays a pivotal leadership role to autonomy projects across the Boeing enterprise. His expertise encompasses the test, evaluation, and assurance of autonomous systems, with a particular focus on autonomous systems behaviours and mission assurance.
Prior to his tenure at Boeing, Tristan was a Professor of Robotics and Autonomous Systems, where he contributed significantly to the academic community. With over 25 years of technical experience, he possesses a unique blend of skills in system theory, artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation. His solid track record includes numerous contributions to industry products and collaborations with defence and government sectors, underscoring his commitment to advancing the field of autonomous systems.
Title of talk: Test, Evaluation & Assurance of Autonomous System Capabilities
Expected participation
Members of industry, research, consultancy and public authorities in the field of autonomous shipping, intelligent water-based logistics and related topics are the the target audience of this workshop. If you do not belong to this target audience, but are interested in the workshop’s subject, do not hesitate to join us! Please make sure to register for the ITSC Workshop Day in order to be able to participate.
Organizers
- Dr. Philipp Sieberg, Schotte Automotive GmbH & Co. KG., Germany & University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
- Dr. Hanna Krasowski, University of California, Berkeley, CA, United States
- Kathrin Donandt1, University of Duisburg-Essen & Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute, Germany
- Dr. Frédéric Etienne Kracht, Development Center for Ship Technology and Transport Systems e. V. (DST), Germany
