By Scott Simmie
At the University of Toronto Robotics Institute‘s recent annual conference, a small convoy of robots was getting a lot of attention.
They were autonomously navigating, with each robot following the other at a precise distance and speed, all while sharing data about their surroundings with the entire group. It was the result of a lot of work by two PhD candidates from the University of Toronto’s Aerospace Institute (UTIAS), who have been working together out of the Robotics Institute’s lab.
The researchers are Luka Antonyshyn and Alec Krawciw. Luka is in his second year as a PhD student at the Autonomous Space Robotics Laboratory, run by Professor Tim Barfoot under the Robotics Institute. Alec previously studied mechanical engineering at the University of Victoria prior to coming to the U of T in 2022. He’s also working on his PhD in that same laboratory.
Those two, working together as closely as those robots, are responsible for that convoy’s precision.
“Throughout my PhD, I’ve generally been working on algorithms that make it easier for robots to drive safely and reliably in unstructured off-road environments,” says Krawciw. Meanwhile, Antonyshyn has been working on complementary research: Control. Specifically, getting the robots to ‘think’ about the environment around them and adjust their driving accordingly.
“If you imagine a human being hiking or mountain biking, they tend to look at their environment and kind of pre-compensate based on the terrain they see ahead of them,” he says. “So I’m trying to do this in the context of a computer and a robot.”
It’s high-level work, with an even higher-level goal: To have their research someday control autonomous robots on the moon.
Above: Channeling the Beatles Abbey Road. The robot platforms were supplied by InDro but the research and modifications were done by Luka Antonyshyn and Alec Krawciw under the direction of Professor Tim Barfoot. Below: A closer look at those robots, which feature InDro Commander on the Hunter 2.0 platform
MOONBOTS
The work these PhD students are working on is very real. They have been collaborating with MDA Space, a leader in the field whose accomplishments famously include the building of the Canadarm – a remotely controlled arm used in NASA’s Space Shuttle program. (You can review MDA Space’s many accomplishments on a timeline here.)
MDA Space has been working alongside the Canadian Space Agency to develop what will be called the Lunar Utility Vehicle. It will be a fairly large moon rover that will be used as part of the Artemis program, NASA’s long-term mission to return humans to the moon. That vehicle will transport cargo from landing and launch sites on the moon to the habitats where astronauts will be living.
“So the idea of the convoy we’ve been exploring is essentially that using multiple robots would allow us to carry much bigger pieces of cargo than a single robot could by itself,” explains Antonyshyn.
Of course, a good algorithm can be scaled to larger devices. We asked these researchers if there were plans to eventually do that – taking it up from the Hunter 2.0 and InDro Commander platforms they’re currently using. The answer?
“It’s actually something we’ve already worked on,” says Krawciw. “In November of 2025, we visited the Canadian Space Agency’s Mars Analogue Terrain and used two vehicles called the Lunar Exploration Light Rovers, which are essentially path-to-flight prototype vehicles. They’re about the size of the minivan. And we used the exact same algorithms developed on the Hunter 2.0 platforms on the two large vehicles carrying a payload that weighs about 500 kilograms.”
HOW INDRO SPEEDS R&D
InDro deals frequently with universities and other institutions carrying out research and development. Most of them want to spend their time on algorithms and research, not on building and integrating robots. That’s where InDro comes in. Head of R&D Sales Luke Corbeth works closely with such institutions, taking time to fully understand their needs and requirements. He then pulls together packages within budget. In this case, it was four Hunter 2.0 platforms, with InDro Commander integrated. Commander, which does high-speed EDGE computing and allows for additional sensors to be quickly added, allowed this team to rapidly get into their research.
“One of the more annoying parts of working with real robots is sorting out the physical and computer integration,” says Krawciw.
“So whether that’s wiring things up such that your sensors are getting power, or setting up routers so you can actually communicate with the computer onboard the robot – all of these are time-consuming and expensive tasks that essentially take away from any real research output you might rather be doing. By utilizing something like InDro Commander, you essentially cut that time to a fraction of what it originally would be.”
We’ve heard variations of this many times over the years. Researchers want to get on with their R&D, not build robots. They leave that to us.
Below: InDro’s Scott Simmie interviews Luka Antonyshyn and Alec Krawciw on our SoundByte micro-podcast.
INDRO’S TAKE
Because InDro itself is an R&D company, we truly understand the needs of other researchers. So we take great satisfaction not only in speeding that research with plug & play custom robots – but in seeing that research pay off. We congratulate Luka Antonyshyn and Alec Krawciw on their work, and Professor Tim Barfoot as well.
“Research like this paves the way for new and important use-cases. And it doesn’t get more novel than developing algorithms that may one day be used on the moon,” says InDro Founder and CEO Philip Reece.
“We are always eager to help universities and other R&D institutes get the right product to help accelerate their work at a competitive price point. Because we ourselves live in that research and development world, we try to go above and beyond to ensure researchers have the right tools to advance both their work – and the industry.”
Interested in a discussion? Contact Luke Corbeth for a no-pressure conversation.