About me
I am an Associate Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department and a fellow in the Coastal Studies Institute at Louisiana State University. Previously, I was a postdoctoral research fellow at University of Michigan and I obtained my PhD from Heriot-Watt University, United Kigdom and I have a double master degree in Computer Vision and Robotics from the University of Burgundy and Heriot-Watt University as part of the VIBOT (VIsion and RoBOTtics) European program.
The goal of my work is to propose solutions for real-world robotics applications with social and environmental merits. I am specifically interested in contributing to the widespread of mobile robotic systems acting in complex, unstructured and dynamic environments, having an active role in improving their autonomy, energy-efficiency and reliability.
Caption: Together with Edward Morgan, Nenyi Kweku Dadson, and Bruce the underwater robot. Photo credit: LSU College of Engineering
News
- “CAREER: Autonomous underwater vehicle-manipulator robots adaptable to the unforeseen” has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
- I am the co-director of the High School Summer Research Program within the College of Engineering at LSU.
Latest papers
- E Morgan, NK Dadson, C Barbalata “Uncertainty-Aware Adaptive Dynamics For Underwater Vehicle-Manipulator Robots”, accepted into ICRA 2026
2. NK Dadson, C Barbalata. “Marine event vision: Harnessing event cameras for robust object detection in marine scenarios.” In Proceedings of the Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision, pp. 1510-1519. 2025.
3. Huynh, D. C., Ho, L. D., Pham, H. M., Dunnigan, M. W., & Barbalata, C. (2024). Water Wave Optimization Algorithm-Based Dynamic Optimal Dispatch Considering a Day-Ahead Load Forecasting in a Microgrid. IEEE Access.
Complete publications can be found on google scholar here.