Shraga Shoval

Timeline

1. 1985–1990

   A gemstone robot at CSIRO

   He earns a B.Sc. in 1985 and an M.Sc. in 1987 in mechanical engineering at the Technion; his M.Sc. thesis, advised by Ehud Lenz, integrates a CNC lathe and a robot in a flexible manufacturing cell. From 1987 to 1990, he works as a scientist in the Division of Manufacturing Technologies at CSIRO in Sydney, developing a robotic system for processing colored gemstones.

2. 1994–1998

   NavBelt and the GuideCane

   He completes a PhD in 1994 in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the University of Michigan, advised by Yoram Koren and Johann Borenstein, with a thesis on integrating intelligent agents in an adaptive travel aiding system for the blind. The thesis leads to the NavBelt, one of the first robotic aids for the blind, which he describes with Borenstein and Koren in a 1998 paper in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. The NavBelt leads to the GuideCane, which Discover Magazine names the best robotics invention in 1998.

3. 1994–2000

   Robotics laboratory at the Technion

   He returns to Israel in 1994 for a postdoctorate in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Technion, and until 2000 he is a research fellow and head of the Robotics and Computer-aided Manufacturing Laboratory in its Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management. From 1996 to 1997, he consults for Chrysler on one of the first unmanned passenger vehicles for its Automatic Durability Road test facility.

4. 1998–2001

   Founding Ariel's robotics laboratory

   In 1998, he joins the Department of Industrial Engineering & Management at Ariel University, then the College of Judea and Samaria, as an adjunct lecturer, and he becomes a senior lecturer in 2000. In 2001, he designs and establishes the university's first robotics laboratory, where he starts the first research in Israel that uses robotics as a counter-terrorism response in tunnel environments.

5. 2006–2010

   A rough-terrain robot patent

   He and Amir Shapiro are the inventors on a European patent application filed in 2006 for an autonomous dual tracked mobile robot designed for motion on rough terrain. The patent, EP1957349B1, is granted in 2010 and is assigned to the Ben Gurion University of the Negev Research and Development Authority and Ariel University.

6. 2015–2018

   Dean of Engineering at Ariel

   From 2015 to 2016, he is on sabbatical in Australia at the University of New South Wales. On his return in 2016, he is elected Dean of the Engineering Faculty at Ariel University, and he is promoted to Full Professor in 2018.

7. 2016–2022

   UAV swarms and cobots

   In 2016, he proposes VolleyBot, a volleyball competition for teams of quadrotors, as a framework for AI and UAV research in a paper for the IEEE International Conference on the Science of Electrical Engineering in Eilat. In 2022, he coauthors with Abhishek Sharma, Abhinav Sharma and Jitendra Kumar Pandey a review of swarm intelligence algorithms for 3D path planning in which a UAV swarm intercepts multiple aerial targets. A paper with Yuval Cohen, Maurizio Faccio and Riccardo Minto, 'Deploying cobots in collaborative systems', also appears in 2022 and presents a productivity analysis procedure for cobot acquisition and deployment decisions.

8. As of October 2026

   Professor of industrial engineering

   In July 2025, he coauthors with Yuval Cohen and Amir Biton the review 'Fusion of Computer Vision and AI in Collaborative Robotics' in Applied Sciences, which brings visual recognition, deep learning and semantic mapping together in a taxonomy for collaborative robotics. He is a Full Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Ariel University, and the deanship of the Faculty of Engineering is a former post.