ILYA M. AFANASYEV is an Assistant Professor in Institute of Information Technology and Intelligent Systems, Kazan Federal University, Russia (since 2021 - present), and a team leader and an expert of Huawei’s Media Algorithm Team (MAT) in St. Petersburg Research Center (SRC, since Dec. 2019 - present). He graduated in Engineering at Baltic State Technical University (BSTU), Russia, in 2000, and received his Ph.D. in Technical Science at Vavilov State Optical Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2006. In 2010-2013 he won a personal Marie Curie grant (€149,000) and worked as a postdoc in Mechatronics Lab at the University of Trento, Italy. In 2015-2021, he worked as an Assistant Professor in Robotics Institute, Innopolis University, Russia, teaching courses in Mobile Robotics and Sensors for Master Students and Bachelors in English. He participated in externally funded projects on SmartGrid ($10,000, RFBR, 2018), UAV-based SLAM ($35,000, RFBR, 2017), Bipedal Robot Locomotion ($500,000, Russian Ministry of Education and Android Technics company, 2015-2016), and Localization, mapping and path planning ($50,000, RFBR together with Israel, 2016). He worked also in industry: in German company “Giesecke & Devrient GmbH” (Senior Engineer, 2007-2010), and Emirate’s company “TGT Gas and Oilfield Service” (Head of Spectral Noise Logging dep., 4labs. @23 employees, 2013-2015), managing RND projects on software and downhole tools development. He has also been engaged in national and international hardware projects for both academy and industry in the region of sensor applications for aerospace (Space Solar Patrol project, Vavilov State Optical Institute, $1,000,000 funded by Russian Space Agency, 2000-2006), banking (Banknote-processing machines, €500,000, funded by “Giesecke & Devrient GmbH”, 2007-2010), robotics (Laser-Camera Systems, University of Trento, €149,000 funded by European Union, and Mobile Robots, $600,000, funded by RFBR; Russian Ministry of Education, and Android Technics company, 2015-2018), and oilfield service ($3,000,000 funded by TGT gas and oilfield company, OAE, 2013-2015).  His main research interests have revolved around Sensors, Perception, Mobile Robotics, and Autonomous Systems. He has published 3 patents and more than 50 papers indexed in Scopus and WoS. He is a reviewer for IEEE T-ASE, IEEE RA-L, IFAC, IEEE CASE, IEEE Access, MDPI Sensors and other conferences and journals. He has 7 years experience in Teaching as an Assistant Professor; 10+ years project, product and people management; 20+ years in RND for both academy and industry.