This document reports on research conducted between 2001 and 2015 in the field of au- tonomous mobile robotics, specifically in what became known “field robotics”: a focus of robotics on outdoor, little-structured environments close to industrial applications. Chap- ter 2 describes a number of research projects, starting with activities initiated during my doctorate research at INRIA between 2001 and 2004, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at CSIRO, in Canberra and Brisbane, Australia between 2004 and 2007. From 2007 to 2012, my role as Deputy-Director of the Autonomous Systems Lab at ETH Z ̈ urich, Switzerland, gave me the opportunity to supervise a number of projects ranging from space robotics and mechatronic design to European projects on indoor navigation or autonomous driving. On the other hand, the last chapter will describe my reseach plan stemming from this experience and preliminary results from projects started in my current position as Associate Professor at GeorgiaTech Lorraine, the French campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology, also known as GeorgiaTech, located in Atlanta, USA