His research focuses on robotics, control theory, and machine learning and in particular on autonomous information collection using ground and aerial robots for localization and mapping, environmental monitoring, and security and surveillance. He works on probabilistic environment models that unify geometry and semantics and on optimal control and reinforcement learning approaches for minimizing uncertainty in these models. Dr. Atanasov's work has been recognized by the Joseph and Rosaline Wolf award for the best Ph.D. dissertation in Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in 2015 and the best conference paper award at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in 2017.