Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering

Abstract: In this talk I will present the design and control methods that my group developed in the last years in order to increase the stability and performance in aerial tasks involving physical contact and manipulation. In particular I will show how multi-directional thrust — when properly mastered — may confer a superior level of accuracy and robustness to the physical task execution, when compared to standard platforms with an underactuated base. Our group has been an early promoter of multi-directional thrust aerial platforms for physical contact and manipulation. Multi-directional thrust has since then been adopted as one of the most powerful way to face many of the challenges of aerial physical interaction. However, the field has still several challenges remain still to be addressed. I will introduce and briefly discuss some of them, and in particular those related to the extended capabilities, energy efficiency, robustness, and human physical interaction.

 

Bio: Antonio Franchi (https://homepages.laas.fr/afranchi/robotics/) is a Full Professor in Aerial Robotics Control at the University of Twente (EEMCS Faculty, RAM department), Enschede, The Netherlands, and an affiliated researcher at LAAS-CNRS (RIS team), Toulouse, France. From 2014 to 2019 he was a CNRS Permanent Researcher at LAAS-CNRS. From 2010 to 2013 he was a Research Scientist and then a Senior Research Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Germany. He received the Laurea (M.Sc.) degree (summa cum laude) in Electronic Engineering and the Ph.D. degree in System Engineering (Feb. 2010) from Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. He received the French HDR degree (Accreditation to Supervise Research) from the National Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse in 2016. In 2009 he was a visiting scholar at the University of California at Santa Barbara. His main research interests lie in the robotics area, with a special regard to control and estimation problems. His main areas of expertise are aerial robotics and multiple-robot systems. He published more than 150 papers in international journals, books, and conferences.  He was Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics a Senior Editor for IEEE ICRA, associate editor of the IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, IEEE ICRA, IEEE/RSJ IROS and the IEEE Aerospace and Electric Systems Magazine. He ideated and participated to several national and international research project, he is currently the local coordinator of the EU H2020 Aerial-CORE project. He is the co-founder and emeritus co-chair of the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Multiple Robot Systems, http://multirobotsystems.org/. In 2010 he was awarded with the IEEE RAS ICYA Best Paper Award for one of his works on Multi-robot Exploration. In 2018 he was a recipient of the 2018 IEEE RAS Most Active Technical Committee Award. One the PhD theses he supervised has been the recipient of the award for the Best Robotics PhD Thesis in France in 2019.