Center for Advanced Intelligence Project

Date and Time:
Dec 16, 2024: 13:30 pm – 14:30 pm (JST)
Venue: Online and Open Space at the RIKEN AIP Nihonbashi office*
*The Open Space; AIP researchers are only available.

TITLE: Learning to fly

SPEAKER: Prof. Dario Floreano (EPFL)

ABSTRACT:
Drones have taken the world by storm. In only 15 years, small autonomous flyers have had major
impact in inspection, security, rescue, logistics, and entertainment. However, today’s commercial
drones cannot yet compete with flying animals in terms of adaptability, maneuverability, agility, and
cooperation. I will describe work that takes inspiration from insects and birds for the design of
neuromorphic sensors, bodies, and brains of machines that can fly in confined environments and
cooperate. I will also present adaptive Body-Machine Interfaces that let human intuitively teleoperate
these and other robots. I will conclude by discussing challenges in modeling and control that will
benefit from data-driven and learning methods.

Bio:
Prof. Dario Floreano is director of the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at Ecole Polytechnique
Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He has been the founding director of the Swiss National Center of
Competence in Robotics from 2010 to 2022. Prof. Floreano made pioneering contributions to the fields
of evolutionary robotics, aerial robotics, and soft robotics. He is interested in deriving embodied
intelligence from nature and using robots as models of biological systems. He held visiting research
positions at Sony Computer Science Laboratory, at Caltech/JPL, and at Harvard University. He co-
authored almost 500 publications and 5 books by MIT Press and Springer Verlag, spun off 3 drone
companies (senseFly, Flyability, Elythor), and is in the editorial board of several journals, including
Science Robotics. He received numerous awards, and is fellow of the IEEE, ELLIS, and ECLT societies.
www.epfl.ch/labs/lis

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