Flight Control in Complex Environments: From Insects to Robots ‒ LIS ‐ EPFL

Flying robots are very useful for tasks such as aerial mapping, fast exploration, video footage and monitoring of buildings. However, autonomous missions are usually constrained to high altitude flights above flat surfaces in order to avoid collisions. Traditional methods for collision-free navigation require large resources and limit the payload of robots.

On the other hand, flying insects are able to navigate safely and efficiently using low quality vision as their main sensory input. Ideally, robots could adopt insects strategies, but little is known about the way insects turn visual stimuli into muscular actuation during flight. This precludes a direct implementation of insect flight control into robots and forces roboticists to guess appropriate strategies.

In this thesis, we aim to investigate, develop and implement insect-inspired control strategies in flying robots for goal-oriented navigation in complex environments. We will start by exploring insect sensing and actuation through experiments with bumblebees. Then, we will model the insect’s flight control strategies. This model will be tested in simulation and implemented in a custom designed flying robot. Through experiments in natural environments, we will characterize the efficiency of our model for goal-oriented collision-free navigation.

Publications

Vom globalen zum persönlichen CO2-Budget

P. Thalmann

Vollenweider Lectures, Luzern, Schweiz, May 03, 2024.

Publications

Vom globalen zum persönlichen CO2-Budget

Conséquences des séismes en Calabre – L’histoire d’un remploi particulier dans l’église castrale d’Akerentia

Technology-Aware Logic Synthesis for Superconducting Electronics

Le voyage en Égypte de l’architecte nancéen Émile André (1871-1933) et son travail à Kom Ombo (septembre 1896-avril 1897)

Chronique des travaux en Égypte, chronique 2023

Antiferromagnetic droplet soliton driven by spin current

KID-PPG: Knowledge Informed Deep Learning for Extracting Heart Rate from a Smartwatch

Le temple Haroeris et Sobek de Kom Ombo (Haute-Égypte) : comment aborder l’étude architecturale d’un site touristique ?

Un nouveau site protohistorique au pied de la falaise : le dépôt de Songona

Social life of campus public spaces: Experimental study on the role of temporary interventions in fostering social activity

Bridging Monte Carlo worlds: a new framework for accelerator simulations applied on shielding and machine protection studies

Nanogels with Metal‐Organic Cages as Functional Crosslinks

Stepwise synthesis of heterotrimetallic FeII/PdII/AuI coordination cages

Personal carbon trading applied to Swiss air travel – Guaranteeing a fair access to climate ambitious aviation

Exponential convergence to steady-states for trajectories of a damped dynamical system modeling adhesive strings

Organ Neuroprosthetics: Connecting Transplanted and Artificial Organs with the Nervous System

HASPIDE: a project for the development of hydrogenated amorphous silicon radiation sensors on a flexible substrate

Large-cage occupation and quantum dynamics of hydrogen molecules in sII clathrate hydrates

BENIGN LANDSCAPES OF LOW-DIMENSIONAL RELAXATIONS FOR ORTHOGONAL SYNCHRONIZATION ON GENERAL GRAPHS

Durable Perovskite Solar Cells with 24.5% Average Efficiency: The Role of Rigid Conjugated Core in Molecular Semiconductors

Light-Intensity Switching of Graphene/WSe2 Synaptic Devices

Tree water uptake patterns across the globe

A Streamline Upwind Petrov-Galerkin Reduced Order Method for Advection-Dominated Partial Differential Equations Under Optimal Control

The connection of the acyclic disconnection and feedback arc sets – On an open problem of Figueroa et al.

Multi-temporal forest monitoring in the Swiss Alps with knowledge-guided deep learning

SORI: A softness-rendering interface to unravel the nature of softness perception

Osmosis-driven stiffening of structured hydrogels

Model uncertainties in action effects and load bearing capacity calculation in statically indeterminate reinforced concrete structures

Single-mitosis dissection of acute and chronic DNA mutagenesis and repair

Quantifying functional group compositions of household fuel-burning emissions

Efficacy and safety of transcranial direct current stimulation to the ipsilesional motor cortex in subacute stroke (NETS): a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Health Prediction for Lithium-Ion Batteries Under Unseen Working Conditions

Introduction to special section on the rock physics contribution to the energy transition challenge

Influence of the hydrophile-lipophile balance of perfluorinated surfactants on the emulsion stability

Hybrid ground-state quantum algorithms based on neural Schrödinger forging

Evaluation of Interface and Residual Strain of NiTi Layer Deposited on NiTiX Substrate by Laser Powder Bed Fusion

Interpretative 3D MHD modelling of deuterium SPI into a JET H-mode plasma

Comparison of reduced model predictions for divertor detachment onset and reattachment timescales in ASDEX Upgrade and JET experiments

Multi-year time series of daily solute and isotope measurements from three Swiss pre-Alpine catchments

Artificial intelligence of things for smart cities: advanced solutions for enhancing transportation safety

Unlabeled Principal Component Analysis and Matrix Completion

A ride time-oriented scheduling algorithm for dial-a-ride problems

Spatial statistics of superposition of two uncorrelated speckle patterns with polarization diversity

A semantic model-based systems engineering approach for assessing the operational performance of metal forming process

Adding Color to Mass Spectra of Biopolymers: Charge Determination Analysis (CHARDA) Assigns Charge State to Every Ion Peak

Verification of the Fourier-enhanced 3D finite element Poisson solver of the gyrokinetic full-f code PICLS

Process-Induced Structures of Injection-Molded High-Density Polyethylene-Combining X-ray Scattering and Finite Element Modeling

Implementation of an epicardial implantable MEMS sensor for continuous and real-time postoperative assessment of left ventricular activity in adult minipigs over a short- and long-term period

Large-Scale Hollow-Core 3D Printing: Variable Cross-Section and Printing Features for Lightweight Plastic Elements

Optimal sensitivity for 1H detected relayed DNP of organic solids at fast MAS

Unique corrosion behavior of an archaeological Roman iron ring: Microchemical characterization and thermodynamic considerations

Label-Free Techniques for Probing Biomolecular Condensates

Early precipitated micropyrite in microbialites: A capsule of microbial sulfur cycling (vol 21, pg 7, 2022)

Colloidal Atomic Layer Deposition on Nanocrystals Using Ligand-Modified Precursors

Demonstration of a sparse sensor placement technique to the limited diagnostic set in a fusion power plant

Graph Exploration for Effective Multiagent Q-Learning

Enhancing higher education through hybrid and flipped learning: Experiences from the GRE@T-PIONEeR project

Reactive collision-free motion generation in joint space via dynamical systems and sampling-based MPC

The rule of four: anomalous distributions in the stoichiometries of inorganic compounds

Arylative Ring Expansion of 3-Vinylazetidin-3-Ols and 3-Vinyloxetan-3-Ols to Dihydrofurans by Dual Palladium and Acid Catalysis

Squalene Depletion in Skin Following Human Exposure to Ozone under Controlled Chamber Conditions

COSMOS-Web: Intrinsically Luminous z ≳ 10 Galaxy Candidates Test Early Stellar Mass Assembly

Reducing transport via extreme flux-surface triangularity

Surface passivation and functionalisation for mass photometry

Whole-heart electromechanical simulations using Latent Neural Ordinary Differential Equations

Heterogeneous catalysis via light-heat dual activation: A path to the breakthrough in C1 chemistry

Experimental demonstration of attosecond pump-probe spectroscopy with an X-ray free-electron laser

Augmented Memory: Sample-Efficient Generative Molecular Design with Reinforcement Learning

Molecular hypergraph neural networks

Biomass screening for syngas production by flash photopyrolysis

Temperature, humidity, and ionisation effect of iodine oxoacid nucleation

Oxidation processes and me

Transient resting-state salience-limbic co-activation patterns in functional neurological disorders

Maintenance and optimization of the TCV power supply

Gargiulo et al. Reply

Wastewater microorganisms impact microbial diversity and important ecological functions of stream periphyton

Can lateral tenodesis improve the rotational stability of the ACL reconstruction? A finite element analysis

Neutrino Signal from a Population of Seyfert Galaxies

A 5G n77 Filter Using Shear Bulk Mode Resonator With Crystalline X-cut Lithium Niobate Films