[Time Change] Seminar: Bio-inspired and "bio-compatible" drones, by Prof. Dario Floreano from EPFL

The Graduate School would like to invite you to a seminar by Prof. Dario Floreano, from Laboratory of Intelligent Systems, EPFL, Switzerland. This talk will be introduced by Prof. Kenji Doya from Neural Computation Unit.

Note: The time for the seminar has been changed to 16:00 - 17:00.

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Date:   Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Time:  10:00 – 11:00     16:00 - 17:00

Venue: Seminar Room B503, Level B, Lab 1

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Speaker:

Prof. Dario Floreano

Laboratory of Intelligent Systems, EPFL, Switzerland

Swiss National Center of Robotics

Title:   Bio-inspired and "bio-compatible" drones

Abstract:

A new wave of small drones is making its way from research labs to the market. Two scientific and technological challenges for the scalability of these robots are perceptual intelligence for flight in confined spaces and safe interaction with humans. This technology also offers new perspectives in human aerial transportation. In this case, an important question is the physiological and psychological compatibility of the personal aerial vehicle with the human passenger. In this talk I will present sensory and morphological solutions for small autonomous drones inspired from insects for safe autonomous flight in cluttered space and initial investigations to interface humans to future personal aerial vehicles. 

Biography:

Prof. Dario Floreano is Director of the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). He holds an M.A. in visual psychophysics (1988), an M.S. in Neural Computation, (1991) and a PhD in Robotics (1995). He held research positions at Sony, NASA/Caltech JPL, and Harvard University. In 2011 he started the Swiss National Center of Robotics funded by the Swiss government for up to 12 years to bring together EPFL, ETH, University of Zurich to promote research, education, and technology transfer in wearable and rescue robots in Switzerland. Prof. Floreano's research focuses on the convergence of biology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and robotics. He published more than 300 articles and 4 books on Artificial Neural Networks, Evolutionary Robotics, Bio-inspired artificial intelligence, and Bio-inspired Flying Robots with MIT Press and Springer Verlag. He has been a founding member of the World Economic Forum Council on robotics and smart devices, co-founder of the International Society of Artificial Life, Inc. (USA), and executive board member of the International Society for Neural Networks. His research activities have resulted in two successful spin-off companies: senseFly Ltd. and Flyability Ltd.

We hope to see many of you there.

Sincerely,

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