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NEW BOOK This book demonstrates how bio-inspiration can lead to fully autonomous flying robots without relying on external aids. Most existing aerial robots fly in open skies, far from obstacles, and rely on external beacons – mainly GPS – to localise and navigate. However, these robots are not able to fly at low altitude or in confined environments, and yet this poses absolutely no difficulty to insects. Indeed, flying insects display efficient flight control capabilities in complex environments despite their limited weight and relatively tiny brain size.

From sensor suite to control strategies, the literature on flying insects is reviewed from an engineering perspective in order to extract useful principles that are then applied to the synthesis of artificial indoor flyers. Artificial evolution is also utilised to search for alternative control systems and behaviours that match the constraints of small flying robots. Specifically, the basic sensory modalities of insects, vision, gyroscopes and airflow sense, are applied to develop navigation controllers for indoor flying robots. These robots are capable of mapping sensor information onto actuator commands in real time to maintain altitude, stabilize the course and avoid obstacles. The most prominent result of this novel approach is a 10-gram microflyer capable of fully autonomous operation in an office-sized room using fly-inspired vision, inertial and airspeed sensors. BIOGRAPHY I am research scientist and lecturer in the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems (LIS), at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. After completing my master project at the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh as an exchange student, I graduated in 2001 with a M.S. in micro-engineering from EPFL.

My research interests lie in aerial, bio-inspired and evolutionary robotics. In March 2005, I completed my thesis in Autonomous Robotics at EPFL, for which I got the ABB 2006 best thesis award. I co-authored more than twenty peer-reviewed journal and conference papers and took part in several international conferences. In 2006, I got the best paper award at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) in Beijing, China. In 2008, I released the book entitled Bio-inspired Flying Robots at EPFL Press. I regularly serve as reviewer for international conferences, journals such as IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Autonomous Robots, and national funding agencies. I currently supervise several projects in aerial robotics (listed in the right margin), which are funded by semi-private companies, the Swiss National Science Foundation, or the European community.

In parallel, I co-founded DIDEL SA, an EPFL spin-off company involved in educational robotics and ultra-light R/C indoor flyers. Since 2003, I organized of the EPFL Flying Robot Contest. Since 2006, I am teaching mobile robotics to master students. In summer 2007, I co-organised the international symposium on Flying Insects and Robots.

Aside my professional occupation as researcher in robotics, I enjoy flying as a private pilot. I started with a glider license in 1993 and then progressively moved to motor airplanes. I now regularly practice mountain landing and aerobatics. By the way, if you are interested in meeting flying people at EPFL, have a look at AeroPoly! MISSION I would like to create the right atmosphere for researchers and students to be motivated by novel ideas in autonomous aerial robotics. I hope that out-of-the-box thinking will guide us towards smarter flying systems that will be of great help to monitor our environment, prevent forest fires, provide bird-eye-view in search and rescue operations, or progress towards novel goods or personal transportation systems. MAIN PUBLICATIONS

Journal Papers

Kovac, M., Schlegel, M., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2010) A Steerable Miniature Jumping Robot. Autonomous Robots. To appear. [detailed record] [bibtex]

Beyeler, A., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2009) Vision-based control of near-obstacle flight. Autonomous Robots, 27(3) pp. 201-219. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Hauert, S., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2009) Evolved swarming without positioning information: an application in aerial communication relay. Autonomous Robots, 26(1) pp. 21-32. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Hauert, S., Winkler, L., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2008) Ant-based Swarming with Positionless Micro Air Vehicles for Communication Relay. Swarm Intelligence, 2(2-4) pp. 167-188. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Zufferey, J.-C., Klaptocz, A., Beyeler, A., Nicoud, J.-D. and Floreano, D. (2007) A 10-gram Vision-based Flying Robot. Advanced Robotics, 21(14) pp. 1671-1684. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Floreano, D., Epars, Y., Zufferey, J.-C. and Mattiussi, C. (2006) Evolution of Spiking Neural Circuits in Autonomous Mobile Robots. International Journal of Intelligent Systems, 21(9) pp. 1005-1024. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2006) Fly-inspired Visual Steering of an Ultralight Indoor Aircraft. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 22(1) pp. 137-146. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Zufferey, J.-C., Guanella, A., Beyeler, A. and Floreano, D. (2006) Flying over the Reality Gap: From Simulated to Real Indoor Airships. Autonomous Robots, 21(3) pp. 243-254. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Floreano, D., Zufferey, J.-C. and Nicoud, J.-D. (2005) From Wheels to Wings with Evolutionary Spiking Neurons. Artificial Life, 11(1-2) pp. 121-138. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Conference Papers

Beyeler, A., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2009) optiPilot: control of take-off and landing using optic flow. Proceedings of the 2009 European Micro Air Vehicle conference and competition (EMAV '09). [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Kovac, M., Schlegel, M., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2009) A Miniature Jumping Robot with Self-Recovery Capabilities. . To appear. [detailed record] [bibtex]

Roberts, J.F., Stirling, T.S., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2009) 2.5D Infrared Range and Bearing System for Collective Robotics. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS'2009). [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Zufferey, J.-C., Beyeler, A. and Floreano, D. (2009) How to control MAVs in cluttered environments?. Proceedings of the Workshop on Micro Aerial Vehicles at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Mondada, F., Bonani, M., Raemy, X., Pugh, J., Cianci, C., Klaptocz, A., Magnenat, S., Zufferey, J.-C., Floreano, D. and Martinoli, A. (2009) The e-puck, a Robot Designed for Education in Engineering. Proceedings of the 9th Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions, 1(1) pp. 59-65. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Hauert, S., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2009) Reverse-engineering of Artificially Evolved Controllers for Swarms of Robots. IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, pp. 55-61. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Leven, S., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2009) A Minimalist Control Strategy for Small UAVs. . To appear. [detailed record] [bibtex]

Kovac, M., Fuchs, M., Guignard, A., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2008) A miniature 7g jumping robot. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA'2008), pp. 373 - 378. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Kovac, M., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2008) Towards the Self Deploying Microglider, a biomimetic jumping and gliding robot. Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines, pp. 41-42. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Roberts, J.F., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2008) Energy Management for Indoor Hovering Robots. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS'2008). [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Zufferey, J.-C., Beyeler, A. and Floreano, D. (2008) Optic flow to control small UAVs. Workshop on visual guidance systems for small autonomous aerial vehicles (at IROS'2008). [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Zufferey, J.-C., Beyeler, A. and Floreano, D. (2008) Near-obstacle flight with small UAVs. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Beyeler, A., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2007) 3D Vision-based Navigation for Indoor Microflyers. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA'07). [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Floreano, D., Hauert, S., Leven, S. and Zufferey, J.-C. (2007) Evolutionary Swarms of Flying Robots. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Kovac, M., Guignard, A., Nicoud, J.-D., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2007) A 1.5g SMA-actuated Microglider looking for the Light. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA'2007), pp. 367-372. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Kovac, M., Savioz, G., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2007) Towards the Self Deploying Microglider; Gliding Flight and Bioinspired Wing Folding Mechanism. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Flying Insects and Robots, pp. 61-62. [detailed record] [bibtex]

Leven, S., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2007) A Simple and Robust Fixed-Wing Platform for Outdoor Flying Robot Experiments. International Symposium on Flying Insects and Robots, pp. 69-70. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Roberts, J.F., Stirling, T., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2007) Quadrotor Using Minimal Sensing For Autonomous Indoor Flight. European Micro Air Vehicle Conference and Flight Competition (EMAV2007). [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Zufferey, J.-C., Beyeler, A. and Floreano, D. (2007) Insect-inspired Autonomous Microflyer. International Symposium on Flying Insects and Robots, pp. 133-134. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Beyeler, A., Mattiussi, C., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2006) Vision-based Altitude and Pitch Estimation for Ultra-light Indoor Aircraft. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA'06), pp. 2836-2841. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Zufferey, J.-C., Klaptocz, A., Beyeler, A., Nicoud, J.-D. and Floreano, D. (2006) A 10-gram Microflyer for Vision-based Indoor Navigation. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS'2006, best paper award), Beijing, China, pp. 3267-3272. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2005) Toward 30-gram Autonomous Indoor Aircraft: Vision-based Obstacle Avoidance and Altitude Control. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA'2005). [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Floreano, D., Zufferey, J.-C. and Mattiussi, C. (2003) Evolving Spiking Neurons from Wheels to Wings. Dynamic Systems Approach for Embodiment and Sociality, 6 pp. 65-70. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Zufferey, J.-C., Beyeler, A. and Floreano, D. (2003) Vision-based Navigation from Wheels to Wings. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS'2003), pp. 2968-2973. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Nicoud, J.-D. and Zufferey, J.-C. (2002) Toward Indoor Flying Robots. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS'2002), pp. 787-792. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Zufferey, J.-C., Floreano, D., van Leeuwen, M. and Merenda, T. (2002) Evolving Vision-based Flying Robots. 2nd International Workshop on Biologically Motivated Computer Vision (BMCV'2002), pp. 592-600. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Ph.D. Theses

Beyeler, A. (2009) Vision-based control of near-obstacle flight. Ph.D. Thesis, 2009. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Zufferey, J.-C. (2005) Bio-inspired vision-based flying robots. Ph.D. Thesis, 2005. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Books

Zufferey, J.-C. (2008) Bio-inspired Flying Robots: Experimental Synthesis of Autonomous Indoor Flyers. Lausanne : EPFL/CRC Press, 2008. [detailed record] [bibtex]

Floreano, D., Srinivasan, M., Ellington, C. and Zufferey, J.-C. (2007) International symposium on Flying Insects and Robots, Book of Abstracts. Lausanne : EPFL, 2007. [detailed record] [bibtex]

Book Chapters

Klaptocz, A. and Nicoud, J.-D. (2009) Technology and Manufacturing of Ultralight Micro Air Vehicles. in Flying Insects and Robots, Berlin : Springer, 2009. [detailed record] [bibtex]

Zufferey, J.-C., Beyeler, A. and Floreano, D. (2009) Optic Flow to Steer and Avoid Collisions in 3D. in Flying Insects and Robots, Berlin : Springer, 2009. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Kovac, M., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2009) Towards a self-deploying and gliding robot. in Flying Insects and Robots, Berlin : Springer, 2009. [detailed record] [bibtex]

Patents

Zufferey, J.-C., Beyeler, A. and Floreano, D. (2008) Visual autopilot for near-obstacle flight. Patent # PCT/IB2008/051497. [detailed record] [bibtex]

Technical Reports

Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2004) Optic-flow-based steering and altitude control for ultra-light indoor aircraft. Technical Report, 2004. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Posters

Beyeler, A., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2007) Optic-flow-based Altitude and Forward Speed Regulation using Stereotypical Lateral Movements. Presented at: International Symposium on Flying Insects and Robots, Monte Verità, Switzerland, August 12-17. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Beyeler, A., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2007) Bioinspired Vision-based Microflyers. Presented at: EPFL, , . [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Hauert, S., Winkler, L., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2007) Pheromone-based Swarming for Position-less MAVs. Presented at: Flying Insects and Robots Symposium, Monte-Verità, Ascona, Switzerland, 12-17 August. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Kovac, M., Fuchs, M., Savioz, G., Guignard, A., Nicoud, J.-D., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2007) Self Deploying Microglider. Presented at: Flying Insects and Robots Symposium, Monte Verita, Ascona, Switzerland, 12-17.8.2007. [detailed record] [bibtex]

Kovac, M., Guignard, A., Nicoud, J.-D., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2007) A 1.5g SMA actuated Microglider looking for the Light. Presented at: EPFL, , . [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Leven, S., Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2007) A Low-cost, Safe and Easy-to-Use Flying Platform for Outdoor Robotic Research and Education. Presented at: International Symposium on Flying Insects and Robots, Monte-Verità, Ascona, Switzerland, August 12-17, 2007. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2005) Bio-inspired Indoor Microflyers. Presented at: 50th Anniversary Summit of Artificial Intelligence, Monte Verità, Locarno, Switzerland, 9-14 July. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Zufferey, J.-C. and Floreano, D. (2004) Optic-flow-based Navigation for Ultralight Indoor Aircraft. Presented at: Insect Sensors and Robotics, Brisbane, Australia, 23-26 August 2004. [detailed record] [pdf] [bibtex]

Skills
  • Aerial robotics
  • Indoor flight
  • Bioinspired, vision-based navigation
  • Autonomous robots
  • Sensors & embedded electronics
  • Artificial intelligence
    		•
    Teaching
    Microengineering
    Phd Students
    Hauert Sabine
    Klaptocz Adam
    Kovac Mirko
    Leven Severin
    Roberts James

    Past Phd students:
    Beyeler Antoine Thesis details
    TEACHING ACTIVITY
  • Lecture on Mobile Robots
  • Practical work for EPFL students on fly-inspired vision processing for robot navigation
  • Flying robot competition
    • ONGOING PROJECTS
  • Bioinspired Vision-based Microflyers
  • Self Deploying Microglider
  • Swarming MAVs for Communication Relay
  • The Eyebots
  • Solar Impulse - HMI
  • AERO: Aerial Robotics at EPFL/ETHZ
    • COMPLETED PROJECTS
  • Bio-inspired Vision-based Flying Robots (PhD project)
  • The Bow Leg Hopper (Master project)
  • The robot Zephyr (fire fighting contest and semester project in behavior based navigation)
  • Alice Soccer (Semester project)
    • ©2004-2009 Jean-Christophe Zufferey - EPFL, 1015 Lausanne - last updated : 2009-01-21 21:09:29
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