Description of the organization
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, http://www.epfl.ch) is one of two federal research institutions in Switzerland and one of the most dynamic and international universities in Europe, with more than 50% of faculty and PhD students from abroad. EPFL promotes interdisciplinary research and in particular the interaction between engineering and life science. The School of Engineering is consistently ranked among the top four engineering schools in Europe in all international rankings.
EPFL will be involved in the project through the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems (LIS, http://lis.epfl.ch). LIS consists of approximately 15 PhD, postdocs, and engineers working on aerial and bioinspired robotics. Besides participation in many FET Open projects on innovative bio-inspired robotics, the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems has also been the coordinator of the FET Open project CURVACE (http://www.curvace.org/), which was labeled as a success story by the FET Division that designed, developed and validated the first curved artificial compound eyes that reproduce insect vision systems.
LIS will predominately contribute technical work to the following tasks: Development of aerial platforms with morphing capabilities (WP4) and augmented cognitive human-machine interfaces (WP6). The Laboratory of Intelligent Systems has almost 20 years of experience in aerial robotics, including pioneering work in bio-inspired robotics and evolutionary robotics. LIS has developed countless vehicles with diverse mission capabilities, including safe, last-centimeter package delivery, collision resilient vehicles for search and rescue, and feathered morphing UAVs. The laboratory has also pushed the envelope on swarming technologies and novel, wearable HMIs for more intuitive control of UAS.
Involved Staffs
Dario Floreano, William Stewart, Matteo Macchini, Circe: Oscar García-Izquierdo.
Role in the AERIAL-CORE project and main tasks
EPFL will be the leader of WP4 providing strong expertise in aerial robotics and particularly in bioinspired aerial vehicle development. EPFL will also be heavily involved in WP6 on the development of novel HMI methods through the use of their HMI platform, the fly jacket.