Prof. Lorenzo Marconi gave a talk on September 4th, 2020 in our group about “Aerial Robotics: Challenges and Opportunities Outside the Lab ”

Biography (简介)

Lorenzo Marconi graduated in 1995 in electrical engineering and obtained the Ph.D. degree in Automatic Control in 1998 from the University of Bologna where is now full professor. He is coauthor of more than 250 technical publications on the subject of linear and nonlinear feedback design. His current research interests include nonlinear control, output regulation, control of autonomous vehicles. He was the recipient of the Outstanding Application Paper Award in 2005 from IFAC for a coauthored paper published on Automatica, of the 2014 IEEE Control Systems Magazine Outstanding Paper Award, and recipient of the 2018 0. Hugo Schuck Best Paper Award assigned by the American Automatic Control Council. Fellow of IEEE for “contributions to feedback design of nonlinear systems and unmanned aerial vehicles”.

Abstract

Research perspectives on drones specifically motivated by their use in relevant application contexts outside the lab are present. The use of drones in real life environments unveils challenging control problems that are hardly imaginable within an indoor flight arena and that inspire new research areas well broader than the specific motivating context. Two main application areas are thoroughly presented. The first deals with aerial inspection of infrastructures requiring the physical contact between the drone and the inspected surface. Besides presenting industrial needs and economical impacts in the field, the talk will address specific research
challenges pertaining to structural properties of the aerial robot and of the onboard control required to face dramatically different aerial scenarios. The second is about the use of drones for search and rescue applications in hostile environments, with a specific focus on quick localization of victims buried by avalanches. The talk will report ongoing research activities carried out at European level jointly with professional search and rescue teams, showing the technological challenges raised in the field and the potentials of automatic control algorithms that are revolutionizing actual search manual strategies. Besides addressing technical research problems, the talk will also touch aspects about social innovation and financial sustainability of aerial technologies in certain fields, by identifying “orphan markets” in which control technologies can play a role.