BEYOND STANDARD QUADROTORS: CONTACT-AWARE MULTIROTORS FOR PHYSICAL INTERACTION

Aerial robots are evolving from passive flying sensors into physically interactive systems capable of exerting forces and performing manipulation tasks.

This seminar presents the emerging paradigm of contact-aware multirotors, focusing on platforms that go beyond standard quadrotor architectures to enable controlled interaction with the environment.

A typical interaction task comprises navigation, contact detection, and in-contact execution.

While motion and force control strategies are well established, reliable detection and management of the transition from free flight to physical contact remain critical challenges.

The seminar provides an overview of modeling and control frameworks for interactive multirotors, highlighting open research issues and applications in inspection, manipulation, and cooperative tasks.

Speaker:

Giulia Michieletto (Member, IEEE) received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Padova, Italy, in 2014 and 2018, respectively. From March 2016 to February 2017, she was a Visiting Researcher at LAAS–CNRS, Toulouse, France. From February 2018 to November 2019, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the SPARCS Group, University of Padova, where she is currently an Assistant Professor with the Department of Management and Engineering. She is currently responsible for publicity and dissemination for the Technical Committee on Multi-Robot Systems (TC MRS) of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. She is a member of the Conference Editorial Board (CEB) of the IEEE Control Systems Society and of the European Control Association. She serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering and IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. She is also an ambassador for the Women in Engineering program promoted by the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society. Her primary research interests include modeling, control, and experimental validation of ground and aerial robots operating either as single units or within cooperative multi-agent systems for transportation, inspection, and manipulation applications in industrial scenarios.