Adrien Briod

Biography and current work

Mission

My goal is to develop novel navigation strategies for autonomous flying robots, pushing the boundaries of what can be done with lightweight sensors and low-performance processors.

I am currently working on the AirBurr platform, a flying robot that can live with collisions. I aim at studying how robots relying on this new principle can use simple controllers and sensors to better achieve tasks that are only tackled through heavy modeling in conventional approaches. I am investigating sensors and controllers required for in-flight collision recovery and for navigation using interactions with obstacles, by taking inspiration from insects that navigate very reactively and bump into obstacles when they cannot see them.

Biography

2009-present	PhD student at the LIS.
2007-2009	Master in Microengineering at EPFL - Robotics specialization.
sept 08 - jan 09	Master project at Harvard University, in the Microrobotics Laboratory
feb 08 - june 08	Semester project realized at the LIS that involved the programming and testing of a 80cm wingspan MAV, with which we also participated in a flying robot competition in Germany. We took the second place in the autonomy competition (watch the video report of the preparation and competition).
2004-2007	Bachelor in Microengineering at EPFL.
aug 06 - may 07	Exchange year at McGill University (Canada).

Projects

The AirBurr project
The ROBOTS Podcast