Francesco Mondada

Design of miniature mobile robots for:
- Swarm robotics research
- Animal-robot interaction
- Cross-fertilization between robotics and art
- Edutainment

Affiliation

Francesco Mondada is leading the MOBOTS group within the BIOROB laboratory

Mission

My research and teaching activity is centered around the mechatronic design of miniature mobile robots. This type of systems is an excellent example of mechatronics and a very motivating subjects for EPFL students. Working on this type of systems in education allows to address problems in mechanical design, electronic design, software development, system integration, signal processing, embedded programming, artificial intelligence approaches and much more. From a research point of view, this type of system allows interdisciplinary research in mechanics, electronics, computer and communication science with very interesting connections to biology, psychology, design and art. This type of interdisciplinary system by its components and by its applications enables incredible new areas of research.

For my mission in respect the school council please look to the French version of this page.

Biography

Dr. Mondada received his M.Sc. in micro-engineering in 1991 and his Doctoral degree in 1997 at EPFL. During his thesis he co-founded the company K-Team, being both CEO and president of the company for about 5 years. He is one of the three main developers of the Khepera robot, considered as a standard in bio-inspired robotics and used by more than 1,000 universities and research centers worldwide. Fully back in research in 2000 and after a short period at CALTECH, he participated to the SWARM-BOTS project as the main developer of the s-bot robot platform, which was ranked on position 39 in the list of The 50 Best Robots Ever (fiction or real) by the Wired Journal in 2006. The SWARM-BOTS project was selected as FET-IST success story by the EU commission. He is author of more than 100 papers in the field of bio-inspired robotics and system level robot design. He is co-editor of several international conference proceedings. In November 2005 he received the EPFL Latsis University prize for his contributions to bio-inspired robotics. In 2011 he received the "Crédit Suisse Award for Best Teaching" from EPFL and in 2012 the "polysphère" award from the students as best teacher in the school of engineering. His interests include the development of innovative mechatronic solutions for mobile and modular robots, the creation of know-how for future embedded applications, and making robot platforms more accessible for education, research, and industrial development.

Publications

Infoscience publications

Publications sorted by type

Journal Articles

* Quantifying the biomimicry gap in biohybrid robot-fish pairs

V. Papaspyros; G. Theraulaz; C. Sire; F. Mondada

Bioinspiration & Biomimetics

2024

Vol. 19, num. 4, p. 046020.

DOI : 10.1088/1748-3190/ad577a

Francesco Mondada

Adjunct Professor

Fields of expertise

Affiliation

Mission

Biography

Publications

Infoscience publications

Publications sorted by type

Journal Articles

* Quantifying the biomimicry gap in biohybrid robot-fish pairs

* Biohybrid Superorganisms—On the Design of a Robotic System for Thermal Interactions With Honeybee Colonies

* Architecture of a decentralised decision support system for futuristic beehives

* Un modèle pluraliste d’éducation numérique, l’expérience du canton de Vaud en Suisse

* Correction: How are primary school computer science curricular reforms contributing to equity? Impact on student learning, perception of the discipline, and gender gaps (vol 10, 60, 2023)

* Predicting the long-term collective behaviour of fish pairs with deep learning

* An Adapted Cascade Model to Scale Primary School Digital Education Curricular Reforms and Teacher Professional Development Programs

* How are primary school computer science curricular reforms contributing to equity? Impact on student learning, perception of the discipline, and gender gaps

* An adapted cascade model to scale primary school digital education curricular reforms and teacher professional development programs

* A biohybrid interaction framework for the integration of robots in animal societies

* Modelling the sustainability of a primary school digital education curricular reform and professional development program

* From teacher to teacher-trainer: A qualitative study exploring factors contributing to a successful train-the-trainer digital education program

* A robotic honeycomb for interaction with a honeybee colony

* A Research-Practice Partnership to Introduce Computer Science in Secondary School: Lessons from a Pilot Program

* The TACS Model: Understanding Primary School Teachers’ Adoption of Computer Science Pedagogical Content

* The competent Computational Thinking Test: Development and Validation of an Unplugged Computational Thinking Test for Upper Primary School

* The CT-cube: A framework for the design and the assessment of computational thinking activities

* The role of feedback and guidance as intervention methods to foster computational thinking in educational robotics learning activities for primary school

* Accessible Maker-based Approaches to Educational Robotics in Online Learning

* Social Integrating Robots Suggest Mitigation Strategies for Ecosystem Decay

* The symbiotic relationship between educational robotics and computer science in formal education

* A computer science and robotics integration model for primary school: evaluation of a large-scale in-service K-4 teacher-training program

* Fostering computational thinking through educational robotics: a model for creative computational problem solving

* A data-driven method for reconstructing and modelling social interactions in moving animal groups

* Strategies to modulate zebrafish collective dynamics with a closed-loop biomimetic robotic system

* Bidirectional interactions facilitate the integration of a robot into a shoal of zebrafish Danio rerio

* Heuristics for the Development and Evaluation of Educational Robotics Systems

* Robots mediating interactions between animals for interspecies collective behaviors

* Robot swarms as an educational tool: The Thymio’s way

* Autonomous Exploration for Radioactive Hotspots Localization Taking Account of Sensor Limitations

* Designing a socially integrated mobile robot for ethological research

* Closed-loop interactions between a shoal of zebrafish and a group of robotic fish in a circular corridor

* Mergeable nervous systems for robots (vol 8, 439, 2017)

* How mimetic should a robotic fish be to socially integrate into zebrafish groups ?

* Design of a modular robotic system that mimics small fish locomotion and body movements for ethological studies

* Can Robotics Help Move Researchers Toward Open Science?

* Bringing robotics into formal education using the Thymio open source hardware robot

* Electroencephalography as implicit communication channel for proximal interaction between humans and robot swarms

* R2T2 : Robotics to Integrate Educational Efforts in South Africa and Europe

* Pedagogical Uses of Thymio II: How Do Teachers Perceive Educational Robots in Formal Education?

* Are Autonomous Mobile Robots Able to Take Over Construction? A Review

* Bio-inspired construction with mobile robots and compliant pockets

* Decentralized Self-Selection of Swarm Trajectories: From Dynamical Systems to Robotic Implementation

* Fuzzy Control System for Autonomous Navigation and Parking of Thymio II Mobile Robots

* Takashi Gomi, vision and ethics

* Cooperative navigation in robotic swarms

* Upgrade Your Robot Competition, Make a Festival!

* Autonomous construction using scarce resources in unknown environments - Ingredients for an intelligent robotic interaction with the physical world

* Swarmanoid: a novel concept for the study of heterogeneous robotic swarms

* Highly Compact Robots for Inspection of Power Plants

* TRIPILLAR: Miniature magnetic caterpillar climbing robot with plane transition ability

* A Social Approach for Target Localization: Simulation and Implementation in the marXbot Robot

* Cy-mag3D: a simple and miniature climbing robot with advance mobility in ferromagnetic environment

* Magnebike: A Magnetic Wheeled Robot with High Mobility for Inspecting Complex-Shaped Structures

* ASEBA: A Modular Architecture for Event-Based Control of Complex Robots

* Social Integration of Robots into Groups of Cockroaches to Control Self-Organized Choices

* The SWARM-BOTS Project

* Self-Organised Coordinated Motion in Groups of Physically Connected Robots

* SWARM-BOT: a New Distributed Robotic Concept

Conference Papers

* On the use of photovoltaic modules as lightning detection sensors

* A study model for reconstructing urban ecological niches

* A case for co-construction with teachers in curricular reform: Introducing computer science in primary school

* Exploring a Handwriting Programming Language for Educational Robots

* Developing STEM and Team-working Skills Through Collaborative Space Robotics Missions

* Bio-Hybrid Systems for Ecosystem Level Effects

* Investigating the Role of Educational Robotics in Formal Mathematics Education: The Case of Geometry for 15-Year-Old Students

* Teachers’ Perspective on Fostering Computational Thinking Through Educational Robotics

* Evo-Bots: A Simple, Stochastic Approach to Self-assembling Artificial Organisms

* Introducing a Paper-Based Programming Language for Computing Education in Classrooms