Alcherio Martinoli is a
roboticist
Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...
and an associate professor at the
École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering where he heads the Distributed Systems and Algorithms Laboratory.
Biography
Martinoli received his PhD degree in
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...
in 1999 at the
École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) working under
Jean-Daniel Nicoud
Jean-Daniel Nicoud (born 31 August 1938), is a Swiss computer scientist, noted for inventing of a computer mouse with an optical encoder and the CALM (Common Assembly Language for microprocessors).
He obtained a degree in physics at the École ...
. Martinoli did a post-doc with Rodney M. Goodman at
Caltech
The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
, where he headed the Collective Robotics Group. In 2007, he joined
EPFL as an SNSF Assistant Professor in School of Information and Communication. He has moved to School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2008, where he is an associate professor.
He is the recipient of a Swiss National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award as well as the 2001 KiTi prize for young Swiss-Italian researchers who have distinguished themselves in the field of science, art, or humanities, as well as a "Best Paper Award" at the 2006 Conference on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS)
Work
Martinoli's research interests are in
swarm robotics
Swarm robotics is an approach to the coordination of multiple robots as a system which consist of large numbers of mostly simple physical robots. ″In a robot swarm, the collective behavior of the robots results from local interactions between ...
,
swarm Intelligence
Swarm intelligence (SI) is the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems, natural or artificial. The concept is employed in work on artificial intelligence. The expression was introduced by Gerardo Beni and Jing Wang in 1989, in ...
, and
self-organization
Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The process can be spontaneous when suffi ...
with applications to transportation systems and large-scale networks of sensors and actuators. Martinoli is widely recognized for his work on distributed odor localization,
[Google Scholar, Alcherio Martinoli](_blank)
/ref> modeling and designing swarm robotic systems, and mixed systems consisting of animals and robots, which has been cited more than 5000 times.
Martinoli and his laboratory have also taken a leading role in various open-source projects affecting the robotics community at large, most notably the software Swistrack
SwisTrack is a tool for tracking robots, humans, animals and objects using a camera or a recorded video as input source. It uses Intel's OpenCV library for fast image processing and contains interfaces for USB, FireWire and GigE cameras, as wel ...
, a multi-object tracking system for single and multi-camera
systems, the Khepera III Toolbox for the Khepera III robot, and the e-Puck mobile robotFrancesco Mondada, Michael Bonani, Xavier Raemy, James Pugh, Christopher Cianci, Adam Klaptocz, Stephane Magnenat, Jean-Christophe Zufferey, Dario Floreano, Alcherio Martinoli. The e-puck, a robot designed for education in engineering, Proceedings of the 9th conference on autonomous robot systems and competitions, pages 59-65, 2009.
/ref> in collaboration with Francesco Mondada
Francesco Mondada (born 17 March 1967) is a Swiss professor in artificial intelligence and robotics. He got a Master's degree in Microengineering at the EPFL in 1991 and a PhD degree in 1997. He is one of the creators of the Khepera and directed ...
.
References
External links
Distributed Systems and Algorithms Laboratory at EPFL
{{DEFAULTSORT:Martinoli, Alcherio
ETH Zurich alumni
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne alumni
Living people
Swiss roboticists
Academic staff of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Year of birth missing (living people)