Embracing the positive side of constraints: how we grasped novel scientific opportunities in aerial robotics

In this brief talk, I will present an integrated overview of intriguing scientific findings on the control of aerial robotic systems developed by our team in recent years. The common theme will be the presence of unilateral constraints on some variables of the problem, such as forces or velocities appearing the dynamical system. 
Among other things, I will demonstrate:
1) How unilateral constraints on the input of multirotor systems lead to surprising yet explainable results, such as the lack of robustness to rotor failure in a standard hexarotor;
2) How interesting analogies emerge between aerial robotics and the grasping problem, including the requirements for designing and controlling omnidirectional multirotors;
3) How static pose control of a cable-suspended load can be achieved even by multiple non-stop forward-flying carriers, under some non-trivial conditions.
The solutions to these problems are deeply rooted in concepts that are staples of traditional robotics research, such as kinematic redundancy resolution and the self-motions of manipulators, the grasp matrix of robotic hands, and the motion planning of Dubins paths, just to mention some of them. These supposedly “old” concepts are given new light, dimension, meaning, and perspective through their application in a completely different domain than their original context.
I will also use this overview as a springboard to share my perspective on the future of scientific research in aerial robotics, including its pitfalls and opportunities.

Short bio
Antonio Franchi holds a joint appointment as Full Professor in Aerial Robotics Control at the University of Twente (EEMCS Faculty, RAM department), Enschede, The Netherlands, and Full Professor at the Sapienza University of Rome (DIAG department), Rome, Italy. He is an IEEE Fellow.

In the past he has been a Permanent Researcher at CNRS and a Senior Research Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Germany. He received the master degree (summa cum laude) in Electronic Engineering and the Ph.D. degree in System Engineering from Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. He received the French HDR degree (Accreditation to Supervise Research) from the National Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse. He has been a visiting student at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

His main research interests lie in the robotics area, with a special regard to control and estimation problems and applications ranging across motion and physical interaction control, decentralized control/estimation/coordination, haptics, and hardware/software architectures. His main areas of expertise are aerial robotics and multiple-robot systems.

He published approximately 200 papers in international journals, books, and conferences and gave more than 100 invited talks in international venues. His works and activities received several international awards such as the IEEE 2024 ICUAS best paper award, the Best Robotics PhD Thesis advised in France in 2019, the 2018 IEEE RAS Most Active Technical Committee Award, the 2010 IEEE RAS ICYA Best Paper Award, among others.

He has been Senior Editor of the International Journal of Robotics Research, Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Senior Editor for IEEE ICRA, associate editor of the IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, IEEE ICRA, IEEE/RSJ IROS and the IEEE Aerospace and Electric Systems Magazine.  He is the co-founder and emeritus co-chair of the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Multiple Robot Systems, http://multirobotsystems.org/.

He has been PI in several projects focused on aerial robots and multi-robots, such as, e.g., EU Horizon AutoAssess, EU H2020 Aerial-CORE, the EU H2020 AEROARMS, ANR PRC ‘The Flying Co-worker’, and JCJC ANR MuRoPhen.