€1.5 million ERC Starting Grant to develop soft flying robot

The European Research Council (ERC) has today announced the winners of its latest Starting Grant competition. Chiara Gabellieri (EEMCS) from the UT is one of the winners with her project Flytopus. Flytopus develops a soft, flexible aerial robot that can adapt to its environment to grasp, land, move, and perch on a wide range of surfaces.

Autonomous inspection and interaction by flying robots has ubiquitous potential. However, the ability of aerial robots to interact physically is still very limited by their rigid frame. This often requires the addition of manipulation tools, which reduce the robot’s payload and endurance and limit the robot to a specific task, thereby compromising its versatility.

Flytopus will tackle these limitations by deploying a novel soft multirotor aerial robot that can interact widely with its environment, for example by morphing, grasping, hybrid locomotion, landing on uneven terrain, and perching on pipes or irregular branches.

ERC Starting Grant

The funding of the ERC Starting Grant is worth €705 million in total and will go to 421 early-career researchers across Europe. Several European researchers who applied from outside the EU and Horizon Europe associated countries will now move to Europe to pursue their research. The grants will help researchers develop ambitious ideas, build their own teams and establish their independence at a pivotal stage in their careers.

Chiara Gabellieri

Dr Gabellieri began working on aerial robotic physical interaction during her MSc thesis, conducted as an intern at LAAS-CNRS in Toulouse, and later as a visiting PhD candidate at the DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics in Oberpfaffenhofen. After obtaining her MSc and PhD degrees from the University of Pisa in 2017 and 2021, respectively, she joined the University of Twente as a postdoctoral researcher, where she was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 2023, she was appointed tenured Assistant Professor at the University of Twente. She received the Outstanding Associate Editor Award from IEEE/RSJ IROS in 2023 and, since that year, has served as an Associate Editor for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters.

dr. C. Gabellieri PhD (Chiara) Assistant Professor

+31534899952

 c.gabellieri@utwente.nl

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