When flying is cheaper than standing still

Raffaello D’Andrea (Verity | ETH Zurich)

10:10–10:25 Thursday, 17 October 2019

Location: King's Suite

Secondary topics: Computer Vision, Mobile Computing, IoT, Edge

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It’s hard these days to ignore the attention given to autonomy and robotics. The impact is significant and the reach across the industry is extensive, hitting transportation with self-driving cars, logistics and supply chain with mobile robots, and remote sensing applications with aerial vehicles or drones.

Raffaello D’Andrea presents his vision of how autonomous indoor drones will drive the next wave of autonomous robotics development and growth, highlighting how new applications for this platform are brought to market. From carrying LEDs or costumes as part of a spectacular stage effect to carrying sensors to enable IoT applications in industrial facilities, the applications for carrying lightweight and high-value payloads are numerous. Join Raffaello to see how the underlying core technologies for autonomy and indoor drones can take you from touring with Metallica to scanning barcodes in warehouses.

Raffaello D’Andrea

Verity | ETH Zurich

Raffaello D’Andrea is founder, CEO, and chairman of the board of Verity, the world’s leading autonomous indoor drone system provider; cofounder of ROBO Global, creator of the world’s first robotics exchange traded fund; and a professor of dynamic systems and control at ETH Zurich (on leave). He cofounded Kiva Systems—now Amazon Robotics—in 2003. He was the system architect and faculty advisor of the four-time world champion Cornell RoboCup team from 1999 to 2003. In addition, he’s a new media artist with exhibitions at various international venues, including the Venice Biennale, the FRAC Centre, and the National Gallery of Canada. Other creations and projects include the Flying Machine Arena, the Distributed Flight Array, the Balancing Cube, Cubli, Flight Assembled Architecture, the Blind Juggler, the Robotic Chair, and RoboEarth. His two TED talks, with almost 20 million views, have inspired a generation to pursue engineering, robotics, and computer science.