Two Tandon robotics experts invited to deliver keynote talks at major conferences

Ludovic Righetti and Giuseppe Loianno are giving keynote talks at the most prestigious robotics conferences of the year.

Righetti, Associate Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, will be presenting a talk at ICRA@40, a special conference to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), the largest conference in robotics. The conference promises “a journey through the evolution of robotics and automation” through four days of short keynotes from prominent roboticists from across the entire field. Righetti, an internationally recognized leader in legged locomotion research, will speak about the future of his field in his talk “Is locomotion a solved algorithmic problem?” on September 25th.

^{This video is from a project with LAAS-CNRS in France that will be presented at the Conference on Robot Learning. More videos can be found on the Machines in Motion Laboratory YouTube page.}

Righetti leads the Machines in Motion Laboratory at NYU Tandon, holds an international chair at the Artificial and Natural Intelligence Toulouse Institute (ANITI) in France and currently serves as a Vice-President of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. His team invents algorithms to make robots that walk and manipulate objects autonomous, versatile and safe to interact with. His novel approaches to machine learning and optimal control aim to create intelligent robots that “understand” when and how to interact with their environment, unknown objects and people in a safe and reliable manner. 

Besides creating new possibilities in the field of autonomous machines, he is making robots accessible to more researchers with his Open Dynamic Robot Initiative which created the Solo 8 and 12 quadrupeds, a low-cost, high performance, open source alternative to expensive, closed-source, quadruped robots. Righetti also cares about the broader societal impacts of robotics and regularly works with international organizations on these topics, especially on issues related to peace and security. 

His work has received prestigious awards including the 2010 Georges Giralt PhD Award, the 2011 IROS Best Paper Award, the 2016 IEEE RAS Early Career Award, the 2016 Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize from the German Research Foundation and NYU Tandon’s 2024 Jacobs Excellence in Education Innovation Award.

Loianno, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, will be giving a keynote lecture at the 2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), held in Abu Dhabi, UAE. IROS is — along with ICRA — the largest and most important robotics research conference in the world, attracting researchers, academics, and industry professionals from around the globe. Loianno, an expert on perception, learning, and control for autonomous robots, will speak on his talk on October 15th about speeding up flying machines  through agility and collaboration.

^{More videos can be found on the ARPL YouTube Page.}

Loianno leads the Agile Robotics and Perception Lab and is also a member of NYU WIRELESS. The lab performs fundamental and applied research in the area of robot autonomy focusing on agile and collaborative autonomous machines capable to operate in unstructured and dynamically changing environments without relying on any external infrastructure and are able to improve their autonomous behaviors learning from their experience. 

His achievements have been recognized with several prestigious awards, including the NSF CAREER Award, DARPA Young Faculty Award, the IROS Toshio Fukuda Young Professional Award in 2022, the Best Associate Editor Award from the Conference Editorial Board at ICRA 2022, and the Best Paper Finalist at ICRA 2024. His work and ideas have also been widely featured in prominent international publications, such as IEEE Spectrum, Popular Science, Scientific American, TechCrunch, MIT Technology Review, Wall Street Journal, and Quartz.

The two researchers are key members of NYU Tandon’s robotics faculty. Robotics research and education at NYU focuses on developing and teaching the fundamental principles, theories, and algorithms for autonomous intelligent machines. Through their research and education, they aim to enhance mobility, service, infrastructure, and healthcare in a future marked by automation.