People

Felix Althaus
Felix helped develop the first revision of custom electronics and firmware for the quadcopters used in the Flying Machine Arena (FMA).

Dr. Federico Augugliaro
Federico started working on the Flying Machine Arena in 2008, contributing to the Music in Motion project. During his PhD from 2011 and 2015, Federico developed algorithms for multi-vehicle coordinated flight, physical human-quadcopter interaction, and aerial construction. He concluded his work by using flying machines to build a 7.4 m long rope bridge that a person can walk on.

Dr. Dario Brescianini
Dario carried out his doctoral research in the Flying Machine Arena from 2013 to 2018. His research focused on the design and control of novel flying machines, trajectory planning, attitude control, and learning. He was the main developer of the Omnicopter, a high-performance flying machine that can generate thrusts and torques in any direction, enabling novel flight maneuvers. Additionally, he contributed to various core control and simulation algorithms of the Flying Machine Arena.

Dr. Guillaume Ducard
Guillaume contributed to the initial setup of the Flying Machine Arena during his postdoc in 2008. He designed the very first flight control and guidance systems for the quadcopters. He also developed the first version of the simulator, which enabled the design and debugging of various flight controllers, guidance algorithms, and multi-vehicle coordinated flights.

Dr. Luca Gherardi
Luca focused on improving the Flying Machine Arena software architecture. During his postdoc, he designed and implemented flexible communication protocols used to exchange information between the vehicles and the offboard control software. The aforementioned information includes quasi-real-time command, high-level command, configuration parameters, and state information. Additionally, he contributed to the design of a new simulator that was more modular and flexible than its predecessor.

Dr. Rajan Gill
Rajan was part of the Flying Machine Arena team from 2015 to 2019. His research had an interdisciplinary focus covering various aspects relating to VTOL UAVs. He derived low-order, yet computationally efficient, aerodynamic models for propellers in wide regimes and improved upon state-of-the-art Kalman filtering methods for states involving attitudes. Lastly, he worked on the design and control of an annular wing VTOL UAV. He also worked on path-following control algorithms for quadrotors that can, for example, achieve a platoon formation while maintaining a path constraint.

Dr. Markus Hehn
Markus worked on the Flying Machine Arena from 2009 to 2014. He contributed to and maintained the system’s core control, estimation, calibration, and simulation algorithms. Markus also developed 1) real-time trajectory generation algorithms, 2) collision avoidance methods, 3) control laws for improving tracking performance in repeated motions, and 4) task-specific controllers for aerobatic flight such as interception maneuvers and balancing an inverted pendulum on a flying robot.

Dr. Anton Ledergerber
Anton Ledergerber was part of the Flying Machine Arena team from 2015 to 2019. His research focused on ultra-wideband localization and state estimation. In particular, he developed a one-way communication protocol, a calibration procedure, and a novel angle of arrival estimation method that allowed for the accurate localization of multiple robots. Additionally, he worked on a state estimate recovery algorithm for autonomous quadcopters and an ultra-wideband radar network.

Dr. Sergei Lupashin
Sergei worked on the Flying Machine Arena since its construction in 2008. His contributions include the Flying Machine Arena middleware, the Copilot, a variety of support libraries and programs used by the Flying Machine Arena and other projects, the onboard electronics, and other core infrastructure systems. He also helped realize the first external demonstrations of the Flying Machine Arena and contributed to key design and implementation decisions guiding the evolution of the Flying Machine Arena during its first five years.

Dr. Mark Mueller
Mark worked on the Flying Machine Arena from 2011 to 2015. His research work focused on computationally efficient trajectory generation, fail-safe control for multicopters, the creation of novel multicopter designs with fewer propellers, and state estimation. Additionally, he contributed to and helped maintain various parts of the system’s infrastructure.

Dr. Raymond Oung

Ray performed his doctoral research in the Flying Machine Arena from 2008 to 2013. His primary project was the development of the Distributed Flight Array, a flying platform consisting of multiple, autonomous, single-propeller vehicles. Though the vehicles flew erratically on their own, they could drive on the ground and dock together to fly in a coordinated fashion. In addition to an initial feasibility analysis, Ray worked on the design, state estimation, and control algorithms of the Distributed Flight Array.

Dr. Robin Ritz
Robin was part of the Flying Machine Arena team from 2012 to 2017. His research investigated various topics aiming at enhancing the capabilities of small, unmanned aerial vehicles. In particular, he worked on methods that addressed problems such as carrying a non-rigid payload with multiple cooperating vehicles, improving the performance of a repetitive task through onboard learning, and designing and controlling a vehicle that combines hover capabilities with efficient aerodynamic forward flight.

Dr. Angela Schoellig
Angela carried out her doctoral research in the Flying Machine Arena from 2008 to 2012, where she developed algorithms for learning-based trajectory tracking and rhythmic flight performances. Her trajectory tracking algorithms enabled quadcopters to improve their tracking performance through learning from past trials. Angela also led the Music in Motion project, where she developed the synchronization algorithms that enable rhythmic flight performances of multiple quadcopters to music.

Dr. Michael Sherback
Michael wrote core estimation and motion-control software for vehicles in the Flying Machine Arena as a postdoc in 2009 which was in use through 2012. He also wrote a version of the overall flight control software with an architecture that allowed for a fully break-pointable simulation of flight. He created demo routines for his software including spinning, flipping, figure 8s, and more.

Dr. Weixuan Zhang
Weixuan was part of the Flying Machine Arena team from 2015 to 2018. His research focused on the Monospinner, a mechanical simple flying vehicle with only one moving part. In particular, he was responsible for the modeling, design, controller synthesis, and controllability analysis of the Monospinner.