Gabriele Nava πŸš€
Gabriele Nava

PostDoc Researcher, Robotics Engineer

About Me

I obtained my bachelor and master degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano (Milan, IT) in 2013 and 2015. I completed my Ph.D. in Bioengineering and Robotics at UniversitΓ  degli Studi di Genova (Genoa, IT) in 2020. Presently, I am a Post-doctoral Researcher at the Artificial and Mechanical Intelligence Laboratory, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Genoa, IT).

My primary research focuses on the analysis and design of whole-body flight controllers for humanoid robots, specifically within the Aerial Humanoid Robotics research area. As the Scrum Master and technical coordinator of the iRonCub group, my goal is to enable the humanoid robot iCub to attain flight capabilities.

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Interests
  • Robotics πŸ€–
  • DIY projects πŸ”¨
  • Hicking 🚡
  • Gardening 🌱
Education
  • PhD in Bioengineering and Robotics

    University of Genoa (IT)

  • M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering

    Politecnico di Milano (IT)

  • B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering

    Politecnico di Milano (IT)

Experience

  1. PostDoctoral Researcher

    Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
    • Lead technical coordination and management (Scrum Master) of the iRonCub team, a multidisciplinary group developing a jet-powered humanoid robot for disaster response.
    • Implementing automatic tuning of flight controllers using Reinforcement Learning; designing whole-body flight controllers for humanoid robots.
    • Co-tutor Ph.D. candidates and M.Sc. students in areas including robot force/torque control, aerodynamics, trajectory planning, jet engines and sensor modeling, hardware design and co-design strategies.
  2. Ph.D. Researcher

    Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
    • Stability analysis and design of force controllers for humanoid robots balancing using Quadratic Programming.
    • Control of robots with Series Elastic Actuators and robot balancing in highly dynamic environments.
  3. Visiting Ph.D.

    Laboratory for Analysis and Architecture of Systems, Toulouse (FR)
    • Design of force control algorithms for aerial manipulators equipped with on board Force/Torque sensors.
  4. Research Fellow

    Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
    • Design of force and momentum based whole-body controllers for humanoid robots, in the context of the European Projects KOROIBOT and CoDyCo.

Education

  1. PhD in Bioengineering and Robotics

    University of Genoa (IT)
    Thesis on Instantaneous Momentum-Based Control of Floating Base Systems.
    Read Thesis
  2. M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering

    Politecnico di Milano (IT)
    Thesis on Analysis and Synthesis of Balancing Controllers for Humanoid Robots.
  3. B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering

    Politecnico di Milano (IT)
Technical Skills
πŸ€– Software for Robotics
C++
Python
MATLAB/Simulink
YARP
iDynTree
Gazebo Simulator
βš™οΈ OS and Utilities
Windows
Linux
GitHub/GitLab
Word/Excel
PowerPoint
Latex
Languages
75%
English
100%
Italian
25%
French
Selected Projects

A selection of projects that I have worked on over the years.

Featured Publications
Publications
(2024). From cad to urdf: Co-design of a jet-powered humanoid robot including cad geometry,. 2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).
(2024). Learning to Walk and Fly with Adversarial Motion Priors. 2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).
(2024). Co-design optimisation of morphing topology and control of winged drones. 2024 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).
(2023). Nonlinear In-situ Calibration of Strain-Gauge Force/Torque Sensors for Humanoid Robots. 2023 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robotics (Humanoids).
(2023). Failure Detection and Fault Tolerant Control of a Jet-Powered Flying Humanoid Robot. International Conference on Robotics and Automation.