Biography
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 Università 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.
Download my cv.
Interests
- Robotics 🤖
- DIY projects 🔨
- Hicking 🚵
- Gardening 🌱
Education
PhD in Bioengineering and Robotics, 2020
University of Genoa (IT)
M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering, 2015
Politecnico di Milano (IT)
B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering, 2013
Politecnico di Milano (IT)
Experience
Postdoc Researcher at the Artificial and Mechanical Intelligence Lab
- Technical coordination and management (Scrum Master) of the iRonCub team. It is a multidisciplinary team of about 10 people working on mechanical design, estimation and control of a jet-powered humanoid robot for disaster response.
- Co-tutoring of several Ph.D. candidates and M.Sc. students, in research areas including: robot torque control and control in aerodynamic conditions, trajectory planning for flight-to-walk transition maneuvers, jet-engines and force/torque sensor modeling, design and control of morphing covers.
- Analysis and design of whole-body flight controllers for humanoid robots, implemented in Matlab-Simulink and C++ and tested on the iCub and iRonCub humanoid robots.
Ph.D. Researcher at the Artificial and Mechanical Intelligence Lab
- Stability analysis and design of balancing controllers for humanoid robots using Quadratic Programming.
- Control of robots with Series Elastic Actuators and robot balancing in highly dynamic environments.
Research Fellow at the Dynamic Interaction Control Lab
- Design of force and momentum based whole-body controllers for humanoid robots, in the context of the European Projects KOROIBOT and CoDyCo
Skills
For a more detailed overview of the topics I have worked on at IIT, see also this mindmap.
| Coding Languages 💻 | Familiar with C++ and Python |
|---|---|
| Calculus and Design 🔧 | Proficient in MATLAB and Simulink, familiar with PTC Creo |
| Robotics Software 🤖 | Proficient with YARP, iDynTree, and Gazebo Simulator |
| Version Control 🔍 | Proficient with GitHub and GitLab |
| Operating Systems ⚙️ | Proficient in Windows and Linux |
| Office and Similar 📚 | Proficient with Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Latex |
Projects & Tools
Publications
Quickly discover relevant content by filtering publications.
(2023).
Failure Detection and Fault Tolerant Control of a Jet-Powered Flying Humanoid Robot.
International Conference on Robotics and Automation.
(2023).
Online Non-linear Centroidal MPC for Humanoid Robots Payload Carrying with Contact-Stable Force Parametrization.
2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).
(2022).
Whole-Body Trajectory Optimization for Robot Multimodal Locomotion.
2022 IEEE-RAS 21st International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids).
(2022).
Modeling and Control of Morphing Covers for the Adaptive Morphology of Humanoid Robots.
IEEE Transactions on Robotics.
(2022).
Centroidal Aerodynamic Modeling and Control of Flying Multibody Robots.
2022 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).
(2022).
Nonlinear Model Identification and Observer Design for Thrust Estimation of Small-scale Turbojet Engines.
International Conference on Robotics and Automation.
(2021).
Momentum-Based Extended Kalman Filter for Thrust Estimation on Flying Multibody Robots.
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters.
(2021).
Jerk Control of Floating Base Systems With Contact-Stable Parameterized Force Feedback.
IEEE Transactions on Robotics.
(2020).
Model-Based Real-Time Motion Tracking Using Dynamical Inverse Kinematics.
MDPI Algorithms.
(2020).
Direct Force Feedback Control and Online Multi-Task Optimization for Aerial Manipulators.
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters.
(2020).
Instantaneous Momentum-Based Control of Floating Base Systems.
Ph.D. Thesis.
(2020).
Modeling, Identification and Control of Model Jet Engines for Jet Powered Robotics.
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters.
(2019).
Trajectory Advancement during Human-Robot Collaboration.
2019 28th IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN).
(2019).
Model Based In Situ Calibration with Temperature compensation of 6 axis Force Torque Sensors.
International Conference on Robotics and Automation.
(2018).
Position and Attitude Control of an Underactuated Flying Humanoid Robot.
2018 IEEE-RAS 18th International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids).
(2018).
Robust Real-Time Whole-Body Motion Retargeting from Human to Humanoid.
2018 IEEE-RAS 18th International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids).
(2018).
A Control Architecture with Online Predictive Planning for Position and Torque Controlled Walking of Humanoid Robots.
2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).
(2018).
Exploiting Friction in Torque Controlled Humanoid Robots.
2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).
(2017).
Momentum control of humanoid robots with series elastic actuators.
2017 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).
(2017).
Modeling and control of humanoid robots in dynamic environments: iCub balancing on a seesaw.
2017 IEEE-RAS 17th International Conference on Humanoid Robotics (Humanoids).
(2017).
Safe trajectory optimization for whole-body motion of humanoids.
2017 IEEE-RAS 17th International Conference on Humanoid Robotics (Humanoids).
(2017).
The CoDyCo Project Achievements and Beyond: Toward Human Aware Whole-Body Controllers for Physical Human Robot Interaction.
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters.
(2016).
Automatic gain tuning of a momentum based balancing controller for humanoid robots.
2016 IEEE-RAS 16th International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids).
(2016).
Stability analysis and design of momentum-based controllers for humanoid robots.
2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).
Contact
- gabriele.nava(at)iit.it
- Via San Quirico 19D, Genova, GE, 16163