Michele Focchi is a world recognized expert in motion planning and control of quadruped robots, with 16 years of experience in the field of robotics. He is particularly known for his pioneering work on heuristic locomotion in unstructured terrains. Currently, he holds the position of scientific advisor for ALL3 and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Trento. In 2013 he got a PhD in robotics at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia where he was co-founder of the Dynamic Legged System (DLS) lab, an international research team dedicated to the development of quadruped robots and the study of their locomotion. His research interests lie at the intersection between control, optimization and machine learning with a focus on enhancing the performance of quadruped robots in challenging environments, by using optimization-based techniques. He explored innovative robotic platforms, such as a rappelling robot, to address specific challenges like hydro-geological risk reduction. Michele joined the Interdepartmental Robotics Lab (IDRA) where he is the leading researcher of the digital agriculture robotics group.

More information are available at Michele’s webpage.