Research Assistant – PhD student, Biorobotics Laboratory, EPFL
Short Bio
Massimo Vespignani is a PhD student in the Biorobotics Laboratory (BioRob) at EPFL. He received his M.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Campus Bio-Medico University (Rome, Italy) in 2009.
He is currently working on the Roombots project, focusing on the design and control of compliant modular robots. He is also collaborating in the development of lightweight compliant quadruped robots.
His research interests include reconfiguring modular robotic systems, mechanical design, bio-inspired robotics, legged locomotion, compliance, and soft robotics.
Publications
. Rich periodic motor skills on humanoid robots: Riding the pedal racer. 2014 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Hong Kong, China, 2014.
. Natural User Interface for Roombots. RO-MAN 2014, The 23rd IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 2014. RO-MAN 2014 Best Paper Award.
. Automatic Generation of Reduced CPG Control Networks for Locomotion of Arbitrary Modular Robot Structures. Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), Berkeley, USA, 2014.
. Sensorized Foot Design for Robust Locomotion: A Study Using Cheetah-Cub. Dynamic Locomotion Workshop @ RSS Conference, Berkeley, USA, 2014.
Roombots: A Hardware Perspective on 3D Self-Reconfiguration and Locomotion with a Homogeneous Modular Robot, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Volume 62, Issue 7, July 2014, Pages 1016-1033, 2014.
. An experimental study on the role of compliant elements on the locomotion of the self-reconfigurable modular robots Roombots. 2013 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Tokyo, Japan, 2013.
. Collaborative Manipulation and Transport of Passive Pieces Using the Self-Reconfigurable Modular Robots Roombots. 2013 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Tokyo, Japan, 2013.
. Gait Optimization for Roombots Modular Robots – Matching Simulation and Reality. 2013 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Tokyo, Japan, 2013.
Horse-like walking, trotting, and galloping derived from kinematic Motion Primitives (kMPs) and their application to walk/trot transitions in a compliant quadruped robot, in Biological Cybernetics, p. 1–12, 2013.
Towards Dynamic Trot Gait Locomotion—Design, Control and Experiments with Cheetah-cub, a Compliant Quadruped Robot. International Journal of Robotics Research, vol. 32, num. 8, p. 932 – 950, 2013.
. Robot Trotting with Segmented Legs in Simulation and Hardware. Dynamic Walking 2012, Pensacola Beach, Florida. USA, 2012.
. Locomotion through Reconfiguration based on Motor Primitives for Roombots Self-Reconfigurable Modular Robots. 7th German Conference on Robotics – Robotik 2012, Munich, Germany, 2012.
Dynamic Characterization and Interaction Control of the CBM-Motus Robot for Upper-Limb Rehabilitation, in International Journal Of Advanced Robotic Systems, vol. 10, 2013.
A mechatronic platform for behavioral analysis on nonhuman primates, in Journal Of Integrative Neuroscience, vol. 11, p. 87-101, 2012.