Research

A new home for Sustainability Robotics

Published:21.11.24 — Flying robots capable of inspecting and repairing building envelopes, interacting with natural ecosystems, and monitoring climate change and biodiversity are being developed and tested at the DroneHub at Empa's NEST. This cutting-edge facility was inaugurated in partnership with Imperial College London, UK. The DroneHub will support Mirko Kovac's new Chair in Sustainable Robotics, a partnership between Empa and EPFL.

An interpretative framework for the urban banks of the Rhône

Published:12.11.24 — How can the banks of the Rhône be developed in a sustainable and resilient way? That’s the question posed by Sara Formery, architect and postdoctoral researcher at EPFL’s Laboratory of Architecture and Sustainable Technologies (LAST), in this column published in four daily newspapers in French-speaking Switzerland.

Towards comfortable, interactive and zero-carbon buildings

Published:22.10.24 — In the future, buildings will provide enhanced, more personalized comfort to occupants while also achieving zero carbon emissions. This will be possible thanks to advances in sensors and AI, enabling new ways of interacting with our environments while leaving ultimate control in occupants’ hands. Yet, as users, we’ll also need to make lasting changes to our habits.

Catastrophically warm predictions are more plausible than we thought

Published:11.10.24 — EPFL researchers developed a rating system to evaluate the plausibility of climate model simulations in the IPCC’s latest report, and show that models that lead to potentially catastrophic warming are to be taken seriously.