Antonio Franchi joins the selected UT company of IEEE Fellows

UT member Antonio Franchi, full professor in Aerial Robotics Control in the Robotics and Mechatronics (RAM) department of the EEMCS faculty, has been elevated to the grade of IEEE Fellow (class of 2023). This prestigious honour has been awarded by the IEEE - one of the largest association of technical professionals in the world - and acknowledges Prof. Franchi "contribution to modelling, design, and control for aerial and distributed robotic systems" . The elevation takes effect from 1 January 2023 and will be officially awarded at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation in May 2023, in London, UK. Contribution to aerial robotic systems. Professor Franchi made his most significant contribution to the robotics field with his ground-breaking and extensive work, both at the theoretical and experimental level, on the so-called 'generic' multi-rotors. Before the work of professor Franchi and his team, standard aerial robotic systems were limited to the collinear/coplanar structure, such as quadrotors, using symmetrically inclined blades. Dissatisfied by the shortcomings of these platforms, Prof. Franchi's team pioneered the introduction of many novel designs, such as the fully-actuated, omnidirectional (in every direction), morphing, and the cable-interconnected ones.