Dario Floreano

Floreano received a bachelor's degree from the University of Trieste with a major in visual psychophysics in 1988. In 1989, he joined the Italian National Research Council in Rome as research fellow. He received a master's degree in computer sciences with a specialisation in neural computation from the University of Stirling in 1992. In 1995, he earned a PhD in artificial intelligence and robotics from the University of Trieste. Following a position as chief scientific officer at Cognitive Technology Laboratory Ltd, he joined the EPFL in 1996 as group leader in the Department of Computer Science. In 2000, Floreano was first named assistant professor, then in 2005 Associate Professor and in 2010 Full Professor of Intelligent Systems at EPFL's School of Engineering. He was the founding director of the Swiss National Center of Competence in Robotics, which ran for 12 years, between 2010 and 2022.[3][4] Floreano was named "AI influencer in Switzerland" in 2021.[5]

Floreano is interested in biologically inspired artificial intelligence and robots. He made pioneering contributions to Evolutionary Robotics, a research field where robots equipped with artificial neural networks are evolved using artificial evolution;[5] to Autonomous Drones with a series of innovative machines loosely inspired from insects and birds, and to Soft Robotics with the development of multi-functional materials for wearable robots, flying robots, modular robots, and even edible robots.[3] He published hundreds of peer-reviewed articles and four books on neural networks, evolutionary robotics, bio-inspired artificial intelligence, and bio-inspired flying robots.[6]

Floreano co-organized several international conferences in the fields of bio-mimetic engineering and is or has been on the editorial board of several international journals: Science Robotics; Neural Networks; Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines; Adaptive Behavior; Artificial Life; Connection Science; Evolutionary Computation; IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation; Autonomous Robots; Evolutionary Intelligence.

He was co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of the International Society for Artificial Life, Inc., member of the Board of Governors of the International Society for Neural Networks, Advisory Board member of the Future and Emerging Technology division of the European Commission, and founding members and vice-chair of the General Agenda Council on Robotics of the World Economic Forum.

He was also director of a podcast series which featured interviews with professionals in robotics and artificial intelligence for an inside view on the science, technology, and business of intelligent robotics. His former PhD students and postdocs continued and expanded the podcast.

In addition to academic research and teaching, Dario Floreano has spun off two drone companies, senseFly (2009) and Flyability (2014), which continue to set new standards in user-friendly professional drones for inspection, agriculture, and survey. He also lectures at international conferences, governmental meetings, and company events. He is particularly interested in exploring the co-evolution of intelligent robots and humans.

• Nolfi, Stefano; Floreano, Dario (2000). Evolutionary Robotics: The Biology, Intelligence, and Technology of Self-Organizing Machines. ISBN 9780262640565.
• Mondada, Francesco; Bonani, Michael; Raemy, Xavier; Pugh, James; Cianci, Christopher; Klaptocz, Adam; Magnenat, Stephane; Zufferey, Jean-Christophe; Floreano, Dario; Martinoli, Alcherio, eds. (2009). "The e-puck, a Robot Designed for Education in Engineering". Proceedings of the 9th Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions.
• Floreano, Dario; Wood, Robert J. (2015). "Science, technology and the future of small autonomous drones". Nature. 521 (7553): 460–466. Bibcode:2015Natur.521..460F. doi:10.1038/nature14542. PMID 26017445. S2CID 4463263.
• Marbach, Daniel; Prill, Robert J.; Schaffter, Thomas; Mattiussi, Claudio; Floreano, Dario; Stolovitzky, Gustavo (2010). "Revealing strengths and weaknesses of methods for gene network inference". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 107 (14): 6286–6291. Bibcode:2010PNAS..107.6286M. doi:10.1073/pnas.0913357107. PMC 2851985. PMID 20308593.
• Floreano, Dario; Dürr, Peter; Mattiussi, Claudio (2008). "Neuroevolution: From architectures to learning". Evolutionary Intelligence. 1: 47–62. doi:10.1007/s12065-007-0002-4. S2CID 2942634.
• Shintake, Jun; Cacucciolo, Vito; Floreano, Dario; Shea, Herbert (2018). "Soft Robotic Grippers". Advanced Materials. 30 (29): e1707035. Bibcode:2018AdM....3007035S. doi:10.1002/adma.201707035. PMID 29736928. S2CID 13686166.
• Floreano, Dario; Mattiussi, Claudio (22 August 2008). Bio-Inspired Artificial Intelligence: Theories, Methods, and Technologies. ISBN 9780262303910.
• Floreano, D.; Mondada, F. (1996). "Evolution of homing navigation in a real mobile robot". IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics - Part B: Cybernetics. 26 (3): 396–407. doi:10.1109/3477.499791. PMID 18263042.
• Shintake, Jun; Rosset, Samuel; Schubert, Bryan; Floreano, Dario; Shea, Herbert (2016). "Versatile Soft Grippers with Intrinsic Electroadhesion Based on Multifunctional Polymer Actuators". Advanced Materials. 28 (2): 231–238. Bibcode:2016AdM....28..231S. doi:10.1002/adma.201504264. PMID 26551665. S2CID 34468120.
• Schaffter, Thomas; Marbach, Daniel; Floreano, Dario (2011). "GeneNet Weaver: In silico benchmark generation and performance profiling of network inference methods". Bioinformatics. 27 (16): 2263–2270. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btr373. PMID 21697125.

• Dario Floreano publications indexed by Google Scholar
• Website of the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems