Publications by Michael Bonani

Bringing robotics into formal education using the Thymio open source hardware robot

Francesco Mondada, Michael Bonani, Léa Marie Pereyre, Fanny Riedo, Stéphane Magnenat, Philippe Rétornaz, Manon Aline Briod

Mobile robots are valuable tools for education because of both the enthusiasm they raise and the multidisciplinary nature of robotics technology. Mobile robots give access to a wide range of fields, such as complex mechanics, sensors, wireless transmission ...

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers2017

Bio-inspired construction with mobile robots and compliant pockets

Francesco Mondada, Michael Bonani, Touraj Soleymani

In this paper, we develop an autonomous construction system in which self-contained ground robots build a protective barrier by means of compliant pockets. We present a stochastic control algorithm based on two biological mechanisms–stigmergy and templates ...

Elsevier2015

Cooperative navigation in robotic swarms

Francesco Mondada, Michael Bonani, Stéphane Magnenat, Philippe Rétornaz

We study cooperative navigation for robotic swarms in the context of a general event-servicing scenario. In the scenario, one or more events need to be serviced at specific locations by robots with the required skills. We focus on the question of how the s ...

Springer Verlag2013

Seamless Multi-Robot Programming for the People: ASEBA and the Wireless Thymio II Robot

Francesco Mondada, Michael Bonani, Stéphane Magnenat, Philippe Rétornaz, Florian Christopher Vaussard, Fanny Riedo

IEEE2013

Swarmanoid: a novel concept for the study of heterogeneous robotic swarms

Dario Floreano, Francesco Mondada, Daniel Burnier, Michael Bonani, Stéphane Magnenat, Philippe Rétornaz, Florian Christopher Vaussard, Timothy Stirling, James Roberts, Valentin Longchamp

2013

Towards Long-Term Collective Experiments

Francesco Mondada, Michael Bonani, Philippe Rétornaz, Florian Christopher Vaussard, Steven Adriaan Roelofsen, François Rey

It is often challenging to manage the battery supply when dealing with a fleet of mobile robots during long experiments. If one uses classical recharge stations, then agents are immobilized during the whole recharge process. In this study, we present a nov ...

Springer Berlin Heidelberg2013

Involving and training public school teachers in using robotics for education

Francesco Mondada, Michael Bonani, Fanny Riedo, Mariza Freire

The introduction of technology in the public school teaching process could help increasing the weak motivation we can observe toward engineering studies. To achieve this goal, one main obstacle is motivating public school teachers to use technological tool ...

2012

A Programming Workshop using the Robot "Thymio II": The Effect on the Understanding by Children

Francesco Mondada, Michael Bonani, Stéphane Magnenat, Fanny Riedo

Robots are both fascinating objects for the general public and devices whose conception, understanding and pro- gramming involve many fields. This unique combination makes them an ideal tool for introducing science and technology to children. This paper pr ...

IEEE2012

Physical interactions in swarm robotics: the hand-bot case study

Francesco Mondada, Hannes Bleuler, Michael Bonani, Stéphane Magnenat, Philippe Rétornaz

This paper presents a case-study on the performance achieved by the mechanical interactions of self-assembling mobile robots. This study is based on the hand-bot robot, designed to operate within heterogeneous swarms of robots. The hand-bot is specialized ...

Springer2012

Towards Autonomous Energy-Wise RObjects

Alcherio Martinoli, Francesco Mondada, Michael Bonani, Philippe Rétornaz, Florian Christopher Vaussard

In this article, the RObject concept is first introduced. This is followed by a survey of applicable energy scavenging technologies. Energy is a key issue for the large scale deployment of robotics in daily life, as recharging the batteries places a consid ...

Springer Berlin Heidelberg2011