Dr. Federico Renda is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Before joining Khalifa University, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the BioRobotics Institute of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, where he received his Ph.D. degree in 2014.
Dr. Federico Renda joined the LS2N lab at IMT Atlantique and the DEFROST Lab at INRIA as a Visiting Professor in 2018, 2019, and 2022. He currently serves as Associate Editor in Soft Robotics, the International Journal of Robotics Research, and the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters journals.
His research interests include dynamic modeling and control of soft and underwater robots using principles of geometric mechanics. Dr. Renda is also a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
Soft Underwater Locomotion and Manipulation for Seamless Monitoring and Intervention in Extreme Marine Environments (Sponsored by KU)
Underwater soft robotics is receiving growing popularity within the scientific community, thanks to its prospective capability of tackling challenges that are hardly dealt with by traditional rigid technologies, especially while interacting with an unstructured environment. Incorporating the benefits of the two approaches, in this project, we propose a multifunctional multi-module underwater robotic system with deformable appendages for grasping and propulsion, inspired by bacteria morphology.
Heterogeneous swarm of Underwater Autonomous Vehicles (Sponsored by TII)
In this Research Project a swarm of heterogeneous underwater robotic fishes will be investigated. Starting from the biological counterparts of real school fishes, an artificial school of 30 hybrid (remotely controlled and autonomous) underwater robots will be implemented, consisting of 5 “special” fishes integrated with more sensors and communication channels with the remote operator, and 25 “normal” autonomous fishes, with less sensors and able to communicate each other (a safety methodology to recover the robot is integrated in case of emergency). Additional to that, a floating beacon is able to collect data from fishes. A static robot deployed on the sea floor and able to resurface after operation is designed to collect environmental data.
Artificial Feather Stars: A Multi-functional, Multi-agent and Hyper-redundant Approach for Soft Underwater Robotics (Sponsored by ONRG)
In this project, we propose a novel underwater soft robot inspired by feather stars, a swimming specimen of the Crinoidea family, composed of multiple, branching soft modules that surround the main body of the animal as well as its robotics counterpart. Exploiting its elongated structure and natural compliance, each module will combine propulsion and manipulation skills in order to obtain a highly redundant system able to adapt to different tasks. The proposed design has the potential to unveil an effective solution for a broad range of underwater operations currently unsolved. It also allows safe, robust, and gentle manipulation and intervention in human-made underwater structures such as oil and gas pipelines.
Have a look at Dr. Renda's last seminar.
https://kuacae-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/haider_butt_ku_ac_ae/EajoLR8N8bhDq-eKdLYTk2UBPi7UQmX7PW2ynd_52gCctw
