Two intense months for the Rainbow research team

Strong presence of the Rainbow research team at the ICRA 2025 international conference in Atlanta in May

In May, the ICRA 2025 international conference took place in Atlanta (USA), the major robotics conference where the Rainbow research team particularly stood out through its involvement in the workshop committees.
In fact, four workshops proposed by members of the team were accepted - a first since the creation of the conference.

• Workshop "25 years of aerial robotics : challenges and opportunities"
  with Marco Tognon (Inria researcher).
  This workshop focused on the evolution of aerial robotics methods and technologiesin the last 25 years. This includes the evolution of the platforms, estimation andcontrol methods, perception, planning and the application of artificial intelligence.

• Workshop "Human-centric robotics for telepresence"
  with Claudio Pacchierotti (CNRS researcher).
  The workshop "Human-Centric Robotics for Telepresence" aimed to explore the impact of telepresence robotics, focusing on enriching user experience and societal well-being. This interdisciplinary event will emphasise the critical role of human factors in shaping robotic applications across industry, healthcare, and more.

• Workshop "Empowering Humans with Miniaturized Sensing and Control : Shared Autonomy for Small-Scale Robots (SASSR)"
  with Marco Ferro (CNRS research engineer) and Paolo Robuffo Giordano (CNRS senior researcher).
  This workshop addressed perceptual mechanisms for real-time feedback, human-centred control strategies, multi-sensory feedback rendering and new applications in healthcare, industry and beyond.

• Workshop "Beyond the lab : robust planning and control in real world scenarios"
  avec Tommaso Belvedere (post doctorant CNRS) et Paolo Robuffo Giordano (directeur de recherche CNRS).
  This workshop aimed to address these challenges by bringing together top researchers and practitioners to explore the state of the art in integrated robust planning and control. We will focus on planning strategies that ensure system functionality despite disturbances/uncertainties, in line with the growing trend towards optimization-based predictive control.

Organisation, at the beginning of June, of the IG-RV GdR plenary days in Rennes

At the beginning of June, the plenary days of the IG-RV Group took place at INSA Rennes, on the Beaulieu campus, led by Maud Marchal (professor at INSA Rennes). 
The first day, entitled ‘Back to the future’, was devoted to a retrospective of the GdR's themes, while the second day was devoted to multidisciplinary presentations at the interface of the GdR, notably on interactions with HMI, robotics, physics and cosmology.

Congratulations to ...

Congratulations to Antonin Cheymol, who was awarded the GDR IG-RV 2025 Thesis Prize for his thesis entitled "Reshaping the virtual body's appearance and movements: A contribution to the study of avatar alteration in virtual reality", under the supervision of Fernando Argelaguet Sanz (Inria researcher in the Seamless team), Jean-Marie Normand (researcher at École Centrale de Nantes), Anatole Lecuyer (Inria researcher in the Seamless team) and Rebecca Fribourg (researcher at École Centrale de Nantes).
Antonin did his PhD in the Seamless team and is now a postdoctoral fellow at Keio University in Japan.

TS3 and GICAT Workshop on multi-robot systems held in Rennes in mid-June

In mid-June, the Inria Conference Centre hosted the TS3 and GICAT Workshop on multi-robot systems, organised by Marco Tognon (Inria researcher). The event brought together around fifty participants from academia and industry to attend four invited lectures, 12 scientific presentations, live robotics demonstrations and lively discussions on the challenges and future directions of multi-robot systems.

IFRATH thesis prize: congratulations to ...

Congratulations to Pierre-Antoine Cabaret, who completed his doctorate in the Rainbow team and has just been awarded the IFRATH Thesis Prize. This prize was awarded for his work on the Dornell Challenge. IFRATH (Institut Fédératif de Recherche sur les Aides Techniques pour personnes Handicapées) awards this prize to encourage and promote research into physical, sensory and cognitive disabilities, as well as accessibility and autonomy.