Michele Focchi
Tenure Track Professor at Address Robotics
Trentino – Alto Adige/Südtirol, Italy
Summary
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Senior🎓
Top SchoolMichele Focchi is a Tenure Track Professor and internationally recognized expert in motion planning and control for quadruped robots, with over a decade of hands-on research and development at the intersection of control, optimization, and machine learning. He pioneered heuristic locomotion strategies for unstructured terrains and advanced optimization-based whole-body control and model identification for real-world robotic platforms. As a professor at the University of Trento and long-term researcher at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, he co-founded the Dynamic Legged Systems Lab and co-created the MOOG-IIT joint lab to translate cutting-edge control theory into industrial robotics solutions. His portfolio spans academic leadership, high-impact collaborations with ESA and industry partners, and applied projects such as rappelling robots for hydro-geological risk reduction and tracked-robot control in agriculture. Consistently productive—authoring 50+ papers, supervising numerous theses, and ranked among the 400 most-cited Italian engineers—he combines deep theoretical insight with practical system-building and technology transfer.
13 years of coding experience
2 years of employment as a software developer
industrial automation technician, industrial automation technician at Professional training school Centro ZavattaLaboratório de Hidráulica e Pneumática, Universidade Federal de Santa CatarinaMaster degree, Master degree at Politecnica de Valencia,SpainUniversity of BolognaDoctor of Philosophy - PhD, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD at Università degli Studi di GenovaMaster's degree, Master's degree at ASPIC, counseling schoolEsame di stato per l'abilitazione alla professione di ingegnere industrialeHigh school diploma, High school diploma at Liceo ScientificoAutomation engineering Master, Automation engineering Master at Politecnico di Milano
English
Github Skills (38)
robotics10
dynamics10
code-generation10
casadi10
urdf10
motion-planning10
kinematics9
fcl9
python9
pinocchio9
automatic-differentiation9
ros9
conda8
model-predictive-control8
algorithms8
Programming languages (5)
Github contributions (5)
iit-DLSLab/ros_impedance_controller
Apr 2019 - Sep 2022
Contributions:98 commits, 51 pushes, 2 branches in 3 years 6 months
iit-DLSLab/dls-gazebo
Jun 2016 - Apr 2018
Contributions:18 commits, 14 pushes, 1 branch in 1 year 10 months
gazebosimulation-modelsroboticssimulationgazebo-simulation
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