Dario Floreano

Floreano received an M.A. in visual psychophysics from the University of Trieste in 1988, an M.Sc. in neural computation from the University of Stirling in 1992, and a Ph.D. in cognitive systems and robotics from the University of Trieste in 1995.

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;[4] 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, and modular robots. He published hundreds of peer-reviewed articles and four books on neural networks, evolutionary robotics, bio-inspired artificial intelligence, and bio-inspired flying robots.

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: 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 the popular podcast series Talking Robots,[5] which featured interviews with high-profile 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, which today is called The Robotics 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 delivers high-profile keynotes at international conferences, governmental meetings, and company events. He is particularly interested in exploring the co-evolution of intelligent robots and humans.

• Dario Floreano publications indexed by Google Scholar