About David Folio

Doctorate degree and post-doctorate

I have defended my PhD in Robotics in 2007 within the Robotics, Action, and Perception (RAP) group of the Laboratory for Analysis and Architecture of Systems¹ (LAAS), CNRS², under the supervision of Viviane Cadenat, Associate Professor at the Paul Sabatier University of Toulouse, France. Specifically, my PhD thesis was entitled “Multi-sensor-based control strategies and visual signal loss management for mobile robots navigation” [5]. My thesis subject was to design multi-sensor-based control strategies allowing a mobile robot to perform vision-based tasks amidst possibly occluding obstacles. Indeed, the improvement of sensors gave rise to the sensor-based control which allows defining the robotic task in the sensor space rather than in the configuration space.
In addition, during my doctorate degree, I also had the opportunity to perform teaching activities, first as temporary teacher (3 years), and then as teaching assistant, specifically in French as “Attaché Temporaire d’Enseignement et de Recherche” (ATER, 1 year), both for the Paul Sabatier University of Toulouse. These global teaching experiences have led to a total volume of 308 hETD³.

Between 2007 and 2008, I joined the Lagadic team at Inria⁴ Rennes-Bretagne Atlantique as a post-doctoral fellow on sensory control for unmanned aerial vehicles. My postdoctoral fellow has been supported by Sensory Control for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (SCUAV) ANR project⁵. The main objective was to improve multi-sensor-based servoing tasks for unmanned aerial vehicles. The idea was to design robust control law that combine different sensory data directly at the control level. Especially, I have contributed to the design of a new online sensor self-calibration based on the sensor/robot interaction links [4].

Tenured as associate professor

In 2008, I was recruited as Associate Professor for the 61^st CNU section⁶ at the Graduate Engineering School (ENSI) of Bourges, which is since 2014 the INSA Centre Val de Loire. Since my tenure, I have been regularly involved in the life of the Institute. I contribute at a local level to the scientific animations (e.g. organization of laboratory visits), transfer and training-research relationship. For instance, I regularly attend the international relations division by accompanying the different delegations of schools and universities partners during their visits. In March 2017, the direction of the INSA Centre Val de Loire given to me the mission of referent racism and antisemitism.

As a lecturer, I am involved, among others, in the development of electronics and electrical sciences teaching activities within the Institute. Since tenured as associate professor, my average teaching load is about 270 hETD per year. Similarly, various responsibilities entrusted to me have also influenced my teaching duties. Since September 2014, I am in charge of the option entitled Nuclear Energy of the 5^th year (engineer’s degree, M2) of the Industrial Risk Control (MRI) department. Between 2017 and 2020, I have been elected as member of the council department of the Energy, Risks and Environment (ERE); and since November 2020 I am an elected member of the council department of Industrial Risk Control (MRI).

Furthermore, I carry out my research activities with the PRISME Laboratory⁷ in the Robotics team belonging to the Images, Robotics, Automatic control and Signal (IRAuS) department. Since I have been an associate professor, my field of scientific research mainly focused on the modeling and control for nano and micro-robots in a biomedical context. Globally, my main contributions focus on the study of magnetic medical microrobots for targeted therapies.
Meanwhile, I have also contributed to the development of micromanipulation activities of the laboratory [2], [3].

Finally, on December 3, 2021, I defended my habilitation (namely in French “Habilitation à Diriger la Recherche” – HDR) which I entitled “Magnetic Microrobotics for Biomedical Applications” [1].