Philippe Nadeau

PhD Candidate in the STARS Lab at the University of Toronto Robotics Institute.
Seeking opportunities in robotics research and development. Expected graduation in September 2025.

I envision a future where robots will have the ability to interact intelligently and safely with their environment using perception, prior knowledge, common sense and reasoning. A wise usage of these robots, combined with foresighted politics, will reduce socio-economic inequalities and our environmental footprint.

My interests lie at the intersection of perception and planning with an emphasis on fast and general algorithms deployed on real robots in human-centric environments. I am particularly interested in enhancing the autonomy of mobile manipulators and collaborative robots in object handling tasks.

I earned my Bachelor degree from the École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS) in the Department of Systems Engineering. At ETS, I was enrolled in Automated Manufacturing Engineering, which focus on industrial robotics, mechatronics and control. I then joined the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) where I am currently pursuing a PhD degree in robotics with the STARS Laboratory directed by Prof. Jonathan Kelly.

Previously, I had the chance to perform research in many incredible laboratories such as the Control and Robotics (CoRo) laboratory at ETS with Prof. Vincent Duchaine, the Embodied Dexterity Group (EDG) at UC Berkeley with Prof. Hannah Stuart, the Orthopedics and Imaging Laboratory (LIO) at ETS with Prof. Rachid Aissaoui and the STARS Laboratory at the University of Toronto with Prof. Jonathan Kelly.

You can find my curriculum vitae here: http://philna.de/au/cven

news

Nov 14, 2024 I have finally made our paper titled “Robustness Assessment of Static Structures for Efficient Object Handling” available on ArXiv! This paper presents a novel approach to assess the robustness of static structures for efficient object handling. Check it out here.
Oct 16, 2024 Our paper titled “Stable Object Placement Planning From Contact Point Robustness” is now available on ArXiv! If you are interested in learning more about how plan general stable object placements much faster, check it out here.
Jan 16, 2023 Our paper titled “The Sum of Its Parts: Visual Part Segmentation for Inertial Parameter Identification of Manipulated Objects” was accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation 2023, which will happen in London (UK)! If you plan on attending, let me know!
Oct 1, 2022 It’s my great pleasure to announce that I was awarded a NSERC Canada Doctoral Scholarship worth 105,000$ over three years. This prestigious scholarship will allow me to focus on my future reasearch, and is an awesome recognition of the work done so far.
Mar 2, 2022 Our paper titled “Fast Object Inertial Parameter Identification for Collaborative Robots” was accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation 2022! See you in Philly!
Mar 1, 2022 Our paper titled “Learning to Detect Slip with Barometric Tactile Sensors and a Temporal Convolutional Neural Network” was accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation 2022!
Sep 6, 2021 Our paper titled “Under Pressure: Learning to Detect Slip with Barometric Tactile Sensors” was accepted for presentation at the IEEE/RSJ International Workshop on New Advances in Tactile Sensation, Interactive Perception, Control, and Learning (RoboTac2021)!
Jul 19, 2021 I was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology!
Jun 1, 2021 Our paper titled “Tactile-Based Object Recognition Using a Grasp-Centric Exploration” was accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE)!