Late 2020, two prizes were announced, both awarding the Inria Defrost team for their simulation achievements in soft-robotics.

French Academy of Sciences 2020

The Ernest Dechelle Prize was awarded to Christian Duriez, Inria research director, head of Defrost, a joint research team Inria (joint lab with CNRS, University of Lille, Centrale Lille and IMT Lille Douai). This distinction was awarded regarding his research on modeling and control of soft-robotcs. Christian Duriez proposed a pioneering approach for the control of these robots based on finite element methods calculated in real-time, and on the management of contacts with their environment. It must be added that the Defrost team is one of the greatest contributor to the SOFA project!

A prestigious award for a unique researcher!

Best PhD in Robotics

Lately made official, Dr. Eulalie Coevoet was awarded the prize for the best French Phd thesis in Robotics in 2019! This prize highlights especially her work on optimization-based inverse model of soft robots, with contact handling.

Eulalie is a former PhD from the Defrost team and is currently working as a post-doctoral fellow at University of Naples Federico II.

Proud to have such academic partners within the community!