Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Tommaso Polonelli is a pioneering roboticist whose work is reshaping the capabilities of miniature autonomous systems, particularly nano-UAVs and tiny robots. His primary research areas center on enabling fully onboard Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), multimodal sensor fusion, and ultra-lightweight collaborative perception for robot swarms. Polonelli’s major contributions include the development of **NanoSLAM**, a breakthrough algorithm that brings fully onboard SLAM to resource-constrained tiny robots, achieving 26 citations for its foundational impact. He further advanced autonomous navigation with **Stargate**, a multimodal sensor fusion system for miniaturized UAVs (18 citations), and **SuperBat**, which fuses ultrasonic and laser-based time-of-flight sensors for robust obstacle avoidance on nano-UAVs. His most recent work, **Ultra-Lightweight Collaborative SLAM for Robot Swarms**, pushes the boundaries of distributed mapping in multi-robot systems. Polonelli’s research is notable for overcoming extreme payload and computational limitations, enabling tiny robots to perceive, map, and navigate complex environments entirely onboard—a critical step toward deploying swarms in search-and-rescue, infrastructure inspection, and close-proximity human interaction. His work consistently demonstrates that even the smallest platforms can achieve sophisticated autonomy.