Paolo GermanoFORMATION
Mars 1990 : Engagement au Laboratoire d'électromécanique et de machines électriques (LEME), devenu entre temps le laboratoire d'actionneurs intégrés (LAI), comme assistant puis comme fonctionnaire scientifique.
Janvier 1990 : Diplôme d'ingénieur EPF en microtechnique.
Juillet 1985 : Maturité de type scientifique.
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- EXPERIENCES ET DOMAINES DE COMPETENCES
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Modélisation et simulation de l'alimentation des moteurs de l'avion Solar Impulse sur la base des résultats de la modélisation par éléments finis (FEM) de la structure magnétique Développement du banc de mesure (mécanique et software) du moteur Solar Impulse (dès mars 2004);
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Dans le cadre d'un Projet CTI en collaboration avec l'entreprise Medtronic (Projet ColoStim), développement d'un appareil de traitement de la constipation consistant en des électrodes implantées le long du colon et alimentées par induction, à haute fréquence, à l'aide d'une bobine primaire placée autour du thorax du patient (janvier 2006 - mars 2007);
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Développement du modèle équivalent d'une montre à glace tactile et analyse de l'effet des décharges électrostatiques sur cette montre. Projet CTI en collaboration avec l'entreprise ETA-Swatch Group (avril 2003 à octobre 2004);
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Développement d'un système de transfert d'énergie pour navettes automotrices de machines d'assemblage. Projet CTI en collaboration avec l'entreprise Montech AG (octobre 2001 à octobre 2002);
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Développement d'une installation de transfert d'énergie pour des wagonnets de transport de rouleaux pour l'industrie du papier avec l'entreprise Valmet AG (Groupe Metso Paper) (2001);
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Développement d'un banc de mesure pour actionneurs linéaires dans le cadre d'un mandat avec l'entreprise Sonceboz SA (mars 1998 - juillet 2000);
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Développement d'une installation de transfert d'énergie pour un convoyeur d'outils dans le cadre d'un mandat avec l'entreprise MCM SpA (Italie) (juillet 1998 avril 1999 et déc. 1999 avril 2000);
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Développement d'un banc de test pour vibreur électromécanique dans le cadre d'un mandat avec l'entreprise ASULAB SA à Marin (octobre décembre 1999);
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Développement et responsabilité d'une installation de démonstration d'un Système de transport automatique à transmission d'énergie par induction - Projet Serpentine 2 PSEL (déc. 1996 juin 1999);
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Développement d'un banc de mesure et d'analyse pour moteurs à courant continu dans le cadre d'un projet d'impulsion RAVEL (sept. 1995 - mars 1997);
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Développement d'un convertisseur de fréquence à résonance de 2,4 kW pour l'alimentation d'un transformateur sans fer dans le cadre du transfert d'énergie sans contacts Projet Serpentine PSEL (février 94 déc. 1995);
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Développement d'un banc de mesure pour moteurs pas à pas dans le cadre d'un mandat avec l'entreprise Sonceboz SA (mars 1992 nov. 1995);
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Développement d'un convertisseur direct de fréquence AC/AC de basse puissance dans le cadre du projet du cur artificiel Suisse (mars 1990 - mars 1992);
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Suivi d'une vingtaine de projets de semestre et de master EPFL;
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Divers projets de moindre envergure (alimentations, démonstrateurs, acquisitions de données, micro-informatique, circuits imprimés).
PUBLICATIONS
DOMAINE DU TRANSFERT D'ENERGIE PAR INDUCTION
M. Jufer, L. Cardoletti, B. Arnet, P. Germano, Ch. Koechli, N. Macabray, M. Perrottet, "Dispositif de transmission d'énergie électrique à un véhicule, sans contact, par induction - Projet PSEL N° 16 - Magnéto-glisseur", Rapport de synthèse 1995, EPFL-DE-LEME, Lausanne - Suisse, 18 octobre 1995;
M. Jufer, L. Cardoletti, P. Germano, B. Arnet, M. Perrottet, N. Macabrey, "Induction Contactless Energy Transmission System for an Electric Vehicle", ICEM96, International Conference on Electrical Machines, Vigo, Sept. 10-12, 1996, Vol II, pp. 343-347;
P. Germano, M. Jufer, "Contactless power transmission: Frequency tuning by a maximum power tracking method", EPE '97, 7th European Conference on power electronics and applications, Trondheim, Sept. 8-10, 1997, Vol IV, pp. 693-697;
M. Jufer, L. Cardoletti, P. Germano, B. Arnet, M. Perrottet, Swiss Federal Institute of Techno-logy, DE-LEME, 1015 Lausanne, Switzer-land, "Inductively powered automatic vehicles - Ser-pen-tine", EVS-15 '98, 15th International Electric Vehicle Symposium and Exhibition, Brussel, Belgium, Sept. 29 - Oct. 3, 1998, pp. 403-404;
P. Germano, Nicolas Macabrey, M. Jufer, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, DE-LEME, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland, "Contactless Power Transmission: Linear Positioning of the Moving Element", EPE '99, 8th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications, Lausanne, 7-9 September, 1999, Art Nb 685;
P. Germano, M. Jufer, L. Cardoletti, B. Arnet, Ch. Koechli, N. Macabray, M. Perrottet, "Système de transport automatique à transmission d'énergie par induction. - Projet PSEL N° 115", Rapport final 1999, EPFL-DE-LEME, Lausanne - Suisse, 31 août 1999;
P. Germano, I. Stefanini, W. Montella, L. Cardoletti, Y. Perriard, "Système de transfert d'énergie pour navette de machines d'assemblage Projet CTI n° 5780.1 KTS", Rapport final, EPF Lausanne-LAI, Suisse, mars 2004;
I. Stefanini, P. Germano, L. Cardoletti, W. Montella, Y. Perriard, "Inductive Charge System for Assembly Plant Shuttles", CD-ROM, EPE 2003, Toulouse, (France), 2-4 Septembre 2003;
P. Germano, I. Stefanini, Y. Perrirad, "Stimulation colique pour le traitement des troubles de la motilité Projet ColoStim Projet CTI n° 7362.2 LSPP-LS", Rapport final, EPF Lausanne-LAI, Suisse, mai 2007.
DOMAINES DES BANCS DE MESURE - MESURES
P. Germano, "Système automatique de mesure", Rapport technique vol. I & II, EPF-Lausanne, 1995;
P. Germano, Ch. Kuert, "Banc de mesures automatisé pour entraînements électriques", Présentation et mode d'emploi, EPF-Lausanne, 1997;
P. Germano, Ch. Kuert, M. Jufer, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, DE-LEME, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland, "Automated test bench for electric drives: Modular layout of soft- and hardware", EPE '99, 8th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications, Lausanne, 7-9 September, 1999, Art Nb 683;
Y. Perriard, P. Germano, I. Verettaz, "Banc de test pour vibreur électromécanique", Rapport technique, EPF-Lausanne, janvier 2000;
P. Germano, Ch. Kuert, M. Jufer, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, DE-LEME, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland, "DSP controlled automated Test Bench for linear Actuators Design and Choices", EPE 2001, 9th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications, Graz, 27-29 August, 2001, Art Nb 709;
P. Germano, M. Crivii, D. Demarco, Y. Perriard, Swiss Federal Instutute of Technology, LAI, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland & L. Paratte, R. Marquis, Service Unit RD, ETA SA (Swatch Group), 2540 Granges, Switzerland, "Analysis and Modeling of Electrostatic Discharge in a Tactile Glass Featured Watch", IAS 2004, 39th Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, USA, October 3-7, 2004;
P. Germano, M. Crivii, D. Demarco, Y. Perriard, Swiss Federal Instutute of Technology, LAI, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland & L. Paratte, R. Marquis, Service Unit RD, ETA SA (Swatch Group), 2540 Granges, Switzerland, "Analysis and Modeling of Electrostatic Discharge in a Tactile Glass Featured Watch", IEEE Transaction on Industry Applications, Volume 43, Issue 4, July-aug. 2007, Page(s): 1091-1098; Yoan René Cyrille CivetTeaching & PhD PhD Students Simon Holzer Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Dan Shi, Jasha Poliakine, Jonathan Chavanne, Quentin Philippe Mario De Menech Courses Electrotechnics I MICRO-100 The course covers the basics of electrical circuits composed of linear components, in direct current (DC) operation. A series of transforming methods are studied. At the end of the semester, alternate current (AC) systems are treated (complex numbers). Many examples and demos illustrate the course.
Nicolas Henri Bernard FlammarionNicolas Flammarion is a tenure-track assistant professor in computer science at EPFL. Prior to that, he was a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley, hosted by Michael I. Jordan. He received his PhD in 2017 from Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, where he was advised by Alexandre d’Aspremont and Francis Bach. In 2018 he received the prize of the Fondation Mathematique Jacques Hadamard for the best PhD thesis in the field of optimization. His research focuses primarily on learning problems at the interface of machine learning, statistics and optimization.
Christian KöchliTeaching & PhD PhD Students Maël Dagon Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Sebastiano Merzaghi, Chafic Abu Antoun, Florian Louis Copt, Sofia Lydia Ntella Courses Actuators and Electromagnetic systems I MICRO-313 The course covers the main methods for the analysis of electromechanical systems. A study of magnetic physical quantities is followed by the conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy. The permanent magnet is studied macroscopically. The dynamic aspect of the system is
Yves PerriardYves Perriard was born in Lausanne in 1965. He received the M. Sc. in Microengineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - Lausanne (EPFL) in 1989 and the Ph D. degree in 1992. Co-founder of Micro-Beam SA, he was CEO of this company involved in high precision electric drive. Senior lecturer from 1998 and professor since 2003, he is currently director of Laboratory of Integrated Actuators. His research interests are in the field of new actuator design and associated electronic devices. In 2009, he is appointed Vice-Director of the Microengineering Institute in Neuchâtel until 2011. In 2013 the Federal Council has named him the the CTI commission in Bern. In 2014 he is appointed guest professor at Zhejiang University in China. In 2017, the lab is granted by the Werner Siemens Foundation of an amount of 12 millions CHF in order to set up a new Center for Artificial Muscules. Since 2018, he is Expert with Innosuisse, the new Swiss Innovation Agency. http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=fr&user=V2onuO8AAAAJ https://actu.epfl.ch/news/a-12-million-franc-donation-to-create-a-center-for/ Pascal FuaPascal Fua received an engineering degree from Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, in 1984 and the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Orsay in 1989. He then worked at SRI International and INRIA Sophia-Antipolis as a Computer Scientist. He joined EPFL in 1996 where he is now a Professor in the School of Computer and Communication Science and heads the Computer Vision Laboratory. His research interests include shape modeling and motion recovery from images, analysis of microscopy images, and Augmented Reality. His research interests include shape modeling and motion recovery from images, analysis of microscopy images, and machine learning. He has (co)authored over 300 publications in refereed journals and conferences. He is an IEEE Fellow and has been an Associate Editor of IEEE journal Transactions for Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence. He often serves as program committee member, area chair, and program chair of major vision conferences and has cofounded three spinoff companies (Pix4D, PlayfulVision, and NeuralConcept).
Dominique BonvinDominique Bonvin is Professor and Director of the Automatic Control Laboratory of EPFL. He received his Diploma in Chemical Engineering from ETH Zürich, and his Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He worked in the field of process control for the Sandoz Corporation in Basel and with the Systems Engineering Group of ETH Zürich. He joined the EPFL in 1989, where his current research interests include modeling, control and optimization of dynamic systems. He served as Director of the Automatic Control Laboratory for the periods 1993-97, 2003-2007 and again since 2012, Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department in 1995-97 and Dean of Bachelor and Master Studies at EPFL for the period 2004-2011.
Hatice Altug2020-current Full Professor at the Institute of Bioengineering, EPFL, Switzerland2013-2020 Associate Professor (with tenure) at the Institute of Bioengineering, EPFL, Switzerland 2013 Associate Professor (with tenure) at Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of Boston University, USA 2007-2013 Assistant Professor (tenure-track) at Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of Boston University, USA 2007 Post-doctoral Fellow at Center for Engineering in Medicine of Harvard Medical School, USA 2000-2007 PhD. in Applied Physics at Stanford University, USA 1996-2000 B.S. in Physics at Bilkent University, Turkey
Farzaneh Fadaei TiraniTeaching & PhD Courses Principles and Applications of X-ray Diffraction CH-632 Basic theoretical aspects of Crystallography and the interaction between X-ray radiation and matter. Experimental aspects of materials-oriented powder and single crystal diffraction. Familiarization with modern X-ray diffractometers.
Anja SkrivervikAnja Skrivervik obtained her electrical engineering degree from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in 1986, and her PhD from the same institution in 1992, for which she received the Latsis award. After a stay at the University of Rennes as an invited Research Fellow and two years in the industry, she returned part time to EPFL as an Assistant Professor in 1996, and is now a Professeur Titulaire at this institution, where she is the head of the Microwave and Antenna Group. Her research activities include electrically small antennas, antennas in biological media, periodic structures, reflect- and tranmitarrays, and numerical techniques for electromagnetics. She is author or co-author of more than 200 peer reviewed scientific publications. Her teaching activities include courses on microwaves and antennas, and she has course at Bachelor, Master and PhD levels. She was director of the EE section form 1996-2000, and is currently the director of the EE doctoral school at EPFL.
She is very active in European collaboration and European projects. She was the chairperson of the Swiss URSI until 2012, is a Board member of the European School on Antennas and is frequently requested to review research programs and centers in Europe. She is a member of the board of directors of the European Association on Antennas and Propagation (EurAAP) since 2017.
Sylvain CalinonExpertise
robot learning, human-robot collaboration, optimal control, model-based optimization
I am a Senior Research Scientist at the Idiap Research Institute and a Lecturer at EPFL, with research interests covering robot learning, optimal control, geometrical approaches, and human-robot collaboration. My work focuses on human-centered robotics applications in which the robots can acquire new skills from only few demonstrations and interactions. It requires the development of models that can exploit the st
Serge VaudenaySerge Vaudenay entered at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in 1989 with a major in mathematics. He earned his agrégation (secondary teaching degree) in mathematics in 1992, then a PhD in Computer Science at the University of Paris 7 - Denis Diderot in 1995. He subsequently became a senior research fellow at the CNRS, prior to being granted his habilitation à diriger des recherches (a postdoctoral degree authorizing the recipient to supervise doctoral students). In 1999, he was appointed as a Professor at the EPFL, where he created the Security and Cryptography Laboratory.
James Richard LarusExpertise
James Larus is a Professor Emeritus and former Dean of the School of Computer and Communication Sciences (IC) at EPFL (école Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne). Before joining IC in October 2013, Larus was a researcher, manager, and director in Microsoft Research for over 16 years and an Assistant and Associate Professor in the Computer Sciences Department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.Larus has been an active contributor to numerous communities. He published over 100 papers (with 14 be
Ronan BoulicI come from Brittany, France, where I have completed my PhD degree in Computer Science in 1986 from the University of Rennes, France, at the INRIA-IRISA research institute. I also received the Habilitation degree from the University of Grenoble, France, in march 1995. I was hired in 1989 as First Assistant in the VRLAB, I became scientific collaborator, and senior researcher. I'm presently Senior Scientist (MER) and leader of the Immersive Interaction research Group (IIG). I'm co-author of around 150 research papers among which 43 appeared in international peer-reviewed journals. I have contributed to multiple SNF projects and EU projects. Please check iig.epfl.ch for more details.
Henry MarkramHenry Markram started a dual scientific and medical career at the University of Cape Town, in South Africa. His scientific work in the 80s revealed the polymodal receptive fields of pontomedullary reticular formation neurons in vivo and how acetylcholine re-organized these sensory maps.
He moved to Israel in 1988 and obtained his PhD at the Weizmann Institute where he discovered a link between acetylcholine and memory mechanisms by being the first to show that acetylcholine modulates the NMDA receptor in vitro studies, and thereby gates which synapses can undergo synaptic plasticity. He was also the first to characterize the electrical and anatomical properties of the cholinergic neurons in the medial septum diagonal band.
He carried out a first postdoctoral study as a Fulbright Scholar at the NIH, on the biophysics of ion channels on synaptic vesicles using sub-fractionation methods to isolate synaptic vesicles and patch-clamp recordings to characterize the ion channels. He carried out a second postdoctoral study at the Max Planck Institute, as a Minerva Fellow, where he discovered that individual action potentials propagating back into dendrites also cause pulsed influx of Ca2 into the dendrites and found that sub-threshold activity could also activated a low threshold Ca2 channel. He developed a model to show how different types of electrical activities can divert Ca2 to activate different intracellular targets depending on the speed of Ca2 influx an insight that helps explain how Ca2 acts as a universal second messenger. His most well known discovery is that of the millisecond watershed to judge the relevance of communication between neurons marked by the back-propagating action potential. This phenomenon is now called Spike Timing Dependent Plasticity (STDP), which many laboratories around the world have subsequently found in multiple brain regions and many theoreticians have incorporated as a learning rule. At the Max-Planck he also started exploring the micro-anatomical and physiological principles of the different neurons of the neocortex and of the mono-synaptic connections that they form - the first step towards a systematic reverse engineering of the neocortical microcircuitry to derive the blue prints of the cortical column in a manner that would allow computer model reconstruction.
He received a tenure track position at the Weizmann Institute where he continued the reverse engineering studies and also discovered a number of core principles of the structural and functional organization such as differential signaling onto different neurons, models of dynamic synapses with Misha Tsodyks, the computational functions of dynamic synapses, and how GABAergic neurons map onto interneurons and pyramidal neurons. A major contribution during this period was his discovery of Redistribution of Synaptic Efficacy (RSE), where he showed that co-activation of neurons does not only alter synaptic strength, but also the dynamics of transmission. At the Weizmann, he also found the tabula rasa principle which governs the random structural connectivity between pyramidal neurons and a non-random functional connectivity due to target selection. Markram also developed a novel computation framework with Wolfgang Maass to account for the impact of multiple time constants in neurons and synapses on information processing called liquid computing or high entropy computing.
In 2002, he was appointed Full professor at the EPFL where he founded and directed the Brain Mind Institute. During this time Markram continued his reverse engineering approaches and developed a series of new technologies to allow large-scale multi-neuron patch-clamp studies. Markrams lab discovered a novel microcircuit plasticity phenomenon where connections are formed and eliminated in a Darwinian manner as apposed to where synapses are strengthening or weakened as found for LTP. This was the first demonstration that neural circuits are constantly being re-wired and excitation can boost the rate of re-wiring.
At the EPFL he also completed the much of the reverse engineering studies on the neocortical microcircuitry, revealing deeper insight into the circuit design and built databases of the blue-print of the cortical column. In 2005 he used these databases to launched the Blue Brain Project. The BBP used IBMs most advanced supercomputers to reconstruct a detailed computer model of the neocortical column composed of 10000 neurons, more than 340 different types of neurons distributed according to a layer-based recipe of composition and interconnected with 30 million synapses (6 different types) according to synaptic mapping recipes. The Blue Brain team built dozens of applications that now allow automated reconstruction, simulation, visualization, analysis and calibration of detailed microcircuits. This Proof of Concept completed, Markrams lab has now set the agenda towards whole brain and molecular modeling.
With an in depth understanding of the neocortical microcircuit, Markram set a path to determine how the neocortex changes in Autism. He found hyper-reactivity due to hyper-connectivity in the circuitry and hyper-plasticity due to hyper-NMDA expression. Similar findings in the Amygdala together with behavioral evidence that the animal model of autism expressed hyper-fear led to the novel theory of Autism called the Intense World Syndrome proposed by Henry and Kamila Markram. The Intense World Syndrome claims that the brain of an Autist is hyper-sensitive and hyper-plastic which renders the world painfully intense and the brain overly autonomous. The theory is acquiring rapid recognition and many new studies have extended the findings to other brain regions and to other models of autism.
Markram aims to eventually build detailed computer models of brains of mammals to pioneer simulation-based research in the neuroscience which could serve to aggregate, integrate, unify and validate our knowledge of the brain and to use such a facility as a new tool to explore the emergence of intelligence and higher cognitive functions in the brain, and explore hypotheses of diseases as well as treatments.