About

Gilles Caprari is a pioneering roboticist whose work spans swarm robotics, bio-hybrid systems, miniaturized robot platforms, and aerial and inspection robotics. He is perhaps best known for his groundbreaking contributions to animal-robot interaction, most notably his role in research demonstrating that robots could be socially integrated into groups of cockroaches to influence their collective decision-making through self-organization — a study that garnered over 500 citations and remains a landmark achievement in swarm intelligence. This work, alongside related studies on embodying cockroach aggregation behaviors in microrobots, helped establish a new paradigm for understanding and engineering collective behavior in mixed biological-artificial societies. Caprari is also the driving force behind the Alice microrobot platform, a compact and commercially viable robot that enabled numerous researchers worldwide to explore large-scale swarm experiments. His engineering contributions extend further to magnetic inspection robots like Magnebike, aerial vehicles including the CoaX indoor helicopter, and sensor characterization work that improved the reliability of compact LiDAR systems. With a portfolio accumulating well over 1,200 citations, Caprari's research bridges fundamental behavioral science and practical autonomous systems engineering, making him an influential figure for students working at the intersection of robotics, biology, and autonomous systems.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

21
H-Index
48
Papers
1,917
Total Citations
40
Avg Citations/Paper
🏆 Most Cited Paper
Social Integration of Robots into Groups of Cockroaches to Control Self-Organized Choices
502 citations · 2007
📈 Most Prolific Year: 2012 (8 Papers)
🤝 Key Collaborators: 85
🏛 Institutions: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, ETH Zurich, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Organizzazione Sociopsichiatrica Cantonale, Alstom (France)

Top Papers

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Key Collaborators

Contact & Links

Available for collaboration
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