Pascal Pomarède · Researcher · Max Robotics

About

Pascal Pomarède is a leading researcher in robotic inspection and non-destructive evaluation, specializing in the use of ultrasonic guided waves for autonomous mapping and localization on metal structures. His work addresses a critical challenge in industrial maintenance: enabling robots—such as magnetic crawlers—to navigate and inspect large, featureless metal plates like those found in storage tanks and ship hulls. Pomarède’s major contributions include pioneering a FastSLAM approach that integrates beamforming maps, allowing robots to simultaneously recover plate geometry and their own trajectory using ultrasonic echoes reflected from plate boundaries. His proof-of-concept paper (2020) demonstrated the feasibility of this method, while his subsequent work on learning propagation properties (2022) and combining grid- and feature-based mapping (2022) has refined the technique for real-world applications. With his most-cited paper garnering 15 citations, Pomarède’s research has laid a foundation for autonomous inspection in hazardous environments, reducing human risk and improving efficiency. His innovative use of guided waves for simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) marks a significant advance in robotic perception for structural health monitoring.