Education & Research · Automatic Control

Drone Lab:
Control in action

An experimental environment for autonomous systems, advanced flight control and multi-agent robotics at the University of Trieste.

INSIDE THE LAB · REAL FOOTAGE
About

From control theory to real flight

The Drone Lab at the University of Trieste is an indoor experimental facility dedicated to education and research in unmanned aerial systems, automatic control and autonomous robotics.

It brings together theoretical methods, simulation and real-world experimentation, enabling students and researchers to design, implement and evaluate control strategies on physical aerial platforms.

The laboratory is based on a Drone Lab platform supplied by ANT-X, supporting hands-on learning and experimental validation.

Research

Research directions

Our work focuses on robust, adaptive and intelligent approaches to controlling autonomous and interconnected dynamical systems.

01 / RESEARCH AREA

Resilient Multi-Agent Control

Coordination and control of multiple autonomous agents, with an emphasis on resilience to disturbances, uncertainty and challenging operating conditions.

02 / RESEARCH AREA

Learning-Based Control

Data-driven methods and learning algorithms for control design, adaptation and improved performance in dynamical systems.

03 / RESEARCH AREA

Classical Robust Control

Model-based control methods that account for uncertainty and disturbances, bridging rigorous theoretical analysis and experimental validation.

The platform

Powered by ANT-X

The Drone Lab is equipped with a laboratory solution acquired from ANT-X, designed for research and education in flight robotics and UAV control.

The ANT-X Drone Lab product family integrates indoor quadrotor platforms, motion tracking, software for controller development and educational resources. The exact configuration installed at UniTS can be documented here as additional details become available.

Explore ANT-X Drone Lab ↗
Indoor Drone Lab flight arena and monitoring equipment at University of Trieste
Education

Learn, Design and Test

The laboratory provides an experimental environment for Bachelor's and Master's thesis projects, allowing students to investigate, develop, and validate advanced control strategies on real systems.

Hands-on Control Education

Students can explore modelling, controller design and the behaviour of aerial systems through practical experiments.

Simulation to Experiment

A setting for comparing simulated behaviour with physical flight tests and discussing model limitations.

Research Prototyping

A controlled environment for developing and evaluating new methods for autonomous flight and coordination.

Multi-Agent Systems

An opportunity to study cooperative behaviour and distributed control using aerial robotic platforms.

People

Meet the lab

Meet the researchers and collaborators connected to the Drone Lab and its activities in automatic control.

COLLABORATOR

Thomas Parisini

Automatic Control · University of Trieste / Imperial College London

COLLABORATOR

Felice Andrea Pellegrino

Control Theory, Machine Learning and Computer Vision

Contact

Connect with Drone Lab

Department of Engineering and Architecture
University of Trieste · Trieste, Italy

Lab lead: Erica Salvato
ERICA.SALVATO@dia.units.it