Portrait of Giovanni Beltrame

Giovanni Beltrame

Affiliate Member
Full Professor, Polytechnique Montréal, Department of Computer Engineering and Software Engineering
Research Topics
Autonomous Robotics Navigation
Computer Vision
Distributed Systems
Human-Robot Interaction
Online Learning
Reinforcement Learning
Robotics
Swarm Intelligence
Website
Google Scholar
LinkedIn

Biography

Giovanni Beltrame obtained his PhD in computer engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2006, after which he worked as a microelectronics engineer at the European Space Agency on a number of projects, from radiation-tolerant systems to computer-aided design.

In 2010, he moved to Montréal, where he is currently a professor at Polytechnique Montréal in the Computer and Software Engineering Department.

Beltrame directs the Making Innovative Space Technology (MIST) Lab, where he has more than twenty-five students and postdocs under his supervision. He has completed several projects in collaboration with industry and government agencies in the area of robotics, disaster response and space exploration. He and his team have participated in several field missions with ESA, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and NASA, including BRAILLE, PANAGAEA-X and IGLUNA.

His research interests include the modelling and design of embedded systems, AI and robotics, and he has published his findings in top journals and conferences.

Current Students

Haechan Mark Bong
PhD - Polytechnique Montréal
Co-supervisor :
Jana Pavlasek
Website
Google Scholar
Yann Bouteiller
Collaborating researcher - Polytechnique Montréal Montreal
Co-supervisor :
Jana Pavlasek
Website
Github
Google Scholar
Théo Gachet
Master's Research - Polytechnique Montréal
Co-supervisor :
Jana Pavlasek
Website
Github
Maeva Guerrier
PhD - Polytechnique Montréal
Co-supervisor :
Jana Pavlasek
Github
Simon Roy
Master's Research - Université de Montréal
Co-supervisor :
Jana Pavlasek
Website
Github
Soma Soma
PhD - Polytechnique Montréal
Co-supervisor :
Jana Pavlasek

Publications

Electromagnetic interference shielding in lightweight carbon xerogels
Biporjoy Sarkar
Floriane Miquet-Westphal
Sanyasi Bobbara
Ben George
Giovanni Beltrame
David Dousset
Ke Wu
Fabio Cicoira
With the increasing use of high-frequency electronic and wireless devices, electromagnetic interference (EMI) has become a growing concern d… (see more)ue to its potential impact on both electronic devices and human health. In this study, we demonstrated the performance of lightweight, electrically conducting 3D resorcinol-formaldehyde carbon xerogels, of 2.4 mm thickness, as an EMI shieldin the frequency range of 10–15 GHz (X-Ku band). The brittle carbon xerogels revealed complex porous structures with irregularly shaped pores that were randomly distributed. Electrochemical characterization revealed that the material behaved as an electrical double-layer capacitor. The carbon xerogels displayed reflection-dominated (∼ 84%) shielding behavior, with a total EMI shielding effectiveness (SE) value of ∼ 61 dB. The absorption process also contributed (∼ 16%) to the total SE. This behavior is attributed to the carbon xerogels' complex porous network, which effectively suppresses EM waves.
2023-03-20
Materials Research Express (published)
doi.org
Reinforcement Learning with Random Delays
Yann Bouteiller
Simon Ramstedt
Giovanni Beltrame
Christopher Pal
Jonathan Binas
Action and observation delays commonly occur in many Reinforcement Learning applications, such as remote control scenarios. We study the ana… (see more)tomy of randomly delayed environments, and show that partially resampling trajectory fragments in hindsight allows for off-policy multi-step value estimation. We apply this principle to derive Delay-Correcting Actor-Critic (DCAC), an algorithm based on Soft Actor-Critic with significantly better performance in environments with delays. This is shown theoretically and also demonstrated practically on a delay-augmented version of the MuJoCo continuous control benchmark.
2021-05-02
International Conference on Learning Representations (Poster)
doi.org
openreview.net