Jacques joined the ORI in 2023 under the supervision of Dr. Ioannis Havoutis, having graduated from the University of Oxford with a MEng in Engineering Science in the same year. His research focuses on enabling robots to perform loco-manipulation tasks while reacting and adapting to uncertain and changing environments.
In 2022, Jacques undertook a summer internship at the ORI, learning to use ROS and acquiring a great deal of practical experience in robotics and cyber-physical systems.
For his Engineering final year project, he worked on loco-manipulation skills for quadruped robots with arms, creating motion- and task-planners for manipulation tasks such as autonomously approaching then tightening a valve. This work evolved into researching adaptive robot behaviour that allows a robot to intelligently react to observations it makes during task execution, such as adjusting its manipulation strategy to apply more torque to a stiff valve.
Alongside the undergraduate degree, Jacques led a robotic arm project in the OxRAM student society, wherein they 3D-printed, assembled and programmed a robotic arm for completing simple manipulation tasks.
