Gabriel Urbain’s blog

A few insights on my work in Robotics, and AI

Engineer and PhD with a strong academic background (Ghent University, Supaero, UMons, MIT, IIT) and 5+ years of experience in a robotics start-up company.
Freelance consultant in robotics and AI.

Apr 2025 · RBAI — Takeda Pharmaceuticals

Takeda — AVI and robotic maintenance

Machine vision and robotics contributions to a regulated pharmaceutical manufacturing site.

Machine VisionDeep LearningRoboticsIndustrial AutomationSpot SDKGxPEMA/FDA ValidationPythonConsulting
Apr 2025 · RBAI — freelance

Starting RBAI

Setting up a one-person robotics & AI consultancy in Belgium.

ConsultingBusiness DevelopmentRobotics
Mar 2025 · Exobotic Technologies

Five years at Exobotic Technologies

Technical lead role at a Belgian agricultural-robotics startup — engineering, methodology, funding and field demos.

RoboticsAGVMachine VisionTech LeadFundraisingAgriculture
Dec 2024 · Exobotic Technologies — Horizon Europe

SQAT — a robot that samples soil

From preliminary conception and a Horizon Europe grant to a functional prototype in an ILVO field.

RoboticsAGVElectromechanicsProposal WritingBusiness DevelopmentPythonEmbedded Linux
Jan 2024 · Exobotic Technologies

Eriksbo: an autonomous spraying robot

15 km of plant borders, ecological herbicides, and a robot that sprays only where it needs to.

RoboticsAGVNavigationMachine VisionEmbedded LinuxROSDockerPythonC/C++
Jan 2022 · Exobotic Technologies

Land-A2: an agile 4WD/4WS robot for rough terrain

An electric tool-carrier designed for muddy tree-nursery aisles, with zero-turn kinematics and an RTK-GPS stack built from scratch.

RoboticsAGVNavigationElectromechanicsEmbedded SystemsROSPythonC/C++
Jun 2021 · Exobotic Technologies

A drone that lands on its own: SmartAgriHubs

Autonomous drone flight, a docking ground station, and a 5G image pipeline for hyperspectral crop inspection.

RoboticsUAVNavigationMachine VisionEmbedded Linux
Jan 2020 · Ghent University — HBP

Five years with the Human Brain Project

A PhD funded by the HBP Neurorobotics subproject — more than a line on a grant number.

RoboticsNeuroroboticsAcademic WritingPublic SpeakingProposal Writing
Sep 2018 · Ghent University — IIT — HBP

HyQ: compliance and cerebellum-inspired control

Reflex-based locomotion on a 90 kg hydraulic quadruped, studied during a research stay at IIT Genoa.

RoboticsLegged RobotsCompliant RoboticsNeuroroboticsMachine LearningReinforcement LearningControl & PlanningPython
Jan 2018 · Ghent University — HBP

From simulation to reality

Bridging the learning gap on a compliant quadruped robot using domain randomization.

RoboticsLegged RobotsMachine LearningCompliant RoboticsNeuroroboticsReinforcement Learning
Oct 2017 · Ghent University — HBP

A microchip on four legs

Details on the design, the electronics and the software architecture of the Tigrillo robot.

RoboticsLegged RobotsCompliant RoboticsEmbedded SystemsEmbedded LinuxElectromechanics
Jul 2017 · Ghent University — HBP

Tigrillo — a bio-inspired compliant quadruped

A small compliant quadruped platform for experiments on spiking CPGs, reservoir computing and transfer learning.

RoboticsLegged RobotsCompliant RoboticsNeuroroboticsSpiking Neural NetworksEmbedded LinuxROS
Mar 2017 · Ghent University — HBP

Mass-Spring Damper Networks

Morphological properties of mass-spring networks for optimal locomotion learning. Published in Frontiers in Neurorobotics (2017).

RoboticsCompliant RoboticsNeuroroboticsMachine LearningPython
Oct 2016 · UMons — numediart Institute

SonixCycle — browsing Foley sounds by meaning

A tool to browse large collections of Foley sounds using perceptual and semantic content. Published at Audio Mostly 2016 — patented as EP3430535.

Audio ProcessingMachine LearningC/C++CUDA
Dec 2014 · iRobotique

iRobotique — robots for museums

The story of a non-profit association from Eurobot contests to a modular exploration platform for the Musée Royal de Mariemont.

RoboticsEmbedded SystemsPublic Speaking
Dec 2014 · MIT Space Systems Lab

Camera Sensor Fusion for Zero-Gravity Navigation

Six-month Master thesis at MIT's Space Systems Lab on the HALO hardware extension for the SPHERES nano-satellites.

3D VisionMachine VisionIndustrial CamerasC/C++