Benoît Piranda is associate professor of computer science at the University of Bourgogne Franche-Comté (UBFC) in France. His main domains of research are distributed programming, physical and visual simulations and computer graphics.
He proposes many distributed algorithms used in programmable matter and self-reconfiguration algorithms for sliding robots. His recent works around the definition of a new geometry of modular robot for the programmable matter are in the heart of this project.
He is leading the development of the VisibleSim software which is a behavioral simulator of modular robots. This very powerful tool has been used to validate research results in 17 publications over the last 6 years.
He is leading the project of refactoring of new blinky blocks, and the production of a huge modular robot made of more than 2000 connected blinky blocks.