Aude Billard, from Switzerland’s Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory, blends control theory with machine learning to build robotic systems that are both swift and precise but can handle some of the unpredictability of the real world. Her lab famously taught a robot arm to catch a tennis racket looping through the air. We talked about how she and her colleagues accomplished that feat and her work on ever more precise robots that can even do the work of Switzerland’s famous watchmakers.