Over the past years, I have been working in different fields of robotics applications, such as humanoids, rescue and medical. What has always been a constant in my research, is the use of image processing algorithms to perform autonomous control or to understand properties of the object in the environment, i.e. stiffness, in real-time.

I did my master and bachelor studies at “La Sapienza” the University of Rome. During my master studies I won a scholarship and I joined for eight months the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR) at the Texas A&M University under the supervision of Prof. Robin Murphy. During the time in Texas I implemented a real-time visual servoing for the Mesa Element, a mine rescue robot. My master thesis focused on the implementation of a visual servoing algorithm for humanoid robot navigation in human-like environment.

In November 2012, I joined the Centre for Robotics Research (CoRe) at King’s College London. My Phd research was founded by the European project Stiff-Flop and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Award (EPSRC); my contribution to the project covered several robotics topics, such as real-time control of fixed-based manipulator (Schunk LWA) and the integration of sensing mechanism developed by our research group in the ROS system map. My PhD research focused on the development of a visual-based stiffness sensing mechanism for medical diagnosis.

After my PhD, in 2016, I won the JSPS Postodoctoral Fellowship for two years of Research in Japan and I joined the Asama and Yamashita Lab, Department of Precision Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo , where I am still working as Project Assistant Professor. My research focuses on the development of sensing mechanism for rescue and assistive robots.

In Japan I started to be involved in robotics for nuclear decomissioning, developing new mechanisms and control systems for cleanup of nuclear power plants. Additional research involves hybrid control, intelligent construction systems and Bio-inspired robotics.