Antonio Andriella

Researcher Scientist @

Pal Robotics

Last update: August, 14th 2023

I’m a Research Scientist at Pal Robotics awarded with a Marie Skłodowska-Curie cofund fellowship in the H2020 project PRO-CARED (no.801342) which aims at designing social robots with proactive personalised behaviour during long-lasting interactions.

I received my PhD with a thesis entitled “Personalising robot assistance for cognitive training therapy” from the IRII under the supervision of Dr. Guillem Alenyà and Prof. Carme Torras. My thesis was awarded the prestigious Georges Giralt award for the best EU PhD thesis from euRobotics. Furthermore, I also won the AIHUB.CSIC prize for the best AI PhD Thesis from the AI Hub of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). I was an Early Stage Researcher in the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network (ITN) project called SOCRATES, which focused on Quality of Interaction in Eldercare.
Prior to IRII, I worked at Cogisen as Artificial Intelligence lead. I was a visiting student at the University of Naples (2021) and University of Hamburg (2018-19). In 2022, I was a visiting researcher at the University of Naples Federico II under the supervision of Prof. Silvia Rossi.

My main research interests are in the areas of human-robot interaction (HRI) and human-centered design technologies. My work focuses on designing, developing, and evaluating interactive social systems that can be personalised and that can adapt to their users over short-term and long-term interactions, based on individual’s unique needs and goals. I’ve organised workshops on topics realated to trust, ai, ethics and personalisation at HRI, RO-MAN and ICSR conferecences. I’ve served as guest editor of several special issues of journals such as International Journal of Social Robotics, Paladyn Journal of Behaviour and Interaction Studies and as associate editor at IROS and ROMAN.

Interests

Human-Centered Robotics
Socially Assistive Robotics
Short- and Long-term Personalisation
Human-Robot Interaction
Reinforcement Learning
Automated Planning
Experimental Design
Proactive Behaviour
Mental Models

Education

PhD in Control, Robotics and Vision, 2022
Institut de Robotica i Informatica Industrial, CSIC-UPC
MEng in Artificial Intelligence, 2009
Sapienza, University of Rome
BSc in Computer Engineering, 2006
Sapienza, University of Rome

Latest News

Sept 2023

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Our work Gendered Human–Robot Interactions in Services has been accepted for publication on the International Journal of Social Robotics.

Sept 2023

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Our work User Interactions and Negative Examples to Improve the Learning of Semantic Rules in a Cognitive Exercise Scenario has been accepted at IROS 2023.

May 2023

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Our work Robot explanatory narratives of collaborative and adaptive experiences has been presented at ICRA 2023.

Mar 2023

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I’m very humbled to be the recipient of the George Giralt PhD Award for my thesis entitled “Personalising robot assistance for cognitive training therapy”.

Experience

Researcher Scientist

Pal Robotics

Feb 2022 – Present Barcelona, ESP

Marie Curie fellow in the EU PRO-CARED project funded by the H2020 Program and Acció. The aim of the project is to develop social robots to help children and adults learn a second language, focusing primarily on people arriving from foreign countries. Language learning is the first obvious barrier to the integration of this population and their adaptation to different cultures. I focus on designing and developing mechanisms for personal robots to proactively interact with students providing them with adaptive and personalised assistance in an educational context.

Researcher and PhD Student

Institut de Robotica i Informatica Industrial

Mar 2017 – Feb 2022 Barcelona, ESP

Designed and developed a fully autonomous personalised-robot assisted cognitive training for patients affected by cognitive impairment. Tacked personalisation by designing robots that are both adaptable and adaptive. Adaptable in such a manner as to enable therapists to set them up and customise their high-level behaviour. Adaptive in such a manner that they can tailor their intervention to suit the individual’s unique needs as they evolve through time. Developed a novel framework called aCtive leARning agEnt aSsiStive bEhaviouR (CARESSER) which enables therapists to customise the robot’s assistive behaviour (adaptable) and allows the robot to learn in situ personalised patient-specific policies (adaptive) in a fully autonomous fashion. Evaluation of the robotic system in a healthcare centre with 22 patients affected my mild cognitive impairment and mild dementia.

Artificial Intelligence Lead

Cogisen

Jan 2012 – Oct 2016 Rome, IT

Worked on developing a set of machine learning algorithms aiming to go beyond the current limitations. The algorithms had been used for gaze tracking technology with RGB cameras as well as for image and video compression. The platform I worked on, allowed for the quick creation of models to capture and follow specific sparse changes of information in the frequency domain.

Artificial Intelligence Expert

Cogisen

Jan 2010 – Jan 2012 Rome, IT

Worked on the first gaze tracking solution for an F1 simulator at Ferrari. Furthermore, developed a silhouette detection pipeline for a kart simulator for a Ferrari Driver Academy pilot.

Artificial Intelligence Consultant

Cogisen

Jul 2009 – Jan 2010 Rome, IT

Analysed and evaluated the opportunity to introduce artificial intelligence into the automotive market.

MEng in Artificial Intelligence

La Sapienza, University of Rome

Jan 2007 – Mar 2009 Rome, IT

Studied the generation of rational behaviors through the planning of actions for teams of robots that follow different objectives. The thesis work consisted of three different activities: i) formalize the domain in Situation Calculus, ii) formulate an approach to find a solution that takes into account both the cooperative aspect of the team as well as the conflict situations, iii) validate the proposed approach in a rescue scenario.