I am a Senior Researcher at Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA), USI-SUPSI, in Lugano (Switzerland), leading the Social Robotics and Human-Robot Interaction research group
within the " Autonomous Robotics" research area at IDSIA.
I have been a Researcher at IDSIA from May 2020 to September 2024. Before joining IDSIA, I was a post-doc at EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland (from October 2019 to April 2020); Idiap Research Institute, Martigny, Switzerland (January 2018 - August 2019); CNRS-University of Montpellier, France (April 2015 - December 2017).
From April to November 2015, I was a visiting researcher at the CNRS-AIST Joint Robotics Laboratory of Tsukuba, Japan. In June 2015, I participated in the DARPA Robotics Challenge as a member of the AIST-NEDO team. In March 2015, I received my Ph.D. in System Engineering from Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, and, in January 2011, my Master's degree in Electronic Engineering from the same University. From January to July 2014, I was a visiting scholar at CNRS-University of Montpellier, France, and from May to December 2010, a visiting student at Örebro University, Sweden.
From 2023, I am an Associate Editor for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L).
I have been an Associate Editor for the International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR) from 2024 to 2026, and for the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) from 2021 to 2023.
I have served as applicant, principal investigator, and project manager for several national and European research projects.
I have been the Chair of the 17th International Workshop on Human-Friendly Robotics (HFR 2024).
My research aims at reducing the gap between people and robots. Given the level of ubiquity reached by today's robots, more and more non-technician
users ask for easy-to-use, interactive, and adapting machines. To favor the democratization of robots, I deploy tools from the areas of robotic control, machine learning, and
AI in general. My research interests include human-robot interaction, robotic perception, humanoid and mobile robotics, robotic manipulation, sensor-based control, and visual servoing.
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News
| Jul. 26 Two projects have been granted by Eurostars and Innosuisse (stay tuned for more information)! |
| Jun. 26 Two papers accepted to HFR 2026 and one to IROS 2026 (check out my publications page). |
| Jun. 26 Best paper award Robotics Innovation at the 2026 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Robotics and Its Social Impact (ARSO). |
| Apr. 26 The paper "Exploring Human-Robot Collaboration: Analysis of Interaction Modalities in Challenging Tasks" by S. Arreghini, C. Iani, A. Giusti, V. Villani, L. Sabattini, A. Paolillo, has been accepted to IFAC WC 2026 (check out my publications page). |
| Jan. 26 The paper "Sixth-Sense: Self-Supervised Learning of Spatial Awareness of Humans from a Planar Lidar" by S. Arreghini, N. Carlotti, M. Nava, A. Paolillo, A. Giusti, has been accepted to ARSO 2026 (check out my publications page). |
| Jan. 26 The paper "User-Tailored Learning to Forecast Walking Modes for Exosuits" by G. Abbate, E. Tricomi, N. Gierden, A. Giusti, L. Masia, A. Paolillo, has been accepted to ICRA 2026 (check out my publications page). |
| Dec. 25 The paper "A Wizard for Kids: A Platform for Improvised Child–Robot Interactions" by D. Frova, M. Landoni, S. Arreghini, and A. Paolillo has been accepted to HRI 2026 (check out my publications page). |
| Oct. 25 Video interview featured on "Il Faro", a news segment by RSI (Swiss public television, in Italian). |
| Jul. 25 Interviews on several media for our social robotics experiments: Radio program “Zero 91” broadcast by RadioTicino (go at minute 01:29:00);
SUPSI’s institutional communication;
USI’s institutional communication;
;
TicinoNews;
RSI radio interview;
RSI TV interview, il Quotidiano;
laRegione;
Finews.ch;
VivereLugano;
Luganobiz;
ValtellinaNews.
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Recent publications
For a full list of my publications, please go here.
- S. Arreghini, M. Nava, N. Carlotti, A. Paolillo, A. Giusti, "Factorized Spatio-Temporal Convolutions for Human Pose Estimation from Planar Lidar," IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2026.
- S. Arreghini, A. Giusti, A. Bordini, E. Ferrara, G. Fulgoni, A. Paolillo, "Towards Real-World Applications with an Autonomous Powered Wheelchair," International Workshop on Human-Friendly Robotics, 2026.
- S. Dedo, D. Frova, A. Paolillo, M. Landoni, "Cuteness Under the Skin: Exploring Child-Robot Interaction in Classrooms," International Workshop on Human-Friendly Robotics, 2026.
- S. Arreghini, C. Iani, A. Giusti, V. Villani, L. Sabattini, A. Paolillo, "Exploring Human-Robot Collaboration: Analysis of Interaction Modalities in Challenging Tasks," IFAC World Congress, 2026.
- S. Arreghini, N. Carlotti, M. Nava, A. Paolillo, A. Giusti, "Sixth-Sense: Self-Supervised Learning of Spatial Awareness of Humans from a Planar Lidar," IEEE International Conference on Advanced Robotics and its Social Impacts, 2026.
- G. Abbate, E. Tricomi, N. Gierden, A. Giusti, L. Masia, A. Paolillo, "User-Tailored Learning to Forecast Walking Modes for Exosuits," IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2026.
- D. Frova, M. Landoni, S. Arreghini, A. Paolillo, "A Wizard for Kids: A Platform for Improvised Child–Robot Interactions", ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 2026.
- S. Auddy, A. Paolillo, J. Piater, M. Saveriano, "Imitation Learning-based Direct Visual Servoing using the Large Projection Formulation," Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 2025.
- L. Scarciglia, A. Paolillo, D. Palossi, "A Map-free Deep Learning-based Framework for Gate-to-Gate Monocular Visual Navigation aboard Miniaturized Aerial Vehicles," IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2025
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