Francesco Vigni

/franˈt͡ʃe.sko ˈvi.ɲi/ -

he/him why?

I spend my time exploring the world of robots, their brains (AI) and their impact on our societies.
Currently, I am pursuing my PhD at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy where I study how robots can learn to interact in a human-like way. The future expects robots to be able to interact with humans naturally and somebody has to make it happen ;).
I am part of the perseo project, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie International Training Network (ITN) funded by the European Commission that allows me to collaborate with the top European researchers in the field.
On this website, I collect some of my works and interests.

Francesco Vigni

Handshake prototype

@icra2019

How do you park?

Telepresence robot


15 Jul, 2023

Grateful to collaborate with Noosware NV as visiting researcher on the development of emotional aware mobile robotics.

01 Jun, 2023

The work Sweet Robot O’Mine - How a Cheerful Robot Boosts Users' Performance in a Game Scenario has been accepted for presentation at the 32nd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2023) in Busan, Korea.

22 Mar, 2023

The workshop WARN: Weighting the benefits of Autonomous Robot persoNalization has been accepted for inclusion in the 32nd IEEE RO-MAN 2023 conference in Busan, South Korea.

13 Mar, 2023

The CONCATENATE workshop gave me the opportunity to present my work ''An Interaction-centric Approach to Metrics in Social HRI'' during the Human-Robot Interaction conference 2023 HRI2023 held in Stockholm, Sweden.

02 Mar, 2023

The highschool Liceo Statale Ghandi in Casoria, Italy invited me to give a talk on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics.

14 Dec, 2022

The work named On The Emotional Transparency of a Non-Humanoid Social Robot was presented by me during the interactive poster session of the International Conference of Social Robotics ICSR2022 held in Florence, Italy.

14 Dec, 2022

I presented my work named Exploring Non-Verbal Strategies for Initiating an HRI in the interactive poster session of the International Conference of Social Robotics ICSR2022 held in Florence, Italy.

01 Sep, 2022

I co-presented the work named Familiar Acoustic Cues for Legible Service Robots in the 2022 IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive (ROMAN2022) held in Naples, Italy.

24 May, 2021

The local newspaper ForliToday interviewed me about how my career developed in Italy as well as in Germany and how I feel about the future of Robotics and AI.


Early Stage Researcher - MSCA Fellow

University of Naples Federico II - Naples, Italy

Dec, 2022

Perseo Project

Robotics Engineer

Roboception GmbH - Munich, Germany

Jul, 2022

Licensed Engineer

Polytechnic University of Turin - Turin, Italy

Dec, 2022

Autonomous Systems Developer

STtech GmbH - Munich, Germany

Apr, 2020

Research Assistant

Technical University of Munich - Munich, Germany

Apr, 2019

Daimler Cloud Services Consultant

Kadacon GmbH - Area Mid-North Italy

Feb, 2019

Master Degree in Robotics and Automation Engineering

University of Siena - Siena, Italy

Oct, 2018

Thesis: “A Closed Loop Approach to Human-Robot Handshake“ - 110/110 e Lode

Bachelor Degree in Management Engineering

University of Siena - Siena, Italy

Oct, 2015

Thesis: “Analisi e confronti di sistemi di trading basate sul trend following” - 92/110


© Francesco Vigni 2023