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.

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
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.