Contents
1. Introduction
Our research is inspired by how humans build intelligence through physical interaction. We are guided by neuroscientific concepts like the peripersonal space and body schema representations, which evidence shows are central for humans to learn by experiencing the world through their bodies.
Despite incredible advancements in vision-language-action systems, robots today still lack the ability to truly generalize to complex environments.
We believe that true generalization requires grounding in sensorimotor experience, where contact is treated not as failure but as a structured source of information, and where body morphology guides the selection of robust, adaptable strategies for interacting with the environment.
2. People
Joewie J. Koh
PhD Student
Gilberto Briscoe-Martinez
PhD Student
Nataliya Nechyporenko
PhD Student
Ava Abderezaei
PhD Student
Carson Kohlbrenner
PhD Student
3. Publications
Thesis/Book
Journal Article
Conference Paper
Workshop Paper
Dynamics-Compliant Trajectory Diffusion for Super-Nominal Payload Manipulation
Anuj Pasricha, Joewie Koh, Jay Vakil, Alessandro Roncone
Conference Paper
2025 Conference on Robot Learning [CoRL]
PDF
BIB
Form-Fitting, Large-Area Sensor Mounting for Obstacle Detection
Anna Soukhovei, Carson Kohlbrenner, Caleb Escobedo, Alexander Gholmieh, Alexander Dickhans, and Alessandro Roncone
Workshop Paper
2025 Humanoids Workshop on Advances in Contact-Rich Robotics: Rich Tactile-Based Physical Interaction [ConRich]
PDF
BIB
GenTact Toolbox: A Computational Design Pipeline to Procedurally Generate Context-Driven 3D Printed Whole-Body Artificial Skins
Carson Kohlbrenner, Caleb Escobedo, S. Sandra Bae, Alexander Dickhans, Alessandro Roncone
Conference Paper
2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation [ICRA]
PDF
BIB
URL
A Machine Learning Approach to Contact Localization in Variable Density Three-Dimensional Tactile Artificial Skin
Carson Kohlbrenner, Mitchell Murray, Yutong Zhang, Caleb Escobedo, Thomas Dunnington, Nolan Stevenson, Nikolaus Correll, Alessandro Roncone
Workshop Paper
2024 NeurIPS Workshop on Touch Processing: From Data to Knowledge
PDF
BIB
HARMONIOUS – Human-Like Reactive Motion Control and Multimodal Perception for Humanoid Robots
Jakub Rozlivek, Alessandro Roncone, Ugo Pattacini, and Matej Hoffmann
Journal Article
2024 IEEE Transactions on Robotics [T-RO]
PDF
BIB
Towards Super-Nominal Payload Handling: Inverse Dynamics Analysis for Multi-Skill Robotic Manipulation
Anuj Pasricha and Alessandro Roncone
Workshop Paper
2024 40th Anniversary of the IEEE Conference on Robotics and Automation [ICRA@40]
PDF
BIB
Exploring How Non-Prehensile Manipulation Expands Capability in Robots Experiencing Multi-Joint Failure
Gilberto Briscoe-Martinez, Anuj Pasricha, Ava Abderezaei, Santosh Chaganti, Sarath Chandra Vajrala, Sri Kanth Popuri, and Alessandro Roncone
Conference Paper
2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]
PDF
BIB
Clutter-Aware Spill-Free Liquid Transport via Learned Dynamics
Ava Abderezaei, Anuj Pasricha, Alex Klausenstock, Alessandro Roncone
Conference Paper
2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]
PDF
BIB
ROMA-iQSS: An Objective Alignment Approach via State-Based Value Learning and ROund-Robin Multi-Agent Scheduling
Chi-Hui Lin, Joewie J. Koh, Alessandro Roncone, Lijun Chen
Oral presentation
Conference Paper
2024 American Control Conference [ACC]
PDF
BIB
The Virtues of Laziness: Multi-Query Kinodynamic Motion Planning with Lazy Methods
Anuj Pasricha, Alessandro Roncone
Conference Paper
2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation [ICRA]
PDF
BIB
CAT-RRT: Motion Planning that Admits Contact One Linke at a Time
Nataliya Nechyporenko, Caleb Escobedo, Shreyas Kadekodi, Alessandro Roncone
Conference Paper
2023 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]
PDF
BIB
A Framework for the Systematic Evaluation of Obstacle Avoidance and Object-Aware Controllers
Caleb Escobedo, Nataliya Nechyporenko, Shreyas Kadekodi, Alessandro Roncone
Conference Paper
2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]
PDF
BIB
PokeRRT: Poking as a Skill and Failure Recovery Tactic for Planar Non-Prehensile Manipulation
Anuj Pasricha, Yi-Shiuan Tung, Bradley Hayes, Alessandro Roncone
Journal Article
2022 IEEE Robotics Automation and Letters [RA-L] + ICRA
PDF
BIB
Introduction to Autonomous Robots: Mechanisms, Sensors, Actuators, and Algorithms
Nikolaus Correll, Bradley Hayes, Christoffer Heckman and Alessandro Roncone
Thesis/Book
2022 MIT Press
Code
Real-Time Motion Control of Robotic Manipulators for Safe Human-Robot Coexistence
Kelly Merckaert, Bryan Convens, Chi-ju Wu, Alessandro Roncone, Marco M Nicotra, and Bram Vanderborght
Journal Article
2022 Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing
PDF
BIB
PokeRRT: A Kinodynamic Planning Approach for Poking Manipulation
Anuj Pasricha, Yi-Shiuan Tung, Bradley Hayes, Alessandro Roncone
Workshop Paper
2021 IROS 2021 Workshop on Impact-Aware Robotics
PDF
BIB
The World of an Octopus: How Reporting Bias Influences a Language Model’s Perception of Color
Cory Paik, Stéphane Aroca-Ouellette, Alessandro Roncone, Katharina Kann
Conference Paper
2021 Proceedings of the 2021 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing
PDF
BIB
Volumetric Data Fusion of External Depth and Onboard Proximity Data For Occluded Space Reduction
Matthew Strong, Caleb Escobedo, Alessandro Roncone
Workshop Paper
2021 4th Workshop on Proximity Perception in Robotics at IROS 2021
PDF
BIB
Contact Anticipation for Physical Human-Robot Interaction with Robotic Manipulators using Onboard Proximity Sensors
Caleb Escobedo, Matthew Strong, Mary West, Ander Aramburu, Alessandro Roncone
Conference Paper
2021 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]
PDF
BIB
Self-Contained Kinematic Calibration of a Novel Whole-Body Artificial Skin for Human-Robot Collaboration
Kandai Watanabe, Matthew Strong, Mary West, Caleb Escobedo, Ander Aramburu, Krishna Chaitanya Kodur, Alessandro Roncone
Conference Paper
2021 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]
PDF
BIB
PROST: Physical Reasoning of Objects through Space and Time
Stéphane Aroca-Ouellette, Cory Paik, Alessandro Roncone, and Katharina Kann
Conference Paper
2021 Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics
PDF
BIB
Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning as Applied to Autonomous Systems
Guohui Ding
PhD dissertation
Thesis/Book
2021 University of Colorado Boulder
Cooperative Control of Mobile Robots with Stackelberg Learning
Joewie J. Koh*, Guohui Ding*, Christoffer Heckman, Lijun Chen, Alessandro Roncone
Conference Paper
2020 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]
PDF
BIB
Distributed Reinforcement Learning for Cooperative Multi-Robot Object Manipulation
Guohui Ding*, Joewie J. Koh*, Kelly Merckaert, Bram Vanderborght, Marco M. Nicotra, Christoffer Heckman, Alessandro Roncone, Lijun Chen
Extended abstract
Conference Paper
2020 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems [AAMAS]
PDF
BIB
Compact Real-time avoidance on a Humanoid Robot for Human-Robot interaction
Dong Hai Phuong Nguyen, Matej Hoffmann, Alessandro Roncone, Ugo Pattacini, and Giorgio Metta
Conference Paper
2018 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction [HRI]
PDF
BIB
Learning Peripersonal Space Representation in a Humanoid Robot with Artificial Skin
Alessandro Roncone
Workshop Paper
2017 AAAI Matters
PDF
BIB
Peripersonal Space and Margin of Safety around the Body: Learning Visuo-tactile Associations in a Humanoid Robot with Artificial Skin
Alessandro Roncone, Matej Hoffmann, Ugo Pattacini, Luciano Fadiga, and Giorgio Metta
Journal Article
2016 PLOS ONE
PDF
BIB
A Cartesian 6-DoF Gaze Controller for Humanoid Robots
Alessandro Roncone, Ugo Pattacini, Giorgio Metta, and Lorenzo Natale
Conference Paper
2016 Robotics: Science and Systems [RSS]
PDF
BIB
Learning peripersonal space representation through artificial skin for avoidance and reaching with whole body surface
Alessandro Roncone, Matej Hoffmann, Ugo Pattacini, and Giorgio Metta
Conference Paper
2015 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]
PDF
BIB
Expanding Sensorimotor capabilities of Humanoid Robots through Multisensory Integration - a study on the implementation of Peripersonal Space on the iCub
Alessandro Roncone
Thesis/Book
2015 Ph.D. Thesis
PDF
BIB
Gaze Stabilization for Humanoid Robots: A Comprehensive Framework
Alessandro Roncone, Ugo Pattacini, Giorgio Metta, and Lorenzo Natale
Conference Paper
2014 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots
PDF
BIB
3D Stereo Estimation and Fully Automated Learning of Eye-Hand Coordination in Humanoid Robots
Sean Ryan Fanello, Ugo Pattacini, Ilaria Gori, Vadim Tikhanoff, Marco Randazzo, Alessandro Roncone, Francesca Odone, and Giorgio Metta
Conference Paper
2014 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots
PDF
BIB
Automatic kinematic chain calibration using artificial skin: self-touch in the iCub humanoid robot
Alessandro Roncone, Matej Hoffmann, Ugo Pattacini, and Giorgio Metta
It was featured in the IEEE Spectrum Video Friday!
Conference Paper
2014 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation [ICRA]
PDF
BIB
