Talks and presentations
Notable talks, workshops, panel presentation and keynotes, with a focus on international events
November 30, 2025
Talk, Swiss Robotics Day 2025, Lausanne, Switzerland
I had the honor to present the Innovation Booster Robotics in front of the robotics community in Switzerland on this year’s Swiss Robotics Day, and to talk about its achievements and about its excellent team. I am grateful to work with the booster for a number of years.
During the Swiss Robotics Day, our group participated with the ZHAW pavilion and showed a demonstration of our robotic winding system, working seamlessly for 10 hours with path planning computed by a RL algorithm.
October 28, 2025
Talk, 2025 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Workshop Embodied AI and Edge Computing for Intelligent Robots, Hangzhou, China
During the workshop Embodied AI and Edge Computing for Intelligent Robots at IROS I presented several our advances in controlling manufacturing robots to reach autonomy and adapt to various manufacturing scenarios. One of the important technologies to reach that is metalearning, on which we work actively. Using interactive optimization (Bayesian optimization, reinforcement learning), and adapting models or controllers in the cloud enables even better adaptation capabilities. I also highlighted an upcoming publication (Multifidelity Guided BO with DIgital Twins), which also demonstrates how edge and cloud computing increase autonomy and adaptability for robotic and manufacturing systems and components.
October 27, 2025
Talk, 2025 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Workshop Embodied AI and Edge Computing for Intelligent Robots, Hangzhou, China
In manufacturing and industrial environments, environment or equipment is subject to change. By using a method based on Bayesian Optimization and safe exploration, our method optimizes continuously desired parameters based on the prescribed system performance. We include input and output constraints, which are satisfied throughout the optimization procedure. Therefore, the method is suitable for use in practical systems where safety or operational constraints are of concern. We include contextual information, using task parameters, which makes the optimization flexible. The paper can be found here on arxiv and as a journal article in IEEE Transactions on Automation, Science, and Engineering here.
June 25, 2025
Conference proceedings talk, European Control Conference 2025, Thessaloniki, Greece
I presented our paper forcused on avoiding singularities in the motion of Delta robots using control barrier functions. The interesting thing about it is that model mimatch in the control approach is considered and avoided using a deterministic RKHS bound on the Gaussian process model of the mismatch. The slides are avalable here.
June 25, 2025
Plenary Keynote, European Control Conference 2025, Thessaloniki, Greece
I co-organized and chaired the tutorial session on Entrepreneurship in Control of the European Control Conference 2025 in Thessaloniki and gave a keynote about presenting research with entrepreneurship in mind - drawing examples from our research in control and optimization of 3D printing. Here is more info about this tutorial. The website contains many useful resourses - in particular, how to find applications and how to extend the scope of your research. My slides are available upon request.
January 30, 2025
Plenary Keynote, Innovation Booster Robotics, AI in Robotics, Rotkreuz, Switzerland
I gave a keynote about flexible robotics ooperation on this event of the Innovation Booster Robotics. The slides are available upon request.
September 01, 2024
Debate moderation, IEEE CASE 2024, Bari, Italy
IEEE Conference on Automation, Science, and Engineering, September 2024, Bari, Italy – Workshop Translating Manufacturing Control and Automation Research to Practice: Examples, Challenges, and Opportunities. More information here.
June 30, 2024
Panel, European Control Conference 2024, Stockholm, Sweden
Also during the 2024 edition of ECC I participated in a panel discussion, focused on bridging control research to industry applications, during a tutorial session – Automatic Control Horizon: Roadmap and Industrial Innovation.
June 28, 2024
Talk, European Control Conference, Workshop Bayesian optimization meets control, Stockholm, Sweden
During the this pre-ECC workshop I presented several Bayesian optimization algorithms, suitable for optimization in manufacturing, bacause they can handle unknown safety constraints, and they can ensure continuous optimization (thus taking into account process drifts).
March 28, 2024
Plenary Keynote, Benelux meeting on Systems and Control, Blankenberge, Belgium
I gave the opening keynote about data-driven optimization and control in manufacturing applications. The slides are available here.
March 28, 2024
Plenary, Swiss Technology Days, 2024, Dubendorf, Switzerland
I one of the keynotes, on the topic of data-driven optimization and control in manufacturing applications.