Education

April 21st 2006: Ph.D. in "Industrial Automation, Robotics and Bioengineering", Engineering Faculty of the University of Pisa. Thesis title: “Mobile Robot Control in Unknown Indoor Environments - The Visual SLAM for Servoing”.  Supervisor: Prof. A. Bicchi.

December 13th 2001: M.S. Degree (Laurea) in “Computer Engineering, Robotics and Industrial Automation”. Note 110/110. Faculty of Engineering, University of Pisa. Thesis title “Architecture and algorithms for mobile robot control using visual feedback”. Supervisor: Prof. A. Bicchi.

Technical High School "Galileo Galilei" (Livorno), Computer Science Course 1988/89 - 1992/93.

Academic career and teaching activities

Daniele Fontanelli received the M.S. degree in Information Engineering in 2001, and the Ph.D. degree in Automation, Robotics and Bioengineering in 2006, both from the University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.  He was a Visiting Scientist with the Vision Lab of the University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, US, from 2006 to 2007.  From 2007 to 2008, he has been an Associate Researcher with the Interdepartmental Research Center ``E. Piaggio'', University of Pisa.  From 2008 to 2013 he joined as an Associate Researcher the Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science and from 2014 the Department of Industrial Engineering, both at the University of Trento, Trento, Italy, where he is now an Associate Professor. He has authored and co-authored more than 150 scientific papers in peer-reviewed top journals and conference proceedings.  He is currently an Associate Editor in Chief for the IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement and an Associate Editor for the IET Science, Measurement & Technology Journal. He has also served in the program committee of different conferences in the area of measurements and robotics.

MAIN TEACHING ACTIVITIES

University of Trento

  • 2019 - present: Laboratory of Internet of Things - Professorship shared with Prof. Davide Brunelli.
  • 2017 - present: Responsible of the EIT Master Course on Autonomous Systems for the University of Trento.
  • 2017 - 2020: Systems and techniques for digital signal processing - Professorship shared with Prof. David Macii.
  • 2014 - present: Distributed Systems for Measurement and Automation - Professor.
  • 2013 - 2014: Distributed Systems for Automation and Robotics - Professor.
  • 2008 - 2013: Electronics for Robotics - Professor.

Responsibility included lessons, holding office hours, preparing homework solutions, grading homework and quizzes, for the following courses:

  • 2015: Linear System Theory
  • 2014--2015: Laboratory of Applied Robotics
  • 2010--2013: Laboratory of Embedded Control Systems
  • 2009: Signals and Systems

 

University of Pisa

Responsibility included lessons, holding office hours, preparing homework solutions, grading homework and quizzes, for the following courses:

  • 2003--2005: Robotics
  • 2004--2006: Automatic Control
  • 2004--2005: Automation Systems

 

PhD Courses

  • May 2021: Fundamentals of Statistical Estimation theory of the “Doctoral School in Materials, Mechatronics and Systems Engineering” of the Industrial Engineering Department (DII) of the University of Trento, Italy (18h).
  • May 2019: Fundamentals of Statistical Estimation theory of the “Doctoral School in Materials, Mechatronics and Systems Engineering” of the Industrial Engineering Department (DII) of the University of Trento, Italy (18h).
  • 20-21-22 February 2018: Introduction to Estimation Algorithms for Automation and Robotics of the Doctoral School in Information Engineering of the Department of Information Engineering (DII) of the University of Pisa, Pisa (20h).

 

INVITED TALKS AND SEMINARS

  • 2020 - Invited seminar: “Localisation Problems for Service Robots”, Institute of Smart System Technologies, Alpen Adria Universitat Klagenfurt, January 24th 2020, Klagenfurt, Austria.
  • 2019 - Invited seminar: “Measurements and Estimation for Robots: the Localization Problem”, Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, September 30th 2019, Pisa, Italy.
  • 2018 - Invited seminar: “An autonomous robotic walker for elderly”, Laboratoire des Signaux et Systemes, Supelec, campus de Gif-sur-Yvette, October 24th 2018, Paris, France.
  • 2017 - Invited seminar: “An autonomous robotic walker for elderly: The FriWalk robot”, Smart Robot Design Lab, University of Tohoku, September 21st 2017, Sendai, Japan.
  • 2015 - Invited Seminar: “Hybrid systems in practice: some wheeled mobile robotics examples”, Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, University of Trento, May 27th 2015, Trento, Italy.
  • 2015 - Invited seminar: “An autonomous robotic walker for elderly: The c-Walker robot”, Interdepartmental Research Center “E. Piaggio”, University of Pisa, May 12th 2015, Pisa, Italy.
  • 2014 - Invited seminar: “Control Issues in Shared Embedded Systems”, Laboratoire des Signaux et Systemes, Supelec, campus de Gif-sur-Yvette, June 19th 2014, Paris, France.
  • 2010 - Invited talk: “Implementation of Anytime Control for Stochastic Embedded Real-Time Systems”, Pre-conference Workshop on Co-Design of Control and Real-Time Computing - IEEE Intl. Conf. on Decision and Control, December 14th 2010, Atlanta, US.

 

TUTORIALS

  • 2020: Measurements Applications for Autonomous Systems of the 2020 IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC 2020), May 25-28, 2020, Dubrovnik, Croatia;
  • 2019: Measurements Applications for Autonomous Systems of the 2019 IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC 2019), May 20-23, 2019, Auckland, New Zealand.
Research interests
  • Measurements for robotics
  • Human robot interaction
  • Mobile robotics
  • Distributed robotics and sensing systems for control
  • Wireless sensor networks and synchronization
  • Estimation and measurement techniques for smart grids
Research work

Involved in European projects:

  • AWARD 2.0 (2019-01-01 - 2019-12-31): Autonomous WARehouse and last mile Delivery 2.0, EIT Digital project. Role: Research Collaborator;
  • AWARD (2018-01-01 - 2018-12-31): Autonomous WARehouse and last mile Delivery, EIT Digital project. Role: Research Collaborator;
  • SAFESTRIP (2017-05-01 - 2020-04-30): Safe and green Sensor Technologies for self-explaining and forgiving Road Interactive aPplications, H2020 project. Role: Research Collaborator;
  • ACANTO (2015-02-01 - 2018-07-31): A CyberphysicAl social NeTwOrk using robot friends, H2020 project. Role: Work Package Leader and Project Management;
  • DALi (2011-11-01 - 2014-10-31): Devices for Assisted Living, FP7 project. Role: Research Collaborator and Project Management;
  • CHAT (2008-09-01 - 2011-08-31): Control of Heterogeneous Automation Systems, FP7 project. Role: Research Collaborator;
  • HYCON 2 (NoE) (2010-09-01 - 2014-11-30): Highly-complex and networked control systems, FP7 Network of Excellence. Role: Research Collaborator;
  • HYCON (NoE) (2004-09-15 - 2008-09-14): Hybrid Control: Taming Heterogeneity and Complexity of Networked Embedded Systems, FP7 Network of Excellence. Role: Research Collaborator}};
  • RUNES (2004-09-01 - 2007-04-30): Reconfigurable Ubiquitous Networked Embedded Systems, FP6 project. Role: Research Collaborator;
  • RECSYS (2002-09-01 - 2005-08-31): Real-Time Embedded Control of Mobile Systems with Distributed Sensing}, FP5 project. Role: Research Collaborator.

 

Involved in national and regional projects:

  • OptHySYS (2015-09-01 - 2017-02-28): Optimization techniques for hybrid dynamical systems: from theory to applications - Provincia Autonoma di Trento. Role: Task coordinator;
  • D-FAB (2015-09-01 - 2017-02-28): Drones for Finding Avalanche-Buried - Provincia Autonoma di Trento. Role: Task coordinator;
  • ACube (2008-10-07 - 2011-10-06): Ambient Aware Assistance - Provincia Autonoma di Trento. Role: Research Collaborator;
  • TRITON (2007-09-01 - 2010-08-31): Trentino Research and Innovation for Tunnel mONitoring - Provincia Autonoma di Trento. Role: Research Collaborator;
  • SUPER (2003): Space Unmanned Planetary Exploration Rover - Italian Space Agency (ASI). Role: Research Collaborator;
  • TEMA (2000-2002): Team-based Exploration by Mobile Agents - Italian Space Agency (ASI). Role: Research Collaborator.

 

Industrial projects:

  • March 1st 2021 - September 30th 2022: PI for the Industrial Engineering Department (DII) of the University of Trento, Italy, in the industrial project issued by GPI S.p.a., via Ragazzi del '99 n. 13, 38123, Trento, Italy.  The project is on the design and implementation of a robotic cell prototype for load and unload of goods in an automated warehouse.
  • March 1st 2020 -- November 30th 2020: PI for the Industrial Engineering Department (DII) of the University of Trento, Italy, in the industrial project issued by GPI S.p.a., via Ragazzi del '99 n. 13, 38123, Trento, Italy.  The project is on the design and definition of a robotic cell for load and unload of goods in an automated warehouse with prescribed requirements and constraints.
  • March 1st 2017 - September 30th 2017: PI for the Industrial Engineering Department (DII) of the University of Trento, Italy, in the industrial project issued by Sinterleghe S.p.a., Via Cenischia 33, 10139, Torino, Italy.  The project is on the improvement and industrialisation of a vision-based measurement instrument to detect and measure the level of mechanical deformation and of metallic dirt of electrodes employed in robotic welding operations in the automotive industry.
  • September 1st 2016 - December 31st 2016: PI for the Industrial Engineering Department (DII) of the University of Trento, Italy, in the industrial project issued by Sinterleghe S.p.a., Via Cenischia 33, 10139, Torino, Italy.  The project is on the development of a vision-based measurement instrument to detect and measure the level of mechanical deformation and of metallic dirt of electrodes employed in robotic welding operations  in the automotive industry.

 

Memberships in societies and scientific committees

Member of GMEE and Senior Member of IEEE.

Awards and honours

Honours and Awards

  • January 1st, 2021: Outstanding Associate Editors of 2020 for the IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement of the The Instrumentation and Measurement Society.
  • July 29th, 2020: Most Productive Italian Reviewer in the past 7 years for The Instrumentation and Measurement Society.
  • July 29th, 2020: Second Most Productive Reviewer in the past 7 years for The Instrumentation and Measurement Society.
  • June 2nd, 2020: Distinguished Service Award as an Outstanding Reviewer of 2015/2019 for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters “in appreciation of outstanding service to IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters”.
  • February 16th, 2020: Outstanding Reviewers of 2019 for The Instrumentation and Measurement Society “in appreciation of outstanding service to IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement”.
  • January 1st, 2020: Outstanding Associate Editors of 2019 for the IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement of the The Instrumentation and Measurement Society.
  • January 19th, 2019: Outstanding Reviewers of 2018 for The Instrumentation and Measurement Society “in appreciation of outstanding service to IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement”.
  • February 1st, 2018: Outstanding Reviewers of 2017 for The Instrumentation and Measurement Society “in appreciation of outstanding service to IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation    and Measurement”.
  • April 19th, 2017: Conference Outstanding Paper at the 2017 IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS) for the paper entitled Probabilistic Real–Time Guarantees: There is life beyond the i.i.d. assumption, authored by Bernardo Villalba Frìas, Luigi Palopoli, Luca Abeni and Daniele Fontanelli.
  • February 27th, 2017: Outstanding Reviewers of 2016 for The Instrumentation and Measurement Society “in appreciation of outstanding service to IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation    and Measurement”.
  • February 25th, 2015: Outstanding Reviewers of 2014 for The Instrumentation and Measurement Society “in appreciation of outstanding service to IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation    and Measurement”.
  • February 18th, 2013: Outstanding Reviewers of 2012 for The Instrumentation and Measurement Society “in appreciation of outstanding service to IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation    and Measurement”.
  • September 15th, 2011: Best Academic Paper Award at the 2011 International IEEE Symposium on Precision Clock Synchronization for Measurement, Control and Communication for the paper entitled A Clock State Estimator for PTP Time Synchronization in Harsh Environmental Conditions, authored by Daniele Fontanelli, David Macii, Philipp Wolfrum, Dragan Obradovic and Guenter Steindl.
  • September 24th, 2009: Fumio Harashima Best Paper Award in Emerging Technologies at the 14th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation issued by the Industrial Electronics Society for the paper entitled Designing Real--Time Embedded Controllers using the Anytime Computing Paradigm, authored by Andrea Quagli, Daniele Fontanelli, Luca Greco, Luigi Palopoli and Antonio Bicchi.
Conferences and lectures

Main activities:

  • 2021: Program Committee Chair for the ASYS: Autonomous Systems Symposium of the IEEE Computer Society Signature Conference on Computers, Software and Applications (COMPSAC 2021), July 12-16, 2021, Madrid, Spain;
  • 2020: Special Session Organiser of the Localisation for Industry 4.0 session at the IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for Industry 4.0 & IoT (METROIND4.0&IoT 2020), June 3-5, 2020, Rome, Italy;
  • 2020: General Chair of the Winter School on Innovation in Autonomous Systems (WSIAS), January 27-31, 2020, Trento, Italy;
  • 2020: Program Committee Chair for the ASYS: Autonomous Systems Symposium of the IEEE Computer Society Signature Conference on Computers, Software and Applications (COMPSAC 2020), July 13-17, 2020, Madrid, Spain;
  • 2019: Program Committee Chair for the ASYS: Autonomous Systems Symposium of the IEEE Computer Society Signature Conference on Computers, Software and Applications (COMPSAC 2019), July 15-19, 2019, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA;
  • 2017: Technical Chair of the IEEE European Summer School on Smart Cities (IEEE S3C-EU 2017), September 4-8, 2017, Trento, Italy;
  • 2017: Co-organiser of the Hybrid Dynamical Systems: Optimization, Stability and Applications workshop as part of the activities carried out during the OptHySYS - Optimization techniques for hybrid dynamical systems: from theory to applications, January 9-11, 2017, Trento, Italy;
  • 2016: Conference Registration Chair of the 2016 IEEE International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2 2016), September 12-15, 2016, Trento, Italy;
  • 2015: Conference General Chair of the 2015 IEEE Workshop on Environmental, Energy, and Structural Monitoring Systems, July 9-10, 2015, Trento, Italy;
  • 2013: Conference Program Chair of the 2013 IEEE Workshop on Environmental, Energy, and Structural Monitoring Systems, September 11-12, 2013, Trento, Italy.

 

Standard activities:

  • Session chair in many conferences, such as: IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference, European Control Conference, International Conference on Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation, IEEE International Smart Cities Conference, IEEE Workshop on Environmental, Energy, and Structural Monitoring Systems, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IEEE International Conference on Decision and Control.
  • Technical Program Committee Member: IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference, International Conference on Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation, Modelling & Simulations for Autonomous Systems Conference, International Conference on Computer Intelligent Systems & Networking, IEEE International Workshop on Applied Measurements for Power Systems.

 

Reviewer Activities

Reviewer (since 2005) of journals in the field of instrumentation and measurements, robotics, automatic control, computer science and embedded systems: IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurements; Measurement; IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid; IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery; IEEE Transactions on Power Systems; Electric Power Systems Research; International Journal of Electrical Power and Energy Systems; International Transactions on Electrical Energy Systems; Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering - Journal of Power and Energy Systems ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control; IEEE Signal Processing Letters; IET Signal Processing; IEEE Transactions on Communications; IEEE Sensors Journal; International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks; Sensors; IET Radar, Sonar and Navigation; IEEE Access; IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics; IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics; Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing; Automatica; IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control; International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control; IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology; IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems; IEEE Transactions on Robotics; IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics; International Journal of Robotics and Automation; International Journal of Field Robotics; Journal of Robotics and Autonomous Systems; IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters; IFAC Journal of Systems and Control; IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics; Journal of Computer Science and Technology; Elsevier Microprocessor and Microsystems; International Journal Engineering Science and Technology; ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems; Astrodynamics; Transactions of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering. 

 

Reviewer (since 2003) of many important conferences in the field of instrumentation and measurements, networked control and sensing, smart power grids, robotics, automatic control and embedded systems: IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC); IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for Industry 4.0 and IoT (MetroInd4.0&IoT) IEEE International Workshop on Applied Measurements for Power Systems (AMPS); IEEE International Conference on Smart Grid Synchronized Measurements and Analytics (SGSMA); IEEE Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Informatics (EECSI); IEEE Symposium on Precision Clock Synchronization for Measurement, Control and Communication (ISPCS); International Conference on Instrumentation, Control and Automation (ICA); International Conference on Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation (IPIN); IEEE Smart Cities Conference (ISC2); International Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IECON); IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Embedded Systems (SIES); American Control Conference (ACC) ; European Control Conference (ECC); IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC); IEEE Control Systems Society Conference; IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA); Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED); Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control (HSCC); IEEE Conference on Control Technology and Applications (CCTA); Design Automation and Test in Europe (DATE); Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems (ECRTS); IEEE Multi-conference on Systems and Control (MSC); IEEE Computer Society Signature Conference on Computers, Software and Applications (COMPSAC); International Conference on informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (ICINCO); IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA); IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent RObots and Systems (IROS); Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS); IEEE RAS/EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (RAS-EMBS); IFAC World Congress; European Robotics Symposium (EUROS); Interntaional IFAC Symposium on Robot Control (SYROCO); Modelling & Simulations for Autonomous Systems (MESAS).

Other work
  • From September 2017: PI of the “Autonomous Systems” programme of the EIT Digital Master School.
  • From January 2021, Associate Editor in Chief for the IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.
  • From January 2019, Associate Editor for the  IET Science, Measurement and Technology Journal.
  • January 2018 - December 2020, Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.
  • From January 2018, Associate Editor for the  IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent RObots and Systems (IROS) conference.