Assistant Professor / Researcher RTD-A
DIETI, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Research
My research activities focus on cognitive and autonomous robotics. I design cognitive architectures and methods enabling flexible execution of complex structured tasks, with the goal of fostering robot autonomy and human–robot interaction.
My research interests span cognitive science and intelligent robotics, including machine learning, planning and scheduling, cognitive systems, robot design and control, task and motion planning, multi-robot systems, and robot learning from demonstrations.
Education and qualifications
PhD in Information Technology and Electrical Engineering
Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, 2017. Thesis: “Flexible Task Execution and Cognitive Control in Human-Robot Interaction”.
Master’s degree in Computer Science
Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, 2013.
National Scientific Qualification
Associate Professor, 01/B1 – Informatics. Valid from 12/12/2023 to 12/12/2035.
National Scientific Qualification
Associate Professor, 09/G1 – Automatica. Valid from 25/06/2025 to 25/06/2037.
Research and professional appointments
Scientific collaborator
CREATE – Consorzio di Ricerca per l’Energia, l’Automazione e le Tecnologie dell’Elettromagnetismo
Research grant holder / scientific consultant
DIETI, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II and CREATE
Research Fellow
DIETI, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Scientific Consultant
CREATE, Napoli, Italy
Research Fellow
DIETI, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
PhD Fellow
DIETI, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Visiting Scholar
Technische Universität München (TUM), Munich, Germany
Teaching and supervision
Programmazione Object-oriented
3 CFU, SSD INF/01, BSc in Computer Science, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Planning and Navigation
6 CFU, SSD INF/01, MSc in Automation and Robotics, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Reti di Calcolatori I
6 CFU, SSD INF/01, BSc in Computer Science, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Trasformazione Digitale e Tecnologie Informatiche
4 CFU, SSD INF/01, BSc in Agricultural, Forestry and Environmental Sciences, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Ethical Machine Learning and Data Mining Laboratory
6 CFU, Master in Human Centered Artificial Intelligence (HCAIM), Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Erasmus Intensive Program
Master in Human Centered Artificial Intelligence, HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht
Robotics: Tools for programming
Master in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Università degli Studi di Napoli Parthenope
Robotics and Autonomous Sensors / Robotica e Soluzioni automatizzate
Teaching assistant, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Seminars and tutoring in robotics and computer science courses
Intelligent Robotics, Sistemi per il Governo dei Robot, Fondamenti di Informatica
Supervision and academic duties
- Reviewer of a PhD thesis in Information Technologies at Università degli Studi di Parma (2024/25).
- Supervisor of 14 BSc theses in Computer Science and 4 MSc theses in Automation and Robotics since A.Y. 2022/23.
- Co-supervisor of 5 MSc theses in Computer Science since A.Y. 2022/23.
- Co-tutor of the PhD thesis “Multi-Robot Distributed Strategies for Priority-Based Sanitization of Railway Stations” (2020/21–2023/24).
- Co-responsible for an incoming Erasmus Learning Agreement from the University of Fianarantsoa, Madagascar (2025).
Projects
INVERSE
Local Principal Investigator for CREATE and WP5 leader for “Task Execution, Inversion, and Monitoring”. European Commission Horizon RIA, grant agreement 101136067.
Space It Up
Member of the UNINA group in WP8.2. Extended Partnership PE15 funded by ASI and MUR.
AIDROW
Local Principal Investigator for UNINA. PRIN-PNRR project on anti-intruder multi-drone systems for smart farming.
euROBIN
Member of the CREATE group. European Robotics and AI Network, EC project.
HARMONY
Member of the CREATE group. Enhancing Healthcare with Assistive Robotic Mobile Manipulation, H2020.
DIH2
CREATE group member, reviewer and mentor for open-call technology-transfer projects.
FoAIming
Member of the PRISMA group. AI and robotics in polymer foaming.
ICOSAF
UNINA group responsible for development and validation of collaborative robotic systems for industrial manufacturing.
REFILLS
CREATE group responsible for autonomous robotic depalletizing activities in supermarket logistics.
RoMoLO
UNINA group responsible for navigation of mobile robots in dynamic, semi-known environments.
RoDyMan
Member of the CREATE group.
SHERPA
Member of the UNINA group.
SAPHARI
Member of the UNINA group.
Editorial activities, committees, and invited talks
Editorial and conference service
- Associate Editor, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), topic “Human-robot interaction” (2025–present).
- Associate Editor, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2023, 2025, 2026), topic “Robot Learning”.
- Associate Editor, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2023, 2024, 2025), topic “Robotics Systems”.
- Review Editor, Frontiers in Robotics and AI, Humanoid Robotics section (2023–2025).
- Program Committee member for ECAI 2025, PlanRob 2020–2024, AIRO 2020, 2022, 2023, HFR 2020, AIxIA 2020, and the ICAPS 2019 Robotics Track.
- Session Chair, “Cognitive and Trustworthy Robotics”, 9th ICAPS Workshop on Planning and Robotics (PlanRob 2021).
- Organizer, workshop “Neuro-Symbolic Robotics in the Age of Foundational Models”, IEEE ICDL 2026.
Institutional roles
- Member of the Commissione Pratiche Studenti for the Computer Science degree programme, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (2025–present).
- Member of the Commissione Riconoscimento Crediti per Attività Lavorative for the Computer Science degree programme (2025–present).
- President of an examining committee for a technical/scientific/data-processing staff position at Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (2024).
- President of a selection committee for a post-doc fixed-term contract at CREATE (2025).
- Member of selection committees for research grants at DIETI and CeSMA, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (2024).
Invited talks
- Invited Speaker, “Industry 5.0: Workplace Transformation with Next Generation Smart Robots”, I-RIM3D 2025.
- Invited Speaker, “A scuola tra I.A. e relazione”, Associazione Nazionale Presidi and Università Telematica Pegaso, 2025.
- Invited Speaker, GARTEUR 50th anniversary, “AI in Aeronautics” session, 2023.
- Invited Speaker, Workshop on Cognitive Robotics, I-RIM 2022.
Awards and recognitions
- 3rd place at the Leonardo Drone Contest as UNINA team contact point, supervisor and co-developer (2025).
- Best Paper Award nomination for “Toward a Cognitive Control Framework for Explainable Robotics”, HFR 2020.
Selected journal publications
- 2026 S. D’Angelo, F. Pagano, R. Caccavale, V. Scognamiglio, A. De Crescenzo, P. Merone, S. Ciaravino, A. Finzi, and V. Lippiello. H-CoRE: A Cooperative Framework for Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Exploration and Inspection. Drones. DOI: 10.3390/drones10040232
- 2026 G. Rauso, R. Caccavale, and A. Finzi. Incremental Learning from Virtual Demonstrations and Task Composition for Robotic Manipulation. Robotics and Autonomous Systems. DOI: 10.1016/j.robot.2025.105274
- 2025 J. Duque-Domingo, R. Caccavale, A. Finzi, E. Zalama, and J. Gómez-García-Bermejo. One-shot learning for rapid generation of structured robotic manipulation tasks from 3D video demonstrations. Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing. DOI: 10.1007/s10845-025-02673-7
- 2024 R. Caccavale, A. Finzi, G. Laudante, C. Natale, S. Pirozzi, and L. Villani. Manipulation of Boltlike Fasteners Through Fingertip Tactile Perception in Robotic Assembly. IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics. DOI: 10.1109/TMECH.2023.3320519
- 2023 R. Caccavale, M. Ermini, E. Fedeli, A. Finzi, V. Lippiello, and F. Tavano. A multi-robot deep Q-learning framework for priority-based sanitization of railway stations. Applied Intelligence. DOI: 10.1007/s10489-023-04529-0
- 2023 J. Cacace, R. Caccavale, A. Finzi, and R. Grieco. Combining human guidance and structured task execution during physical human–robot collaboration. Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing. DOI: 10.1007/s10845-022-01989-y
- 2022 R. Caccavale and A. Finzi. A rapidly-exploring random trees approach to combined task and motion planning. Robotics and Autonomous Systems. DOI: 10.1016/j.robot.2022.104238
- 2021 R. Caccavale and A. Finzi. A Robotic Cognitive Control Framework for Collaborative Task Execution and Learning. Topics in Cognitive Science. DOI: 10.1111/tops.12587
- 2020 P. Arpenti, R. Caccavale, G. Paduano, G.A. Fontanelli, V. Lippiello, L. Villani, and B. Siciliano. RGB-D recognition and localization of cases for robotic depalletizing in supermarkets. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2020.3013936
- 2020 G.A. Fontanelli, G. Paduano, R. Caccavale, P. Arpenti, V. Lippiello, L. Villani, and B. Siciliano. A reconfigurable gripper for robotic autonomous depalletizing in supermarket logistics. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2020.3003283
- 2020 R. Caccavale, P. Arpenti, G. Paduano, A. Fontanelli, V. Lippiello, L. Villani, and B. Siciliano. A flexible robotic depalletizing system for supermarket logistics. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2020.3000427
- 2019 R. Caccavale and A. Finzi. Learning attentional regulations for structured tasks execution in robotic cognitive control. Autonomous Robots. DOI: 10.1007/s10514-019-09876-x
- 2019 R. Caccavale, M. Saveriano, A. Finzi, and D. Lee. Kinesthetic teaching and attentional supervision of structured tasks in human–robot interaction. Autonomous Robots. DOI: 10.1007/s10514-018-9706-9
- 2017 R. Caccavale and A. Finzi. Flexible task execution and attentional regulations in human-robot interaction. IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems. DOI: 10.1109/TCDS.2016.2614690
Conference papers
- 2025 G. Rauso, R. Caccavale, and A. Finzi. Combined Text-Visual Attention Models for Robot Task Learning and Execution. AIxIA 2024. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-80607-0_18
- 2024 G. Rauso, R. Caccavale, and A. Finzi. Incremental Learning of Robotic Manipulation Tasks through Virtual Reality Demonstrations. IROS 2024. DOI: 10.1109/iros58592.2024.10802774
- 2024 V. Scognamiglio, R. Caccavale, P. Merone, A. De Crescenzo, F. Ruggiero, and V. Lippiello. Autonomous Visual Inspection of Industrial Plants Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. ICUAS 2024. DOI: 10.1109/icuas60882.2024.10556996
- 2024 R. Caccavale, M. Ermini, E. Fedeli, A. Finzi, E. Garone, V. Lippiello, and F. Tavano. Combining Hierarchical MILP-MPC and Artificial Potential Fields for Multi-robot Priority-Based Sanitization of Railway Stations. DARS 2022. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-51497-5_31
- 2023 F. Tavano, R. Caccavale, M. Ermini, E. Fedeli, L. Ricciardi, A. Finzi, and V. Lippiello. Bioinspired Artificial Cockroach Colony Strategy Combined with 2-Type Fuzzy Logic for Priority-Based Sanitization of Railway Stations. PAAMS 2023. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-37616-0_30
- 2022 R. Caccavale, M. Ermini, E. Fedeli, A. Finzi, V. Lippiello, and F. Tavano. Toward a Heterogeneous Multi-robot Framework for Priority-Based Sanitization of Railway Stations. AIxIA 2022. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-27181-6_27
- 2021 R. Caccavale and A. Finzi. Combining Task and Motion Planning through Rapidly-exploring Random Trees. ECMR 2021. DOI: 10.1109/ECMR50962.2021.9568803
- 2019 M. Saveriano, M. Seegerer, R. Caccavale, A. Finzi, and D. Lee. Symbolic task compression in structured task learning. IRC 2019. DOI: 10.1109/IRC.2019.00033
- 2019 J. Cacace, R. Caccavale, A. Finzi, and V. Lippiello. Variable admittance control based on virtual fixtures for human-robot co-manipulation. IEEE SMC 2019. DOI: 10.1109/SMC.2019.8914084
- 2018 R. Caccavale, M. Saveriano, G.A. Fontanelli, F. Ficuciello, D. Lee, and A. Finzi. Imitation learning and attentional supervision of dual-arm structured tasks. ICDL-EpiRob 2017. DOI: 10.1109/DEVLRN.2017.8329789
- 2017 J. Cacace, R. Caccavale, A. Finzi, and V. Lippiello. Attentional multimodal interface for multidrone search in the alps. IEEE SMC 2016. DOI: 10.1109/SMC.2016.7844401
- 2016 R. Caccavale, J. Cacace, M. Fiore, R. Alami, and A. Finzi. Attentional supervision of human-robot collaborative plans. IEEE RO-MAN 2016. DOI: 10.1109/ROMAN.2016.7745221
- 2016 R. Caccavale and A. Finzi. Plan execution and attentional regulations for flexible human-robot interaction. IEEE SMC 2015. DOI: 10.1109/SMC.2015.429
- 2014 R. Caccavale, A. Finzi, L. Lucignano, S. Rossi, and M. Staffa. Attentional top-down regulation and dialogue management in human-robot interaction. ACM/IEEE HRI 2014. DOI: 10.1145/2559636.2559854
- 2014 R. Caccavale, E. Leone, L. Lucignano, S. Rossi, M. Staffa, and A. Finzi. Attentional regulations in a situated human-robot dialogue. IEEE RO-MAN 2014. DOI: 10.1109/ROMAN.2014.6926358