Gianmarco Veruggio

Research Director, CNR-IEIIT, Genoa, Italy

Gianmarco Veruggio received the degree in electronic engineering from the Genoa University in 1980. From 1980 to 1983 he worked as a designer of fault-tolerant multiprocessor architectures for fail-safe control systems in the Automation Division of Ansaldo. In 1984 he joined the CNR-IAN in Genoa, as a Research Scientist. He has worked on real-time computer graphics for simulation, control techniques, and naval and marine data-collection systems.

In 1989 he founded the CNR-IAN Robotics Department (Robotlab), which he headed until 2003, to carry out researches and missions on experimental robotics in extreme environment. In these missions, he tested his approach: the development of working prototypes to be exploited in a Virtual Lab environment. His research interests encompass robot mission control, real-time human-machine interfaces, networked control system architectures for tele-robotics and Internet Robotics. He headed several marine robotics campaigns in Antarctica and in the Arctic. In particular, during the 2001-2002 Antarctic expedition, he carried out the E-Robot Project, the first experiment of Internet Robotics via Satellite in the Antarctica. In 2002 he designed and developed the Project E-Robot2, the first experiment of world wide Internet Robotics ever carried out in the Arctic. During these projects, he organized a series of “live-science” sessions, in collaboration with students and teachers of Italian schools.

He has been involved in projects of dissemination and education and in 2000 he founded the association “Scuola di Robotica” to promote Robotics among young people through European and national Educational projects. In 2007 he joined the CNR-IEIIT as a Research Director and is now Responsible for the Operational Unit of Genoa of CNR-IEIIT. He is author of more than 150 scientific publications. He has written more than a hundred of articles on Robotics in popular magazines, and he is a reference point for the media and the scientific press. The study of the complex relationship between Robotics and Society led him to coin the term and propose the concept of Roboethics and to dedicate increasing resources to the development of this new applicative field of Ethics. In 2006 he was presented with the Ligurian Region Award for Innovation and in 2009 he was presented with the title of Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, one of Italy’s highest civilian honours.