Dr Claudio Zito | Intelligent Robotics

I am an Assistant Professor at the School of Mathematical and Computer Science at Heriot-Watt University Dubai (HWUD), a position I have held since 2023. I serve as the Enterprise & Entrepreneurship Director for MACS Dubai, Director of the Heriot-Watt Lab of AI and Robotics Research (LAIRR), Academic Lead for the Centre for Doctoral Training in AI and Robotics (CDT-AIRI), and the Dubai representative for the Heriot-Watt Robotics and AI Global Research Institute (GRI).

I was a lead researcher in Control, AI & Robotics at the Autonomous Robotics Research Centre (ARRC) at the Technology Innovation Institute (TII). The TII is a brand new research institute in Adu Dhabi (UAE). Formerly, I was a senior research fellow at the Extreme Robotics Lab, University of Birmingham (UK) and lecturer in AI at the School of Computer Science at the University of Birmingham (UK).

My main research interest is in mapping perception into actions to model intelligent behaviours for next-gen AI systems. I am a trained scientist in AI, robotics, ML and computational vision. Proficient experience in leading and supervise high-quality research and science communicator. I am also a Review Editor on the Editorial Board of Frontiers in Neurorobotics, and a member of the UAE Artificial Intelligence Expert Group.

Further info:
orcid.org/0000-0002-2943-3518

Download my cv here. In the other tabs more details on my research interests, my latest achivements, and my publication list.

PhD Students

Laura Ferrante. CDT University of Birmingham.
Jonas Eschmann. TII-ARRC & Technische Universität Darmstadt.

Grants & Awards

Finalist Best Paper Award, ICORR 2019 (Karoline Heiwolt).
Birmingham International Engagement Fund (BIEF),
Travel Grant for UoB & Waseda University Collaboration, Nov 2018.
Paul & Yuanbi Ramsay Research Fund, May 2018.
College Best Paper Awards, UoB, Feb 2018. [link]
Conference and Travel Awards.
Paul & Yuanbi Ramsay Research Fund, Dec 2017.
University of Birmingham, "Phd-led seminar funding".
Guarantor of Brain, "Support for short meetings & conferences".
Guarantor of Brain,"Support for short meetings & conferences".
UK Research Council, "Roberts Skills Training Fund".
EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation, "Vulcanus in Japan".

Research Projects

PI in CogWaters, RDI 2025.
Work-package leader in EPSRC grant for Autonomous Robotics in Hazardous Environments, FEFE 18455 RRAH/RRAD, £700k.
Researcher in the European Robotic Challenge (EuRoC ), FP7-ICT-608849, €170k.
Work-package co-leader in PaCMan, FP7-2011-9-IST-600918, €1,452k
Doctoral Researcher in GeRT, FP7-2009-IST-248273, €908k
Researcher in EPSRC grant for research on Modelling Human's Grasping Strategies under Object-Pose Uncertainty, £20k.

Invited speaker / Seminar / Dissemination

Interviewed by TV show Presa Diretta, Il pianeta dei robot (min 13:40), RAI (IT).
Planning under Uncertainty, Vision Leads to Action Workshop, University of Birmingham (UK).
Reinforcement Learning seminar, Centro Piaggio, University of Pisa (IT).
Simultaneous Perception and Manipulation, Waseda University (JP).
Simultaneous Perception and Manipulation, Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) (JP).
Simultaneous Perception and Manipulation, Cyberdyne Inc. (JP)
Re-planning Reach-To-Grasp Trajectory under Object-Pose Uncertainty, IEEE IROS (JP).
Two-level RRT Planner for Robotic Push Manipulation, IEEE IROS (PT).

MSc Students & Projects

T. Faycal & V. Mizaridis. Optimal Action Selection in RL Agents.
K. Heiwolt. Failure Detection for EMG Controlled Prosthetics.
A. Barsky. Multisensory Learning Framework for Robot Drumming.
C. Solari & T. Deregowski. AI Dexterous Grasp Assistant for Teleoperated Robotics.
T. Brereton, & E. Davis & M. Ghazanfar. Mastering Match-3 Puzzle with Deep Learning.
J. Stuber. Two-Level Push-MDP: Learning Policies for Autonomous Mobile Robots.
D. Hill. Developing a Torque Based Model Of Control Using Reinforcement Learning.
V. Raman & R. Bansi & I. Lei. Web-Based Educational Tools to Develop the Understanding of AI Concepts.
X. Xue. Developing a Graphical Tool for Teaching AI Searching Algorithms.