Connectionists: Essex BCI-NE webinar: Touch Science and Engineering for Bionic Prostheses and Collaborative Robotics by Calogero Maria Oddo

[Perdikis, Serafeim]

https://www.linkedin.com/company/essex-bcine-lab/

The Essex BCI-NE Lab invites you to join our next monthly webinar:
Touch Science and Engineering for Bionic Prostheses and Collaborative Robotics

Delivered by

Dr Calogero Maria Oddo
The BioRobotics Institute and Department of Excellence in Robotics & AI
Interdisciplinary Research Center Health Science
Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy

The webinar will take place over Zoom on Wednesday, 18th March 2026, at 2pm UK time
RSVP: https://www.linkedin.com/events/essexbci-newebinarspresents-drc7439506701352873984/


Abstract: The talk will discuss selected case studies of technologies developed for endowing robots and wearables with artificial tactile sensors distributed over large areas and to deliver tactile feedback: from bionic limb prostheses up to the metaverse. A first case study proposed is with piezoresistive MEMS sensors<https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/5740988>, applied to bionic hand prostheses to restore rich tactile skills<https://elifesciences.org/articles/9148>, such as texture discrimination<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-57454-4> in upper limb amputees. Selected achievements are shown in the talk, discussing the application of tactile sensing technologies in a gripper able to manipulate fragile and deformable objects in collaboration with NASA-JPL<https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbot.2019.00008/full>, enabled by combining FEM and machine learning<https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/soro.2018.0172>, or for sensorizing the full area of an anthropomorphic robotic arm<https://www.nature.com/articles/s42256-022-00487-3> featured on the cover of Nature Machine Intelligence<https://www.nature.com/natmachintell/volumes/4/issues/5>. Particularly, endowing robotic arms with large sensorized skins allows the implementation of smart collaborative policies, such as safe interaction and programming by demonstration, that can be deployed in the factories of the future. Finally, ongoing research directions of large area eSkins and neuromorphic touch sensing<https://www.nature.com/articles/s42256-025-01076-w> will be discussed also in the perspective of sustainable NeuroAI<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-68858-7>.


Speaker Biography:  Calogero Maria Oddo<https://www.santannapisa.it/en/calogero-maria-oddo> has a Ph.D. in BioRobotics from Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (SSSA), Pisa, Italy, M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Electronic Engineering from the University of Pisa, 1st and 2nd level degrees in Industrial and Information Engineering as a honors college student of SSSA (3% success rate), all with honors. He is Associate Professor of Bioengineering, he holds the national scientific qualification to be appointed as Full Professor, and he coordinates the Neuro-Robotic Touch Laboratory<https://www.santannapisa.it/en/neuro-robotic-touch-laboratory> at The BioRobotics Institute of SSSA. He has over 130 published studies and several patents, and a track record in integrating biorobotics, neuroscience and industrial applications, with core of research interests in touch science and engineering. He has 6300+ citations and 36 h-index in Scopus and he serves as member of the editorial board of scientific journals such as Scientific Reports edited by Springer Nature and the International Journal of Robotics Research. He has a growing portfolio of successful research grants, with scientific responsibilities within EU and National projects and industrial contracts. In 2023 he received the Feltrinelli Prize for young investigators in bioengineering from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, where he has leadership responsibilities as vice-director of the interdiscilinary center of young scholars.

The Essex BCI-NE Lab webinars series takes place monthly (usually, on the second or third Wednesday of the month) over Zoom and is open to all. Speakers are invited to talk about their research for 45-50 minutes followed by Q&A.

Where speakers allow it, we record the talks and make them available to everyone on our YouTube channel. You can watch previous talks at: https://www.youtube.com/@essexbcis

If you don’t want to miss our next webinars, please email serafeim.perdikis at essex.ac.uk to ask to be added to our webinars mailing list.

Best wishes,
Simis


Dr Serafeim Perdikis, Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer)
Brain-Computer Interfaces and Neural Engineering Laboratory
School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ
United Kingdom
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