Holistic Robotics for Dexterous, Adaptive, and Human-Aware Intelligent Systems

I develop robots through the tight integration of embodiment, perception, learning, and interaction, with the goal of enabling increasingly autonomous, safer, and more robust systems for industrial and assistive applications.

My research is organized around four connected pillars: Embodiment & Hardware, Perception & Representation, Learning & Control, and Human-Robot Interaction. Together, they support a holistic approach to robot development inspired by embodied and developmental robotics, where hardware and software are co-designed to help robots perceive, understand, and act reliably in complex real-world environments. I am particularly interested in academic-industrial partnerships that translate knowledge-intensive R&D into socially relevant robotic solutions.

Research Pillars

Embodiment & Hardware

Designing tactile robot hands, sensor morphology, and embodied systems that support dexterous contact-rich manipulation.

Perception & Representation

Building visuo-haptic models, cross-modal representations, and tactile perception methods for robust object and contact understanding.

Learning & Control

Developing adaptive control, reinforcement learning, and sim2real strategies for safe and dexterous robot behavior.

Human-Robot Interaction

Exploring human-centered interaction, safety, collaboration, and embodied robot behavior around people.

Recent Projects

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BioBots
Biodiversitätsförderung im Straßenbegleitgrün – Schaffung von Biotopverbundachsen durch autonome Roboter

01 Feb 2026 » 31 Jan 2028

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fovi2025
FOVI240110 project on “Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Remote and Proximal Sensing in Precision Agriculture

26 Nov 2024 » 29 Jun 2026

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Vibro-Sense
A Bio-inspired Tactile Sensor for Robotics

01 Oct 2024 » 31 Mar 2026

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See all projects

Featured Publications:

  1. SPLIT: Separating Physical-Contact Via Latent Arithmetic in Image-Based Tactile Sensors
     Robotics and Autonomous Systems. vol. 203, pp. 105498. Sep 2026.
    Zai El Amri, Wadhah; Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    DOI, PDF, URL, bib file. bibkey: ZaiElAmri2026SPLIT Supplementary material ©2026 The Authors.
  2. Do Robots Really Need Anthropomorphic Hands? A Comparison of Human and Robotic Hands
     arXiv. May 2026.
    Fabisch, Alexander; Zai El Amri, Wadhah; Singh, Chandandeep; Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    DOI, PDF, URL, bibkey: Fabisch2026Robots Supplementary material ©2026 The Authors.
  3. Vibro-Sense: Robust Vibration-based Impulse Response Localization and Trajectory Tracking for Robotic Hands
     Under Review in Robotics and Autonomous Systems. pp. 1-13. Jan 2026.
    Zai El Amri, Wadhah; Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    DOI, PDF, URL, bib file. bibkey: ZaiElAmri2026VibroSense Supplementary material ©2026 The Authors.
  4. ACROSS: A Deformation-Based Cross-Modal Representation for Robotic Tactile Perception
     IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). pp. 5836-5842. Atlanta, GA, USA. May 2025.
    Zai El Amri, Wadhah; Kuhlmann, Malte; Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    DOI, PDF, URL, bib file. bibkey: ZaiElAmri2025ACROSS Supplementary material ©2025 IEEE The Authors.
  5. Continual Domain Randomization
     IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). pp. 4965-4972. Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Oct 2024.
    Josifovski, Josip; Auddy, Sayantan; Malmir, Mohammadhossein; Piater, Justus; Knoll, Alois; Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    DOI, PDF, URL, bib file. bibkey: Josifovski2024Continual Supplementary material ©2024 IEEE The Authors.
  6. Visuo-Haptic Object Perception for Robots: An Overview
     Autonomous Robots. vol. 47, no. 4, pp. 377–403. Apr 2023.
    Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás; Toprak, Sibel; Josifovski, Josip; Jamone, Lorenzo
    DOI, PDF, URL, bib file. bibkey: Navarro-Guerrero2023VisuoHaptic ©2023 Springer US The Authors.