Marilena Vendittelli

About

Marilena Vendittelli is a prominent robotics researcher whose work spans mobile robot control, autonomous navigation, and surgical robotics. Based at Sapienza University of Rome, she has made foundational contributions to wheeled mobile robot (WMR) motion control, most notably her 2002 paper on dynamic feedback linearization for unicycle-kinematics robots, which has accumulated an remarkable 781 citations and remains a landmark reference in nonholonomic systems control. Her early work on autonomous robot navigation in unknown environments introduced elegant algorithmic frameworks alternating map building and navigation, while her development of fuzzy maps brought probabilistic reasoning to mobile robot perception. Vendittelli has also advanced exploration strategies through randomized methods such as the Sensor-based Random Tree and cooperative multi-robot exploration frameworks, demonstrating sustained innovation across two decades. More recently, she has extended her expertise into medical robotics, addressing remote center of motion constraints for minimally invasive surgery and developing a widely adopted V-REP simulator for the da Vinci Research Kit platform. With multiple papers exceeding 100 citations and a cumulative body of work influencing both theory and experimental practice, Vendittelli represents an exceptional bridge between rigorous mathematical control design and real-world robotic implementation.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   WMR control via dynamic feedback linearization: design, implementation, and experimental validation

   781 citations · 2002
2. 2
   Real-time map building and navigation for autonomous robots in unknown environments

   222 citations · 1998
3. 3
   Control of Wheeled Mobile Robots: An Experimental Overview

   199 citations · 2001
4. 4
   Task control with remote center of motion constraint for minimally invasive robotic surgery

   135 citations · 2013
5. 5
   Fuzzy maps: A new tool for mobile robot perception and planning

   127 citations · 1997
6. 6
   The Sensor-based Random Graph Method for Cooperative Robot Exploration

   115 citations · 2009
7. 7
   On-line map building and navigation for autonomous mobile robots

   92 citations · 2002
8. 8
   The SRT method: randomized strategies for exploration

   92 citations · 2004
9. 9
   Obstacle distance for car-like robots

   88 citations · 1999
10. 10
    A V-REP Simulator for the da Vinci Research Kit Robotic Platform

    62 citations · 2018

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links