Alcino Cunha

About

Alcino Cunha is a prominent computer scientist whose research sits at the intersection of software engineering, formal methods, and robotics software, with a particular focus on the Robot Operating System (ROS). His work addresses one of the most pressing challenges in modern robotics: ensuring the dependability, safety, and security of increasingly complex robotic software deployed in safety-critical environments such as healthcare and transportation. Cunha has made significant contributions to the analysis and verification of ROS-based systems, pioneering techniques for static analysis, quality assessment, and formal verification of robotic applications. His 2016 framework for quality assessment of ROS repositories (47 citations) established foundational methods for evaluating software safety in robotics, while subsequent work on static extraction of ROS computation graphs (23 citations) and system-wide safety property verification (22 citations) advanced the tooling available to robotic software engineers. His research into property-based testing and mining ROS usage patterns further demonstrates a commitment to practical, scalable software assurance. More recently, Cunha has extended his interests into robot cybersecurity and variability analysis, reflecting the evolving demands of the field. Collectively, his portfolio represents a coherent and impactful research agenda shaping safer, more reliable robotic software development.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   A framework for quality assessment of ROS repositories

   47 citations · 2016
2. 2
   Static-Time Extraction and Analysis of the ROS Computation Graph

   23 citations · 2019
3. 3
   Mining the usage patterns of ROS primitives

   22 citations · 2017
4. 4
   Verification of system-wide safety properties of ROS applications

   22 citations · 2020
5. 5
   Property-based testing for the robot operating system

   20 citations · 2018
6. 6
   alurity, a toolbox for robot cybersecurity

   4 citations · 2020
7. 7
   Schema-guided Testing of Message-oriented Systems

   3 citations · 2022
8. 8
   Variability Analysis for Robot Operating System Applications

   2 citations · 2022

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links