About

Miguel Vasco is a researcher at the intersection of artificial intelligence, human-robot interaction, and autonomous systems. His work spans two compelling frontiers: developing socially aware robots for therapeutic settings and pushing the boundaries of autonomous racing. Vasco’s most influential contribution is “Project INSIDE” (45 citations), which explores autonomous semi-unstructured human-robot social interaction for autism therapy, demonstrating how robots can engage meaningfully with children in real-world clinical contexts. He further investigates child-robot learning through explainable agency, revealing how suboptimal robot behavior can actually enhance transparency in educational scenarios. In a striking contrast, Vasco contributed to a super-human vision-based reinforcement learning agent for Gran Turismo, achieving the longstanding grand challenge of racing autonomous cars faster than the best human drivers. His recent work on robotics competitions for human-centric topics signals a growing interest in participatory design and public engagement. With a career bridging assistive robotics and high-performance AI, Vasco exemplifies how deep reinforcement learning and social robotics can inform one another, offering fresh perspectives on agency, trust, and capability in autonomous systems.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

3
H-Index
4
Papers
55
Total Citations
14
Avg Citations/Paper
🏆 Most Cited Paper
Project INSIDE: towards autonomous semi-unstructured human–robot social interaction in autism therapy
45 citations · 2018
📈 Most Prolific Year: 2024 (2 Papers)
🤝 Key Collaborators: 31
🏛 Institutions: Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores Investigação e Desenvolvimento, KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Top Papers

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Key Collaborators

Contact & Links

Available for collaboration
Content generated · 13 days ago