Nicola Sansonetto

About

Nicola Sansonetto is a researcher whose work spans robotics, motion planning, and geometric control theory, with particular expertise in learning-from-demonstration frameworks and state estimation on Lie groups. He is best known for his influential contributions to Dynamic Movement Primitives (DMPs), a framework that enables robots to learn and reproduce trajectories from a single demonstration. His two landmark papers on volumetric obstacle avoidance using superquadric potential functions — accumulating 76 and 48 citations respectively — significantly advanced the field by enabling robots to navigate around three-dimensional obstacles with dynamic awareness, addressing one of DMP's most persistent limitations. His 2021 work on overcoming DMPs' drawbacks and his 2025 integration of Control Barrier Functions further demonstrate a sustained commitment to maturing this framework for real-world deployment. Sansonetto has also made notable contributions to autonomous surgical robotics, with a 2020 paper on task planning and situation awareness in robotic surgery earning 46 citations. Complementing this applied work, his research on second-order-optimal minimum-energy filters on Lie groups addresses precise state estimation for mobile robots navigating non-Euclidean configuration spaces, reflecting a sophisticated mathematical foundation underpinning his broader robotics agenda.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Dynamic Movement Primitives: Volumetric Obstacle Avoidance Using Dynamic Potential Functions

   76 citations · 2021
2. 2
   Dynamic Movement Primitives: Volumetric Obstacle Avoidance

   48 citations · 2019
3. 3
   Autonomous task planning and situation awareness in robotic surgery

   46 citations · 2020
4. 4
   Second-Order-Optimal Filter on Lie Groups for Planar Rigid Bodies

   7 citations · 2022
5. 5
   Overcoming some drawbacks of Dynamic Movement Primitives

   5 citations · 2021
6. 6
   Second-order-optimal filtering on SE<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" id="d1e835" altimg="si3.svg"><mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mo>(</mml:mo><mml:mn>2</mml:mn><mml:mo>)</mml:mo></mml:mrow><mml:mo linebreak="goodbreak" linebreakstyle="after">×</mml:mo><mml:msup><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="double-struck">R</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msup></mml:mrow></mml:math>for the Chaplygin sleigh

   4 citations · 2023
7. 7
   Minimum-energy switching geometric filter on lie groups for differential-drive wheeled mobile robots

   3 citations · 2024
8. 8
   Dynamic Movement Primitives With Control Barrier Functions for Constrained Trajectory Planning

   1 citations · 2025

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links