Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Silviu Matu is a leading researcher at the intersection of clinical psychology and human-robot interaction, with a primary focus on Robot-Enhanced Therapy (RET) for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). His major contributions center on developing and validating supervised autonomous robotic systems that teach critical social skills, such as joint attention and turn-taking. In a landmark 2019 study (81 citations), Matu and his team demonstrated the clinical efficacy of a robotic system funded by the EC-FP7 DREAM project, showing measurable improvements in social communication. His work on turn-taking (61 citations) identified key behavioral markers that robots can target to regulate social interaction. Matu also spearheaded the creation of the DREAM Dataset (57 citations), an unprecedented open-access resource containing behavioral data from 61 children across over 3,000 therapy sessions—more than 300 hours of clinical interaction. This dataset has become a foundational tool for data-driven ASD research. By bridging robotics and evidence-based therapy, Matu has established a new paradigm for scalable, technology-assisted interventions, directly impacting how clinicians and engineers design support systems for neurodiverse populations.