Alessandro Tognetti

News

Work experience
⁃ 2019–today: Associate Professor in Bioengineering – Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione and Research Center “E.Piaggio” – University of Pisa.
- from 2015: Chair of the course of "Biosensors" - Biomedical Engineering Degree – School of Engineering – University of Pisa.
⁃ 2012–today: Chair of the course “Minimally invasive devices” - Biomedical Engineering Degree – School of Engineering – University of Pisa.
⁃ 2010–2012: Chair of the course “Biosensors” - Biomedical Engineering degree – Faculty of Engineering – University of Cagliari.
⁃ 2006-2012: Postdoctoral fellow at the Research Center “E.Piaggio” – University of Pisa.
⁃ 2001-2006: Research assistant, Research Center “E.Piaggio” – University of Pisa.
 
Education
⁃ 2005: Phd in "Robotics, Automation and Bioengineering", Department of Electrical Systems and Automation, University di Pisa, Thesis: "Wearable Kinaesthetic Systems for Capturing and Classifying Body Posture and Gesture".
⁃ 2001: Laurea degree in Electronics Engineering, University of Pisa, Thesis: "Micro-fabrication of carbon nanotube actuators for applications in Bioengineering".
 
Research
My research activity is focussed on the design and development of multimodal wearable technologies able to measure and analyse – in out-of-lab daily life contexts - human posture and movement as well as physiological signals. My competences and skills range from sensor build up – starting from the physical principle and the enabling technology –, system integration, high level interpretation/fusion to the development of ICT supported applications in e-health, rehabilitation, robotics and human/machine interaction.
A summary of the research activities carried out since 2001 is reported below. These activities resulted in more than 100 international scientific publications.  Most of the research has been carried out in the frame of European and International projects (more than 15), in which I have participated as team leader. Among these projects I was workpackage leader of the EU IP project ProeTex, leading a group of 12 partners developing sensors and biosensors for emergency personnel monitoring.
  • Soft sensors for motion capture and analysis with applications in rehabilitation, robotics and human machine interaction
    • Gesture/activity classification and Motion capture/analysis through flexible and/or textile-based deformation sensors and goniometers (integrated in gloves, shirts etc..)
    • Development of innovative smart sensing materials such as Conductive Elastomers (CE) and Knitted piezoresistive fabrics (KPF)
  • Wearable electronics and micro-sensors
    • Unobtrusive Physiological and behavioural wearable acquisition systems through the development of an all-in-one solution integrated in a chest band for stress correlates detection
      • ECG, breathing and human activity monitoring
    • Hand prosthesic
      • Innovative control scheme based on traditional EMG fused with force and inertial sensing
  • Data fusion
    • Inertial and phsysiological sensors for accurate human activity classification
    • Enhancing the performance of upper/lower limb gesture reconstruction through sensory fusion between inertial and textile-based deformation sensors
Grants
 
European Commission
  • FP7-ICT-2013-10 EASEL: Expressive Agents for Symbiotic Education and Learning. Topic: symbiotic human robot interaction.
  • FP7-ICT-2011-7-287351 INTERACTION: Training and monitoring of daily-life physical interaction with the environment after stroke. Topic: wearable devices and systems for daily-life monitoring of stroke patients.
  • FP7-ICT-2009-5-258749 CEEDS: The Collective Experience of Empathic Data Systems. Topic: development of novel, integrated technologies to support human experience, analysis and understanding of very large datasets.
  • FP7-ICT-2009-4-247685 INTERSTRESS: Interreality in the Management and Treatment of Stress-Related Disorders. Topic: diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of psychological stress through wearable physiological and activity sensors.
  • FP7-ICT-2007.1.4-215372 ACTIBIO: Unobtrusive authentication using activity related and soft biometrics. Topic: development of multimodal systems for biometrics applications.
  • FP7-ICT-2007-224386 SYSTEX: Coordination action for enhancing the breakthrough of intelligent textile systems.
  • FP6-IST-2004-4-026987 PROETEX: Protection e-Textiles: MicroNanoStructured fibre systems for Emergency-Disaster Wear. Topic: wearable technologies for the management of personnel dealing with emergency situations (fire-fighters, civil protection).
  • FP6-IST-2005-2.6.2-045459 PERSONA: Perceptive Spaces Promoting independent Aging. Topic: Ambient Assisted Living technologies for the social inclusion of elderly citizen.
  • FP6-IST-2002-507816 MYHEART: Fighting cardio-vascular diseases by preventive lifestyle & early diagnosis. Topic: continuous monitoring through on body sensors for the treatment/prevention of cardiovascular diseases.
National
  • Regione Toscana (Por Creo 2007-2013) MANOROBOTICA. Topic: innovative sensing interfaces for the control of hand prosthesis. The project was selected by the Regione Toscana as one of the 24 excellent on a total of 2536 projects.
  • PRIN 2009 2009X3L8SW_003. Topic: interactive and personalized technologies to facilitate learning of new on motor tasks in neuro-rehabilitation.
  • Regione Toscana (Por Creo 2007-2013) BCS-TTEC: Bio custom shoes toward therapeutic technology. Topic: sensing devices integrated in the orthopaedic shoes towards the design of personalized shoes.
  • Regione Lombardia ALLODERMA: Innovative solutions for aptic systems. Topic: development of innovative technologies and materials for e-texile devices able to analyse, codify and replicate human movement in virtual environments.
Teaching
  • 2014/2015: "Biosensors" - Biomedical Engineering Degree – School of Engineering – University of Pisa.
  • 2012/13 – 2014/15: “Minimally invasive devices” – University of Pisa - School of Engineering – Biomedical Engineering Degree
  • 2012/13: “Bioelectric Phenomena” – University of Pisa - School of Engineering – Biomedical Engineering Degree
  • 2010/11 – 2011/12 Biosensors – University of Cagliari - School of Engineering – Biomedical Engineering Degree
  • 2006/07: “Bioelectric Phenomena” – University of Pisa - School of Engineering – Biomedical Engineering Degree
  • 2004/05: “Bioengineering” - University of Pisa - School of Engineering – Electronic Engineering Degree
Scientific collaborations
 
XSens (the Netherlands), University of Twente (the Netherlands), SMPP - Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (USA), Macquarie University - Virtual Reality Lab (Australia), Scienzia Machinale group (Italy), SPECS - Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain), University of Augsburg (Germany), University of Cagliari (Italy), University of Firenze (Italy), University of Pavia (Italy), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spain), Roessingh Research and Development (the Netherlands)
 
Invited lectures
  • Knowledge Acceleration and ICT in Tuscany - 20 September 2013. "Telemonitoring and telesupervising of high risk activities".
  • International Conference on Intelligent Systems Design and Applications (ISDA), Cairo (Egitto), 1 December 2010. Special session: "Advances in Robotics and Virtual Reality". Titolo: "Interreality: The use of advanced technologies in the assessment and treatment of psychological stress".
  • University of Brescia, 21 November 2008. Title: "Rilevazione del movimento umano tramite tessuti intelligenti e possibili applicazioni in neuroriabiliazione".
  • University of Brescia, 21 Novembre 2008. Title: "Sistemi indossabili per la rilevazione del movimento umano basati su sensori inerziali per applicazioni in neuroriabilitazione".
  • International Conference on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI-SOC), Rodi, Greece, 15 October 2008. Special session on "Wearable Electronics". Title: "Wearable motion capture devices based on smart textile technology".
  • XXVII Annual School on Bioengineering – “Intelliget wearable systems for human health and protection” Bressanone (Bz), 16 September 2008. Lecture on: "Wearable sensors for human motion detection".
  • Virtual and Interactive Simulations of Reality Labs, Department of Computing, Macquarie University, Sydney (Australia) "Department of Computing Research Seminar Series", 8 February 2008. Seminar: "Sensing garments for body posture classification and body machine interfacing".
  • "Italy-Japan International Seminar su Motor Adaptation/Learning Analysis and its Application to Neuro-Rehabilitations" Italian CNR and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Kyoto University, 16 November 2007. Title: "Sensing fabrics for body posture and gesture classification".
  • "Italy-Japan International Seminar su Motor Adaptation/Learning Analysis and its Application to Neuro-Rehabilitations" Italian CNR and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Tokyo Institute of Technology, 12 November 2007. Title: "Compliance control of kinematic chains and Feldman artificial muscles".
  • Plastic Electronics Conference, Parallel Symposium on Smart Textiles, Frankfurt, 29 October 2007. Title: "Sensing fabrics for body posture and gesture classification".
  • AVANTEXsymposium,MesseFrankfurt,14June2007.Title:"Sensingfabricsforbodyposture and gesture classification".
Service for the community
  • Chairman at Mobihealth2014 (4th International Conference on Wireless Mobile Communication and Healthcare). Session: Sensing and analysis of human motion.
  • Chairman at EMBC2014 (The 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society). Session: Wearable Systems for Neurorehabilitation I.
  • International Program Committee. Organizer and co-chair of the special session on "Robotics and Intelligent Systems". International Conference on Intelligent Systems Design and Applications (ISDA), Cordoba (Spain), 22-24 November 2011.
  • Organizer and Chair of the special session on "Advances in Robotics and Virtual Reality". International Conference on Intelligent Systems Design and Applications (ISDA), Cairo (Egypt), 29 November - 1 December 2010.
  • Reviewer of International Journals: IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering; Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation; Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing; IEEE Pervasive Computing; IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics ; Advances in Human-Computer Interaction; Research Journal of Textile and Apparel.
  • Reviewer of International Conferences: IEEE International Conference of the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society; Annual International conference on Intelligent Systems Design and Applications; IEEE Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications; International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics; Portuguese Conference on Automatic Control; EMBS Micro and Nanotechnology in Medicine Conference.
Project reviewer
  • Selected as external expert from “Provincia Autonoma di Trento”.
Student supervision
 
Supervisor of 1 postdoctoral fellows, 3 research collaborators, around 40 master thesis students.
 
 
 
Teaching