Assistant Professor, PhD

Department of Computer Science and Mathematics
University of Bergamo
v.le Marconi 5, Dalmine 24044, Italy
email brugali@unibg.it
tel (+39 035) 2052 354
fax (+39 035) 2052 002


I am the principal investigator at the Robotics Laboratory of the University of Bergamo.

I am a member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and Chair of the Technical Committee on Software Engineering for Robotics and Automation (TC-PROG).

Since January 2009 I am Associated Editor of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine.

In January 2009 I've also founded the Journal of Software Engineering for Robotics (JOSER).

My research activity mainly focuses on software development techniques and methodologies for the construction of robotic systems.
In the Software Engineering area, I'm investigating the effectiveness of software reuse techniques such as Object-Oriented Frameworks, Middlewares, Design Patterns.
In the Robotics area, I'm involved in research projects related to distributed human-robot interaction, intelligent environments for mobile robots, remote robot programming, and middleware for plug-and-play peripheral integration of physical and virtual robotic devices.

The current direction of my research is the exploitation of my background in Robotics and Software Engineering to promote the synergy between these two disciplines. Their mutual benefit isn't merely to make software systems bigger, faster, cheaper, but rather to make it possible to build and evolve new software systems. Today, most of the research and development of software for robotic systems is based on proprietary design architectures invented from scratch each time. As robotics systems are becoming more and more complex, distributed, and integrated, there is the need to promote the construction of new systems as composition of reusable building blocks.

As Co-Chair of the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Programming Environments in Robotics and Automation, I've contributed to several initiatives intended to promote the exchange of knowledge and experience among experts in Robotics and Software Engineering, such as:
  • IEEE TRA, Special Issue on "Object Oriented Methods for Distributed Control Architectures", 2002
  • International Journal on Advanced Robotic Systems, Special Issue on "Software Development and Integration in Robotics", 2006
  • Edited book of STAR serie on "Robot Software Development", in preparation
  • ICRA 2001 Workshop on "Distributed Robotics and Automation"
  • ICRA 2005 First Workshop on "Software Development in Robotics"(SDIR-I)
  • ICRA 2007 Second Workshop on "Software Development in Robotics"(SDIR-II)
  • ICRA 2008 Third Workshop on "Software Development in Robotics"(SDIR-III)
  • Addison-Wesley book, Software Development: Case studies in Java, 2005
  • Springer STAR book, Software Engineering for Experimental Robotics, 2007

Primary Areas of competence: Software Engineering in Robotics, Robot Programming and Simulation, Robot Control Architectures

Secondary Areas of competence: Mobile Robots, Distributed and Networked Robotics, Computer Integrated Manufacturing