Vito Cacucciolo

Vito is a professor at Politecnico di Bari, director of the RoboPhysics Laboratory and main founder of sthe pin-off Omnigrasp, working to push the boundaries of advanced materials, robotics and physical intelligence both in academia and industry. He received the ERC StG for the project Robofluid in 2023.
Vito has been the driving force behind the development of the world-first stretchable pumps for fluidic artificial muscles published in Nature in 2019 and has contributed to the development of the first fiber pumps for untethered textile exoskeletons and haptics using fluidics, published in Science in 2023. Combining fiber pumps and fiber actuators led to Electrofluidic Fiber Muscles (EFMs), fiber format artificial muscles with power density akin to skeletal muscles, published in Science Robotics in 2026.
Vito coordinated the creation of Electroadhesion Suction Cups, electrical grippers for lifting heavy objects from the top without vacuum pumps, with > 90% energy saving compared to vacuum grippers. The technology is being exploited by Omnigrasp through a EIC Transition EASIERGrasp that Vito coordinates.
Vito’s long-term goal is to understand physical intelligence and use it to create adaptive materials, human-centred robots and wearables, to relieve humans of weary hard work and disabilities.

IIND-02/A

Vito received his PhD from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna Pisa (Italy) in 2017 (Prof. Laschi’s group). The PhD focused on soft robotics and on the understanding of muscle activation and control in cephalopods (e.g., the Octopus) using mathematical models and bio-inspired AI algorithms. From 2017 to 2021 Vito worked as a scientist at EPFL (Prof. Shea’s group), where he worked on miniaturised and integrated artificial muscles for the next generation of robots and wearables.

Giovedì 15:00-16:00 (RoboPhysics Lab (Viale Japigia 188, palazzina in fondo a sinistra) e online su MS Teams (https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/318523796587372?p=QUCDnju4JEf4FrI7v3)) - Per favore prenotatemi scrivendomi su Teams se volete partecipare al ricevimento.