Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering

PhD in Systems Egineering in 1987. Assistant professor in 1988. Associate professor at the University of Milan in 1992, moved to Sapienza in 1993. Full professor since 2000 (SSD IINF-04/A Automatica, formerly ING-INF/04).
Associate Editor (1994-98), Editor (1998-2003) and Editor-in-Chief (2003-04) of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation. Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics (2004-08).
General Chair of the 2007 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Rome, 2007). Elected member in the AdCom of IEEE RAS - Robotics and Automation Society (2008-10). Vice-President of IEEE RAS for Publication Activities (2012-13). Program Chair of the 2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Stockholm, 2016). General Chair of the 1st Italian Conference on Robotics and Intelligent Machines (I-RIM 3D) (Rome, 2019).
IEEE Fellow in 2007. IEEE Life Fellow since 2023. Member of the Search Committee for Physical Sciences of the Körber European Science Award (2006-12) and of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics (2015-17). Chair of Panel PE7 (Systems and Communication Engineering) of the European Research Council for the Advanced Grants in 2009, 2011, and 2013. He has been one of the Vice-Presidents of the national Istitute of Robotics and Intelligent Machines (I-RIM) from its foundation in 2019 until 2025 and a member of the Science Advisory Board of the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI) of the Technical University of Munich (2022-25). He is a Member of the Advisory Board di The International Journal of Robotics Research since 2023.

Scientific Coordinator of the national project MIUR PRIN SICURA (2008-10).
Principal Investigator of DIAG Sapienza for the european projects PROMotion, PHRIDOM,FP6 CyberWalk, FP6 PHRIENDS, H2020 SYMPLEXITY. Team member of european project H2020 COMANOID.
Scientific Coordinator of the european project FP7 ICT-287513 SAPHARI (Safe and Autonomous Physical Human-Aware Robot Interaction) 2011-15.

First Director of the Master of Science program in Control Engineering (Ingegneria Automatica), taught in English (2013-19). Senior Research Fellow of the Scuola Superiore di Studi Avanzati Sapienza (2017-20, extended 2020-23).
Coordinator of the Group of Experts GEV-09 (Industrial and Information Engineering) in the latest evaluation of national research quality (VQR 2020-24), completed in May 2026.

He published more than 240 journal or conference papers and book chapters. See the complete list at http://www.diag.uniroma1.it/deluca/Publications.php.
Author for the Springer Handbook of Robotics (1st and 2nd Edition).

Coauthor of the new textbook: B. Siciliano, L. Villani, G. Oriolo, A. De Luca. Foundations of Robotics, Springer, September 2025.

Bibliometric indices (May 26, 2026):

ORCID: 0000-0002-0713-5608
Google Scholar: My Citations h-index = 71, with 23216 citations (since 2021: h-index = 41, with 7652 citations), i10-index = 194 (since 2021: i10-index = 113)
Scopus Author ID#: 7201948195 h-index = 57, with 13352 citations (and 169 coauthors)
Semantic Scholar 144765522: h-index = 63, with 16161 citations
WoS ResearcherID: F-3835-2011 h-index = 48, with 9816 citations

Awards

• Finalist of ICRA 2021 Best Human-Robot Interaction Paper Award for the paper Collision detection and localization for the DLR SARA robot with sensing redundancy (M. Iskandar, O. Eiberger, A. Albu-Schäffer, A. De Luca, A. Dietrich), Xi'an, CHN, June 2021 ---see [C-150] in my publication list
• 2019 IEEE RAS George Saridis Leadership Award in Robotics and Automation. Citation: "For contributions to the robotics and automation community through research innovation and education, and for leadership in publication and conference activities in RAS", May 2019
• 2017 Mechanisms and Machine Theory Award for Excellence for the paper An atlas of physical human-robot interaction (A. De Santis, B. Siciliano, A. De Luca, A. Bicchi) published in 2008, as one of the top 10 most cited articles published in the journal since its first publication according to Scopus, August 2017 ---see [J-35] in my publication list
• Finalist of ICRA 2015 Best Conference Paper Award for the paper Control of generalized contact motion and force in physical human-robot interaction (E. Magrini, F. Flacco, A. De Luca), Seattle, USA, May 2015 ---see [C-132] in my publication list
• Finalist of IROS 2013 Best Video Award for the video Safe physical human-robot collaboration (F. Flacco, A. De Luca), Tokyo, JPN, November 2013 ---see [V-1] in my publication list
• Best Paper Award of 4th IEEE RAS-EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob 2012) for the paper Integrated control for pHRI: Collision avoidance, detection, reaction and collaboration (A. De Luca, F. Flacco), Rome, ITA, June 2012 ---see [C-121] in my publication list
• 2009 IEEE RAS Distinguished Service Award. CItation: "For outstanding leadership and contributions as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics, and for service as the ICRA 2007 General Chair", April 2009
• Author of one of the chapters of the Springer Handbook of Robotics that received the PROSE Awards for Excellence in Physical Sciences & Mathematics e for Engineering & Technology, The American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence, February 2009 --see [BC-12] in my publication list
• Best Application Paper Award of the 2008 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2008) for the paper Collision detection and reaction: A contribution to safe physical human-robot interaction (S. Haddadin, A. Albu-Schäffer, A. De Luca, G. Hirzinger), Nice, FRA, September 2008 ---see [C-105] in my publication list
• IEEE Fellow (The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). Citation: "For contributions to modeling and control of robotic systems", June 2007 (IEEE Life Fellow since 2023)
• Helmholtz Humboldt Research Award for foreign researchers of the Humboldt Foundation, April 2005
• Best Conference Paper Award of the 1998 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 1998) for the paper A general algorithm for dynamic feedback linearization of robots with elastic joints (A. De Luca, P. Lucibello), Leuven, BEL, May 1998 ---see [C-59] in my publication list