Researcher in robotics and artificial intelligence
Guillem Alenyà
Developing autonomous robots that perceive, reason, learn and collaborate naturally with people.
Profile
Guillem Alenyà is a researcher at the Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial (CSIC–UPC), where he currently serves as Director. His research lies at the intersection of robotics and artificial intelligence, with the aim of developing autonomous robots that perceive, reason, learn and collaborate naturally with people. His work has applications in assistive, service and industrial robotics.
His contributions span robot manipulation, human–robot interaction, explainable AI and cognitive robotics. He has led more than 10 competitive research projects, participated in major European initiatives and published more than 150 peer-reviewed scientific works, including over 45 articles in JCR-indexed journals. He has also transferred research into practice through more than 10 technology-transfer projects, two international patents and the creation of the technology spin-off DATISION.
He is committed to strengthening the robotics ecosystem through scientific leadership, doctoral training and interdisciplinary collaboration. He has supervised more than 25 postgraduate dissertations, including over 10 doctoral theses, two of which received international awards. He currently supervises several doctoral researchers and directs LabORA, an open laboratory for assistive robotics that brings together more than 15 organisations from academia, healthcare, industry and the public sector to advance the responsible deployment of robotics in society.
Research
Selected themes and publications
Personalised and assistive human–robot interaction
- A. Civit, A. Andriella, C. Barrue, M. Antonio, C. Boqué, and G. Alenyà, “Introducing social robots to assess frailty in older adults,” in ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 2024, pp. 342–346.
- G. Canal, C. Torras, and G. Alenyà, “Are preferences useful for better assistance?: A Physically Assistive Robotics user study,” ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 1–19, 2021.
Cognitive and explainable robotics
- T. Love, A. Andriella, and G. Alenyà, “Towards explainable proactive robot interactions for groups of people in unstructured environments,” in ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 2024, pp. 697–701.
- A. Olivares-Alarcos, S. Foix, S. Borgo, and G. Alenyà, “OCRA - An ontology for collaborative robotics and adaptation,” Computers in industry, vol. 132, p. 103627, 2022.
Learning from interaction and demonstration
- S. Izquierdo, G. Canal, C. Rizzo, and G. Alenyà, “PlanCollabNL: leveraging Large Language Models for adaptive plan generation in human-robot collaboration,” in IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2024, pp. 17344–17350.
- A. Andriella, C. Torras, C. Abdelnour, and G. Alenyà, “Introducing CARESSER: A framework for in situ learning robot social assistance from expert knowledge and demonstrations,” User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, vol. 33, pp. 441–496, 2023.
Perception and manipulation of deformable objects
- A. Longhini, Y. Wang, I. Garcia-Camacho, D. Blanco-Mulero, M. Moletta, M. Welle, G. Alenyà, H. Yin, Z. Erickson, D. Held, J. Borràs, and D. Kragic, “Unfolding the Literature: A Review of Robotic Cloth Manipulation,” Annual Review of Control, Robotics, and Autonomous Systems, vol. 8, 2025.
- I. Garcia-Camacho, J. Borràs, B. Calli, A. Norton, and G. Alenyà, “Household cloth object set: Fostering benchmarking in deformable object manipulation,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 5866–5873, 2022.
Projects
Selected projects
FLEXCYCLE
Flexible robotic solutions for the recycling of soft materials
SWEET
Social aWareness for sErvicE roboTs
RoboCAT
Retech Robòtica Assistencial SDC006/25/000016
ARISE
Advanced AI and RobotIcS for autonomous task pErformance
ROMANDIC
RObot MANipulation of Deformables through dynamIC actions
TRAIL
TRAnsparent InterpretabLe robots
CHLOE-Map
Geometric Coordinates to Navigate the Configuration Space of Cloth-Like Objects for Robotic Manipulation
People
Current collaborators
Research and coordination
- Cristian BarruéCoordinator, LabORA
- Alberto OlivaresPostdoctoral researcher, ARISE
- Antonio GabasPostdoctoral researcher, ALLIES
- Irene GarciaPostdoctoral researcher, FLEXCYCLE
Doctoral researchers
- George TzelepisRecognition and Learning of Garment Manipulation · Project grant
- Tamlin LoveFostering human-robot mutual understanding by explaining the internal beliefs · TRAIL DN
- Aniol CivitPersonalization and adaptation in robotic assisted tasks · FI grant
- Mahed DadgostarRobotic skills for the dynamic manipulation of highly deformable objects · FPI grant
- Jefimija BorojevicAdaptive and adaptable robot decision making for service robots · SWEET DN
- Victor BermejoProcessos democràtics de disseny i implementació de tecnologies robòtiques i de IA · FI-STEP grant
- Miranda MartínezBridging long-term memories with proactive and explainable robot introspection · ARISE