Andreagiovanni Reina
Research Group Leader, Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, Konstanz, Germany

Andreagiovanni Reina

Born on the 7th of December 1985 in Erba (Co), Italy.

Education and Research

Since 2023 Research Group Leader, Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour
University of Konstanz and Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany.
2020 - 2023 Research Fellow of the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research—FNRS Chargé de Recherches
IRIDIA, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.
Hosted by Prof. Marco Dorigo.
Project: HECOROS — Heterogeneity for Cost-Effective Robot Swarms.
2015 - 2020 Research Fellow in Collective Robotics
Sheffield Robotics - University of Sheffield, UK.
Project leader: Prof. James Marshall
ERC Project: DiODe - Distributed Algorithms for Optimal Decision-Making.
2011 - 2015 Ph.D. Student
IRIDIA, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.
Supervisor: Prof. Marco Dorigo. Co-supervisor: Dr. Vito Trianni
Topic: Engineering distributed cognition.
2008 - 2010 Master of Science in Computer Engineering held in English language (110/110 cum laude).
Politecnico di Milano - Faculty of Computer Engineering, Como campus, Italy.
Web technologies, artificial intelligence and robotics.
2004 - 2007 Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering (106/110)
Politecnico di Milano - Faculty of Computer Engineering, Como campus, Italy.
Computer technology, programming languages and automatic control.

Academic and Teaching Activities

2020 - Present Co-supervisor of PhD students:
  • Sindiso Mkhatshwa, Jun 2024 - Present, University of Konstanz, Germany.
    Thesis: Heterogeneous robot swarms.
  • Raina Zakir, Aug 2021 - Present, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.
        co-supervision with M. Dorigo
    Thesis: Swarm resiliency in collective decision making.
  • Swadhin Agrawal, Aug 2020 - Present, Department of EECS IISER Bhopal, India.
        co-supervision with S.P. Baliyarasimhuni
    Thesis: Collective decision making via heterogeneous response thresholds.
Mar 2024 - Present Supervisor of four Master students:
 - Alberto Doimo from Politecnico di Milano
    Thesis: Passive echolocation in Swarm Ro-BAT-ics;
 - Iacopo Fornai from Politecnico di Milano
    Thesis: Task allocation in swarm robotics using blockchain smart contracts;
 - Pierluigi Tartabini from Politecnico di Milano
    Thesis: Emergent Robotic Orchestra;
 - Gabriele Baroli from Politecnico di Milano
    Thesis: Active echolocation in Swarm Ro-BAT-ics;
2022 - 2024 Co-supervisor of Postdocs:
  • Thierry-Sainclair Njougouo, Apr 2022 - Mar 2024, University of Namur, Belgium.
        co-supervision with E. Tuci and T. Carletti
    Project: Impact of the network connectivity in best-of-n collective decision making.
Nov 2022 - Sep 2023 Supervisor of four Master students:
 - Sébastien De Vos from Université Libre de Bruxelles
    Thesis: Federated learning in swarm robotics using blockchain smart contracts;
 - Nemanja Antonic from Politecnico di Milano
    Thesis: Collective resilience of heterogeneous decision makers against stubborn individuals;
 - Francesco Cerri from Universtá di Bologna
    Thesis: Reputation management in swarm robotics through crypto-economy;
 - Angelo Moroncelli from Politecnico di Milano
    Thesis: Byzantine-fault tolerant Swarm-SLAM through blockchain-based smart contracts;
July 2021 - June 2022 Supervisor of three Master students:
 - Ludéric Van Calck from Université Libre de Bruxelles
    Thesis: An Information Market for Social Navigation in Robots;
 - Antoine Bertoux from Université Libre de Bruxelles
    Thesis: Swarm resiliency against non-cooperative agents in collective decision-making;
 - Till Aust from University of Lübeck
    Thesis: Collective Adaptation and Symmetry Breaking to Environmental Changes in a Swarm of Kilobots Monitoring a Dynamic Environment;
Feb 2019 - Aug 2021 Co-supervisor (with J. Marshall) of the postdoc Arindam Saha at the University of Sheffield, UK.
Project: Swarm Awareness.
Sep 2016 - Mar 2021 Co-supervisor of PhD students:
Jun. 2018 - Mar. 2019 Co-supervisor of two MSc students:
 - Francesco Canciani from Politecnico di Milano, Italy
    Thesis: Swarm Resiliency in Collective Decision-Making;
 - Federico Pratissoli from Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy
    Thesis: The Kilobot Soft Robot: A Soft-Bodied Modular Reconfigurable Robotic System;
July 2017 - March 2018 Co-supervisor of the MSc student Anna Font Llenas from Sheffield Hallam University, UK
    Thesis: Value-sensitive decisions through pheromone trails;
June 2016 - Spring 2017 Co-supervisor of:
 - Master student Salah Talamali from Sheffield Hallam University, UK
    Thesis: Automatic calibration system for kilobot robots;
 - Bachelor student Eleftherios Nikolaidis from Alexander Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, Greece
    Thesis: Creation of an overhead controller for the Kilobots and collective behavior.
July 2016 - June 2019 PhD’s Theses Mentoring Programme: Mentoring final year PhD students to help them go forward with their thesis.
March 2016 Online lesson on “Swarm Robotics” for the course “Building a Future with Robots” from The University of Sheffield.
Feb. 2015 - Aug 2015 Teaching Assistant of the Swarm Intelligence course at Université Libre de Bruxelles (Course INFO-H-414, 5 ECTS).
Oct. 2014 - Aug 2015 Co-supervisor of two Master students:
 - Davide Brambilla from Politecnico di Milano, Italy
    Thesis: Environment Classification: an Empirical Study of the Response of a Robot Swarm to Three Different Decision-Making Rules;
 - Anthony Debruyn from Université Libre de Bruxelles
    Thesis: Human-Swarm Interaction: An Escorting Robot Swarm that Diverts a Human away from Dangers one cannot perceive.
Oct. 2013 - Sep. 2014 Co-supervisor of two Master students:
 - Mattia Salvaro from Università di Bologna, Italy
    Thesis: Virtual sensors for a robot swarm;
 - Bernard Mayeur from Université Libre de Bruxelles
    Thesis: A tool for automatic robot placement in swarm robotics experiments (in French).
Sep. 2012 - Sep. 2013 Co-supervisor of the Master student Jacopo De Stefani of Université Libre de Bruxelles and Politecnico di Milano (Project TIME for double degree).
    Thesis: Spatial Allocation in Swarm Robotics.
Oct. 2011 - May 2015 Principal supervisor for the computer programming project (5 ECTS) of several master students of Université Libre de Bruxelles enrolled in the first year of the “Master en sciences informatique”.
Nov.2009 - Apr.2011 Internship - junior researcher
European project (6th Framework Programme): Swarmanoid.
Research activity. Analysis, design and implementation of specific robot controllers. Writing and publishing scientific papers.
Master thesis project [Nov.09 – July.10]:
"Swarms of flying robots performing distributed path planning for objects on the ground"
Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence Studies (IDSIA) - Lugano (Switzerland).

Work Experiences

Apr.2009 - Jul.2009 Software developer.
European project (6th Framework Programme): PHAROS (Platform for searcHing of Audiovisual Resources across Online Spaces).
Analysis, design and implementation of specific processes and functionalities within a multimedia information retrieval system (the PHAROS platform).
FAST Search and Transfer (A Microsoft Subsidiary) - Oslo (Norway)
Jul.2008 - Apr.2009 Software developer.
European project (6th Framework Programme): PHAROS (Platform for searcHing of Audiovisual Resources across Online Spaces).
Analysis, design and implementation of wrappers for the integration of a face recognition and identification technology into a multimedia search engine platform.
Web Models S.r.l. - Milano (Italy)
Oct.2006 - Jun.2007 Web designer, HTML programmer.
Designing web sites, programming in HTML and CSS languages. Use of CMS.
Part-time job.
Webjobs.it - Como (Italy)

Grants

2021/2 Tomas Bata University internal competition – Grant for support of international cooperation by Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Czech Republic.
2020 Three-year Fellowship (Chargé de Recherches) by FNRS—Belgian-Walloon National Fund for Scientific Research—on my personal project "Heterogeneity for Cost-Effective Robot Swarms"
2018 ERC-Proof of Concept: Proposal rejected with a Seal of Excellence by the EU Commission. I was a named investigator on the project with a major role in writing the grant proposal titled: “ExODUS – Extreme and Offworld Decentralised Unanimous Swarms”.
2018 Grant (£1000) OnCampUS Placements from the University of Sheffield to hire a MSc student for a 100-hours job on the project "A Robot Swarm Orchestra".
2018 Basic research grant ($205,266) Swarm Awareness from the Office of Naval Research Global (ONR-G) for 2.5 years. PIs: James Marshall and Andreagiovanni Reina.
2017 Grant (£1000) OnCampUS Placements from the University of Sheffield to hire a MSc student for a 100-hours job on the project "Robot Art".
2011 Four Years Scholarship funded by the European Research Council - Advanced Grants program of the European Union.
2010 Master Thesis's Grant – Zeno Karl Schindler Foundation (Genève – Switzerland)
2009 Scholarship for the International Traineeship within the LLP-Erasmus Placement Programme

Awards

2019 Best Poster Award at the 2019 Sheffield Robotics Showcase, University of Sheffield.
2019 Selected among the top 3 projects of the Research Software Competition for HPC@Sheffield2019 (awarded £1,000 as development fund).
2018 Best Paper Award of ANTS 2018, the 11th International Conference on Swarm Intelligence.
2018 Recognised as Fellow of Higher Education Academy (FHEA).
2016 Dedicated Outstanding Thesis Mentor of the 2016 PhD Theses Mentoring Programme of the University of Sheffield.
2011 Best Poster Award at the 12th International Conference Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems (TAROS), Sheffield, UK, August 31 - September 2, 2011.

Languages

Italian mother tongue
English fluent written and verbal skills
French good written and verbal skills (CEFR Level B1)
Spanish good understanding, basic written and verbal skills
Editorial Activities and Conference Organisation
Editorial Board Member 1
Elected member of the Swarm Intelligence's Editorial Board
Publication Chair 1
ANTS 2018 - 11th International Conference on Swarm Intelligence
Guest Editor 2
  • Swarm Intelligence - guest editor for the Special Issue: Collective Decision Making in Living and Artificial Systems. Volume 15(1-2).
  • Swarm Intelligence - guest editor for the Special Issue: ANTS2018. Volume 13(3-4),14(1)
Co-organisation of Conference 1
Collective Decision-Making Conference, Sheffield, UK. [CANCELLED FOR COVID-19]
Co-organisation of Minisymposium 1
Collective Decision Making at MMEE 2017, Mathematical Models in Ecology and Evolution, London.
Associate Editor 4
  • IROS 2019 - IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
  • IROS 2018 - IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
  • IROS 2017 - IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
  • IROS 2016 - IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
Local Arrangement Chair 2
  • ANTS 2014 - 9th International Conference on Swarm Intelligence
  • ANTS 2012 - 8th International Conference on Swarm Intelligence
Session Chair 5
  • ANTS 2020 - The 12th International Conference on Swarm Intelligence, October 26-28, 2020, online
  • SWARM 2019 - The 3rd International Symposium on Swarm Behavior and Bio-Inspired Robotics, 20-22 November, 2019, Okinawa, Japan
  • ANTS 2018 - The 11th International Conference on Swarm Intelligence, October 29–31, 2018, Rome, Italy
  • SWARM 2017 - The 2nd International Symposium on Swarm Behavior and Bio-Inspired Robotics, October 29–November 1, 2017, Kyoto, Japan
  • SAB 2016 - 14th International Conference on the Simulation of Adaptive Behavior, 23-26 August 2016, Aberystwyth, UK
International journals reviewer 23
  • Journal of the Royal Society Interface
  • IEEE Transactions on Robotics
  • Animal Behaviour
  • PLoS Computational Biology
  • IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
  • Nature Scientific Reports
  • Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation
  • IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems
  • Nature Machine Intelligence
  • Physical Biology
  • eLife
  • Frontiers in Robotics and AI
  • Complexity (Hindawi)
  • Autonomous Robots
  • Sensors
  • IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics
  • Royal Society Open Science
  • Robotics and Autonomous Systems
  • Swarm and Evolutionary Computation
  • Swarm Intelligence
  • Robotics Journal (MDPI)
  • Discrete Mathematics & Theoretical Computer Science
  • Symmetry Journal (MDPI)
International conference reviewer 33
RSS 2022, ANTS 2022, DARS 2022, SAB 2022, DARS 2021, RSS 2021, ICRA 2021, MRS 2021, ICRA 2020, ANTS 2020, IJCAI 2020, ICRA 2019, MRS 2019, Living Machines 2019, ICRA 2018, AAMAS 2018, DARS 2018, IROS 2018, ICRA 2017, DARS 2016, ANTS 2016, SAB 2016, RSS 2016, EvoRobot 2015 (Evo*), ANTS 2014, DARS 2014, SASO 2014, Living Machines 2014, GECCO 2013, EvoRobot 2013 (Evo*), ANTS 2012, IEEE CEC 2012, BIONETICS 2012,
Talks and conferences
KSCB-23 2023-08-02
Talk "Discovering the marvels of collective decision making" at the Konstanz School of Collective Behaviour, Konstanz, Germany.
MRS Summer School 2023-07-06
Talk "Collective decision-making in robot swarms" at The IEEE RAS Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems, Prague, Czech Republic
Interchall-23 2023-04-20
Talk "Undecided individuals can restore agreement when asocial behaviour hinders group consensus " at Conference Interdisciplinary challenges: from non-equilibrium physics to life sciences, Rome, Italy
BBC 2023-03-14
Talk "Les abeilles peuvent révéler les secrets du fonctionnement du cerveau humain" (in French) at Belgian Brain Council, Brussels, Belgium
SCIoI 2023-02-09
Talk "The power of inhibition for collective decision making in minimalistic robot swarms" at The Science of Intelligence Excellence Cluster, Berlin, Germany
TRAIL institute 2022-12-13
Talk "The power of inhibition for collective decision making in minimalistic robot swarms" at The TRAIL Institute: Trusted AI Lab by Digital-Wallonia, Brussels, Belgium
CTU-Prague 2022-11-25
Talk "The power of inhibition for collective decision making in minimalistic robot swarms" at Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic
U-Cagliari 2022-10-25
Talk "The role of inhibition in collective decision making in living and robotic systems" at University of Cagliari, Italy
CCS 2022 2022-10-21
Talk: "Slower is faster and less is more effects in robot swarms" at Conference on Complex Systems 2022, Palma de Mallorca, Spain
U-Luebeck 2022-08-08
Two talks "Economics-inspired swarm robotics" and "When less is more — how to improve the swarm performance by reducing the robots' capabilities" at Mini-workshop on swarm robotics, University of Luebeck, Germany
Tomas Bata - Zlín 2021-10-08
Talk "Swarm Robotics: Past, Present, and Future" at Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Czech Republic.
WPI 2021-09-17
Talk "Collective Decision Making: From Bees to Robots via Multiscale Modelling" at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA (online)
R2T2 2021-03-10
Talk "Inflexible minorities prevent group consensus and cross-inhibition restores agreement" at R2T2: Robotics Research for Tomorrow's Technology, TII, Technology Innovation Institute, Abu Dhabi, UAE (online)
U-Sheffield 2020-11-18
Talk "Collective Decision Making: From Bees to Robots via Multiscale Modelling" at Sheffield Seminar on Modelling and Simulation, University of Sheffield, UK
Animal Behaviour Live 2020-08-20
Talk "Negative feedback may suppress variation to improve collective foraging performance" at Animal Behaviour Live, online
Novosibirsk-WS 2020-07-14
Talk "Collective Decision Making: From Bees to Robots via Multiscale Modelling" at Workshop at the Mathematical Center in Akademgorodok, University of Novosibirsk, Russia (online)
SIAM-LS 2020 2020-06-29
Talk "Negative feedback may suppress variation to improve collective foraging performance" at SIAM Life Sciences 2020, online
naXys UNamur 2020-02-18
Talk "Collective Decision Making: From Bees to Robots via Multiscale Modelling" at Namur Institute For Complex Systems (naXys), University of Namur, Belgium
CMU-Qatar 2020-01-26
Talk "Collective Decision Making: From Bees to Robots via Multiscale Modelling" at Carnegie Mellon University, Doha, Qatar
IIIT-Delhi 2020-01-23
Talk "Collective Decision Making: From Bees to Robots via Multiscale Modelling" at Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Delhi, India
IISER-Bhopal 2020-01-21
Talk "Collective Decision Making: From Bees to Robots via Multiscale Modelling" at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Bhopal, India
CRCA-CNRS Toulouse 2019-12-02
Talk "Collective decision making: search, vote, and agree" at IVEP team, Research Center on Animal Cognition (CRCA), Center for Integrative Biology (CBI) in Toulouse, CNRS, France
Workshop Swarm Intelligence in AI and ALife 2019-11-22
Talk: "Collective decision making: search, vote, and agree" at the Workshop on "Swarm Intelligence in AI and ALife", Okinawa, Japan
SWARM 2019 2019-11-21
Talk: "Keep calm and vote on: Swarm resiliency in collective decision making" at SWARM 2019: The 3rd International Symposium on Swarm Behavior and Bio-Inspired Robotics, Okinawa, Japan
MPI Animal Behavior 2019-07-05
Talk "Decentralised Value-Sensitive Decision Making: From Bees to Robots" at Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, Konstanz, Germany
NetSci 2019 2019-05-31
Talk: "Linear locally Bayes-optimal confidence-weighting can explain information cascades in group decision-making" at NetSci 2019, the International Conference on Network Science, in Burlington, Vermont, USA
ICRA 2019 2019-05-22
3x Posters: "Improving collective decision accuracy via time-varying cross-inhibition",
"Keep calm and vote on: Swarm resiliency in collective decision making",
"The Kilobot Soft Robot:A Soft-Bodied Modular Reconfigurable Robotic System" at ICRA 2019, the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Montreal, Canada
U-Luebeck 2019-05-02
Talk "Decentralised Value-Sensitive Decision Making: From Bees to Robots" at University of Luebeck, Germany
SDU 2018-11-26
Talk "Decentralised Value-Sensitive Decision Making: From Bees to Robots" at University of Southern Denmark
Cultural Centre 2018-11-09
Talk "AI: a bridge towards the future" (in Italian) at Centro Culturale Luigi Padovese, Cucciago (CO), Italy.
ANTS 2018 2018-10-29
Talk + poster: "Quality-sensitive foraging by a robot swarm through virtual pheromone trails" at ANTS 2018 - International Conference on Swarm Intelligence, Rome, Italy
BRL 2018-10-11
Talk "Decentralised Value-Sensitive Decision Making: From Bees to Robots" at Bristol Robotics Laboratory
IDLAB, U-Ghent 2018-09-05
Talk "Decentralised Value-Sensitive Decision Making: From Bees to Robots" at Ghent University, Belgium
ECMTB 2018-07-25
Talk "Studying Psychophysical Laws in the Superorganism through a Novel Automated Analysis Tool" at ECMTB 2018, Lisbon, Portugal.
ICTP 2018-05-08
Talk "Studying Psychophysical Laws in the Superorganism through a Novel Automated Analysis Tool" at Trieste, Italy
IRIDIA, ULB 2017-11-23
Talk "MuMoT: A Tool for Automated Analysis of Collective Behaviour Models " at IRIDIA, Université Libre de Bruxelles
Ikegami Lab 2017-11-08
Talk "Decentralised Value-Sensitive Decision Making: From Bees to Robots" at Ikegami Laboratory, University of Tokyo
Matsuno Lab 2017-11-02
Talk "Decentralised Value-Sensitive Decision Making: From Bees to Robots" at Matsuno Lab, Kyoto University
SWARM 2017 2017-11-01
Talk "Psychophysical Laws in the Superorganism" at Kyoto, Japan
IROS 2017 2017-09-25
Talk "ARK: Augmented Reality for Kilobots" at 2017 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2017), in Vancouver, Canada
MMEE 2017 2017-07-11
Invited talk "A model of the best-of-N nest-site selection process in honeybees" at Minisymposium on Collective Decision Making, MMEE 2017, Mathematical Models in Ecology and Evolution, in London.
DARS 2016 2016-11-07
Poster "Effects of Spatiality on Value-Sensitive Decisions Made by Robot Swarms" at DARS 2016 - Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems, London.
NJIT 2016-10-24
Seminar "Decentralised decision making in honeybees and in artificial swarms" at the Swarm Lab, New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA
SAB 2016 2016-08-26
Talk + poster "Swarm deadlock for symmetric choices over three or more options" at SAB 2016 - International Conference on the Simulation of Adaptive Behavior, Aberystwyth, UK
ISBE 2016 2016-07-30
Talk "A model of the best-of-N nest-site selection process in honeybees" at ISBE 2016 - International Society for Behavioral Ecology, Exeter, UK
IRIDIA - ULB 2016-07-04
PhD public defense: "Engineering swarm systems: A design pattern for the best-of-n decision problem" at Universitè Libre de Bruxelles
Sheffield Robotics 2016-05-24
Seminar: " Engineering swarm systems: A design pattern for the best-of-n decision problem" at Sheffield Robotics Seminars
ICRA 2016 2016-05-19
Talk + poster: "Emergence of Consensus in a Multi-Robot Network: from Abstract Models to Empirical Validation" at ICRA 2016 - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Stockholm
ISTC-CNR 2015-06-17
Talk "A design pattern for decentralised decision-making" at Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council, Rome, Italy
ANTS 2014 2014-09-11
Talk + poster: "Towards a Cognitive Design Pattern for Collective Decision-Making" at ANTS 2014 - International Conference on Swarm Intelligence, Brussels, Belgium
AAMAS 2014 2014-05-07
Poster: "Collective decision making in distributed systems inspired by honeybees behaviour" at AAMAS 2014 - International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems , Paris
KU-Leuven 2014-04-23
Talk: "Engineering Distributed Cognition" at T. Wenseleers Lab, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
TAROS 2011 2011-09-01
Best Poster: "Distributed motion planning for ground objects using a network of robotic ceiling cameras" at TAROS 2011, Conference Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems, Sheffield, UK
RSS 2010 2010-06-27
Poster: "A distributed approach to holonomic path planning" at RSS 2010 - Robotics: Science and Systems, Zaragoza, Spain
Andreagiovanni Reina - Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, Konstanz, Germany Design support from B4Y