Diego Romeres

Diego Romeres
  • Biography

    Diego's research interests are in machine learning, system identification and robotic applications. At MERL he is currently working on applying nonparametric machine learning techniques for the control of robotic platforms. His Ph.D. thesis is about the combination of nonparametric data-driven models and physics-based models in gaussian processes for robot dynamics learning.

  • Recent News & Events

    •  NEWS    Diego Romeres Delivers Invited Talks at Fraunhofer Italia and the University of Padua
      Date: July 16, 2025 - July 18, 2025
      MERL Contact: Diego Romeres
      Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Control, Machine Learning, Optimization, Robotics, Human-Computer Interaction
      Brief
      • MERL researcher Diego Romeres was invited to present MERL's latest research at two institutions in Italy this July, focusing on human-robot collaboration and LLM-driven assembly systems.

        On July 16th, Dr. Romeres delivered a talk titled “Human-Robot Collaborative Assembly” at Fraunhofer Italia – Innovation Engineering Center (EIC) in Bolzano. His presentation showcased research on human-robot collaboration for efficient and flexible assembly processes. Fraunhofer Italia EIC is a non-profit research institute focused on enabling digital and sustainable transformation through applied innovation in close collaboration with both public and private sectors.

        Two days later, on July 18th, Dr. Romeres was hosted by the University of Padua, one of Europe’s oldest and most renowned universities. His invited lecture, “Robot Assembly through Human Collaboration & Large Language Models”, explored how artificial intelligence can enhance human-robot synergy in complex assembly tasks.
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    •  NEWS    MERL researchers present 13 papers at ACC 2025
      Date: July 8, 2025 - July 10, 2025
      Where: Denver, USA
      MERL Contacts: Ankush Chakrabarty; Vedang M. Deshpande; Stefano Di Cairano; Purnanand Elango; Jordan Leung; Saviz Mowlavi; Diego Romeres; Abraham P. Vinod; Yebin Wang; Avishai Weiss
      Research Areas: Control, Dynamical Systems, Electric Systems, Machine Learning, Multi-Physical Modeling, Robotics
      Brief
      • MERL researchers presented 13 papers at the recently concluded American Control Conference (ACC) 2025 in Denver, USA. The papers covered a wide range of topics including Bayesian optimization for personalized medicine, machine learning for battery performance in eVTOLs, model predictive control for space and building systems, process systems engineering for sustainability, GNSS-RTK optimization, convex set manipulation, PDE control, servo system modeling, battery fault diagnosis, truck fleet coordination, interactive motion planning, and satellite station keeping. Additionally, MERL researchers (Vedang Deshpande and Ankush Chakrabarty) organized an invited session on design and optimization of energy systems.

        As a sponsor of the conference, MERL maintained a booth for open discussions with researchers and students, and hosted a special session to discuss highlights of MERL research and work philosophy.
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  • Awards

    •  AWARD    University of Padua and MERL team wins the AI Olympics with RealAIGym competition at IROS24
      Date: October 17, 2024
      Awarded to: Niccolò Turcato, Alberto Dalla Libera, Giulio Giacomuzzo, Ruggero Carli, Diego Romeres
      MERL Contact: Diego Romeres
      Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Dynamical Systems, Machine Learning, Robotics
      Brief
      • The team composed of the control group at the University of Padua and MERL's Optimization and Robotic team ranked 1st out of the 4 finalist teams that arrived to the 2nd AI Olympics with RealAIGym competition at IROS 24, which focused on control of under-actuated robots. The team was composed by Niccolò Turcato, Alberto Dalla Libera, Giulio Giacomuzzo, Ruggero Carli and Diego Romeres. The competition was organized by the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Technical University of Darmstadt and Chalmers University of Technology.

        The competition and award ceremony was hosted by IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) on October 17, 2024 in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Diego Romeres presented the team's method, based on a model-based reinforcement learning algorithm called MC-PILCO.
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    •  AWARD    Honorable Mention Award at NeurIPS 23 Instruction Workshop
      Date: December 15, 2023
      Awarded to: Lingfeng Sun, Devesh K. Jha, Chiori Hori, Siddharth Jain, Radu Corcodel, Xinghao Zhu, Masayoshi Tomizuka and Diego Romeres
      MERL Contacts: Radu Corcodel; Chiori Hori; Siddarth Jain; Devesh K. Jha; Diego Romeres
      Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotics
      Brief
      • MERL Researchers received an "Honorable Mention award" at the Workshop on Instruction Tuning and Instruction Following at the NeurIPS 2023 conference in New Orleans. The workshop was on the topic of instruction tuning and Instruction following for Large Language Models (LLMs). MERL researchers presented their work on interactive planning using LLMs for partially observable robotic tasks during the oral presentation session at the workshop.
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    •  AWARD    Joint University of Padua-MERL team wins Challenge 'AI Olympics With RealAIGym'
      Date: August 25, 2023
      Awarded to: Alberto Dalla Libera, Niccolo' Turcato, Giulio Giacomuzzo, Ruggero Carli, Diego Romeres
      MERL Contact: Diego Romeres
      Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotics
      Brief
      • A joint team consisting of members of University of Padua and MERL ranked 1st in the IJCAI2023 Challenge "Al Olympics With RealAlGym: Is Al Ready for Athletic Intelligence in the Real World?". The team was composed by MERL researcher Diego Romeres and a team from University Padua (UniPD) consisting of Alberto Dalla Libera, Ph.D., Ph.D. Candidates: Niccolò Turcato, Giulio Giacomuzzo and Prof. Ruggero Carli from University of Padua.

        The International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) is a premier gathering for AI researchers and organizes several competitions. This year the competition CC7 "AI Olympics With RealAIGym: Is AI Ready for Athletic Intelligence in the Real World?" consisted of two stages: simulation and real-robot experiments on two under-actuated robotic systems. The two robotics systems were treated as separate tracks and one final winner was selected for each track based on specific performance criteria in the control tasks.

        The UniPD-MERL team competed and won in both tracks. The team's system made strong use of a Model-based Reinforcement Learning algorithm called (MC-PILCO) that we recently published in the journal IEEE Transaction on Robotics.
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  • MERL Publications

    •  Giacomuzzo, G., Romeres, D., Carli, R., Dalla Libera, A., "Learning Positive Definite Inertia Matrices in Black-Box Inverse Dynamics Models via Gaussian Processes: a Constraint Learning Approach", European Control Conference (ECC), June 2025.
      BibTeX TR2025-090 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Giacomuzzo2025jun,
      • author = {Giacomuzzo, Giulio and Romeres, Diego and Carli, Ruggero and Dalla Libera, Alberto},
      • title = {{Learning Positive Definite Inertia Matrices in Black-Box Inverse Dynamics Models via Gaussian Processes: a Constraint Learning Approach}},
      • booktitle = {European Control Conference (ECC)},
      • year = 2025,
      • month = jun,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2025-090}
      • }
    •  Vats, S., Jha, D.K., Likhachev, M., Kroemer, O., Romeres, D., "RecoveryChaining: Learning Local Recovery Policies for Robust Manipulation", R3: Reasoning for Robust Robot Manipulation in the Open World Workshop at R:SS 2025, June 2025.
      BibTeX TR2025-091 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Vats2025jun,
      • author = {Vats, Shivam and Jha, Devesh K. and Likhachev, Maxim and Kroemer, Oliver and Romeres, Diego},
      • title = {{RecoveryChaining: Learning Local Recovery Policies for Robust Manipulation}},
      • booktitle = {R3: Reasoning for Robust Robot Manipulation in the Open World Workshop at R:SS 2025},
      • year = 2025,
      • month = jun,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2025-091}
      • }
    •  Lu, K., Ma, C., Hori, C., Romeres, D., "KitchenVLA: Iterative Vision-Language Corrections for Robotic Execution of Human Tasks", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation Workshop on Safely Leveraging Vision-Language Foundation Models in Robotics (SafeLVMs@ICRA), May 2025.
      BibTeX TR2025-068 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Lu2025may,
      • author = {Lu, Kai and Ma, Chenyang and Hori, Chiori and Romeres, Diego},
      • title = {{KitchenVLA: Iterative Vision-Language Corrections for Robotic Execution of Human Tasks}},
      • booktitle = {IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation Workshop on Safely Leveraging Vision-Language Foundation Models in Robotics (SafeLVMs@ICRA)},
      • year = 2025,
      • month = may,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2025-068}
      • }
    •  Giacomuzzo, G., Romeres, D., Carli, R., Dalla Libera, A., "Embedding Physical Consistency in Black-Box Inverse Dynamics Learning", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) Workshop on Structured Learning for Efficient, Reliable, and Transparent Robots, May 2025.
      BibTeX External
      • @inproceedings{Giacomuzzo2025may2,
      • author = {{{Giacomuzzo, Giulio and Romeres, Diego and Carli, Ruggero and Dalla Libera, Alberto}}},
      • title = {{{Embedding Physical Consistency in Black-Box Inverse Dynamics Learning}}},
      • booktitle = {IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) Workshop on Structured Learning for Efficient, Reliable, and Transparent Robots},
      • year = 2025,
      • month = may,
      • url = {https://sites.google.com/view/srl-icra-2025/accepted-papers?authuser=0}
      • }
    •  Giacomuzzo, G., Pegoraro, G., Terreran, M., Ghidoni, S., Carli, R., Romeres, D., "E-UHTP: An Extended Human-Aware Task Planner for Communication-Free Collaborative Assembly", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) - Workshop on The Future of Intelligent Manufacturing: From innovation to implementation, May 2025.
      BibTeX TR2025-066 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Giacomuzzo2025may,
      • author = {Giacomuzzo, Giulio and Pegoraro, Giulia and Terreran, Matteo and Ghidoni, Stefano and Carli, Ruggero and Romeres, Diego},
      • title = {{E-UHTP: An Extended Human-Aware Task Planner for Communication-Free Collaborative Assembly}},
      • booktitle = {IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) - Workshop on The Future of Intelligent Manufacturing: From innovation to implementation},
      • year = 2025,
      • month = may,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2025-066}
      • }
    See All MERL Publications for Diego
  • Other Publications

    •  Diego Romeres, Giulia Prando, Gianluigi Pillonetto and Alessandro Chiuso, "On-line bayesian system identification", Control Conference (ECC), 2016 European, 2016, pp. 1359-1364.
      BibTeX
      • @Inproceedings{romeres2016line,
      • author = {Romeres, Diego and Prando, Giulia and Pillonetto, Gianluigi and Chiuso, Alessandro},
      • title = {On-line bayesian system identification},
      • booktitle = {Control Conference (ECC), 2016 European},
      • year = 2016,
      • pages = {1359--1364},
      • organization = {IEEE}
      • }
    •  Diego Romeres, Mattia Zorzi, Raffaello Camoriano and Alessandro Chiuso, "Online semi-parametric learning for inverse dynamics modeling", Decision and Control (CDC), 2016 IEEE 55th Conference on, 2016, pp. 2945-2950.
      BibTeX
      • @Inproceedings{romeres2016online,
      • author = {Romeres, Diego and Zorzi, Mattia and Camoriano, Raffaello and Chiuso, Alessandro},
      • title = {Online semi-parametric learning for inverse dynamics modeling},
      • booktitle = {Decision and Control (CDC), 2016 IEEE 55th Conference on},
      • year = 2016,
      • pages = {2945--2950},
      • organization = {IEEE}
      • }
    •  Diego Romeres, Mattia Zorzi, Raffaello Camoriano and Alessandro Chiuso, "Online semi-parametric learning for inverse dynamics modeling", Decision and Control (CDC), 2016 IEEE 55th Conference on, 2016, pp. 2945-2950.
      BibTeX
      • @Inproceedings{romeres2016onlinesemiparametric,
      • author = {Romeres, Diego and Zorzi, Mattia and Camoriano, Raffaello and Chiuso, Alessandro},
      • title = {Online semi-parametric learning for inverse dynamics modeling},
      • booktitle = {Decision and Control (CDC), 2016 IEEE 55th Conference on},
      • year = 2016,
      • pages = {2945--2950},
      • organization = {IEEE}
      • }
    •  Giulia Prando, Diego Romeres, Gianluigi Pillonetto and Alessandro Chiuso, "Classical vs. Bayesian methods for linear system identification: Point estimators and confidence sets", Control Conference (ECC), 2016 European, 2016, pp. 1365-1370.
      BibTeX
      • @Inproceedings{tprando2016classical,
      • author = {Prando, Giulia and Romeres, Diego and Pillonetto, Gianluigi and Chiuso, Alessandro},
      • title = {Classical vs. Bayesian methods for linear system identification: Point estimators and confidence sets},
      • booktitle = {Control Conference (ECC), 2016 European},
      • year = 2016,
      • pages = {1365--1370},
      • organization = {IEEE}
      • }
    •  Giulia Prando, Diego Romeres and Alessandro Chiuso, "Online identification of time-varying systems: A Bayesian approach", Decision and Control (CDC), 2016 IEEE 55th Conference on, 2016, pp. 3775-3780.
      BibTeX
      • @Inproceedings{tprando2016online,
      • author = {Prando, Giulia and Romeres, Diego and Chiuso, Alessandro},
      • title = {Online identification of time-varying systems: A Bayesian approach},
      • booktitle = {Decision and Control (CDC), 2016 IEEE 55th Conference on},
      • year = 2016,
      • pages = {3775--3780},
      • organization = {IEEE}
      • }
    •  Ulrich Muenz and Diego Romeres, "Region of attraction of power systems", IFAC Proceedings Volumes, Vol. 46, No. 27, pp. 49-54, 2013.
      BibTeX
      • @Article{munz2013region,
      • author = {Muenz, Ulrich and Romeres, Diego},
      • title = {Region of attraction of power systems},
      • journal = {IFAC Proceedings Volumes},
      • year = 2013,
      • volume = 46,
      • number = 27,
      • pages = {49--54},
      • publisher = {Elsevier}
      • }
    •  Diego Romeres, Florian Doerfler and Francesco Bullo, "Novel results on slow coherency in consensus and power networks", Control Conference (ECC), 2013 European, 2013, pp. 742-747.
      BibTeX
      • @Inproceedings{romeres2013novel,
      • author = {Romeres, Diego and Doerfler, Florian and Bullo, Francesco},
      • title = {Novel results on slow coherency in consensus and power networks},
      • booktitle = {Control Conference (ECC), 2013 European},
      • year = 2013,
      • pages = {742--747},
      • organization = {IEEE}
      • }
    •  Saverio Bolognani, Andrea Carron, Alberto Di Vittorio, Diego Romeres, Luca Schenato and Sandro Zampieri, "Distributed multi-hop reactive power compensation in smart micro-grids subject to saturation constraints", Decision and Control (CDC), 2012 IEEE 51st Annual Conference on, 2012, pp. 1118-1123.
      BibTeX
      • @Inproceedings{bolognani2012distributed,
      • author = {Bolognani, Saverio and Carron, Andrea and Di Vittorio, Alberto and Romeres, Diego and Schenato, Luca and Zampieri, Sandro},
      • title = {Distributed multi-hop reactive power compensation in smart micro-grids subject to saturation constraints},
      • booktitle = {Decision and Control (CDC), 2012 IEEE 51st Annual Conference on},
      • year = 2012,
      • pages = {1118--1123},
      • organization = {IEEE}
      • }
  • Software & Data Downloads

  • Videos

  • MERL Issued Patents

    • Title: "Method and System for Modelling and Control Partially Measurable Systems"
      Inventors: Romeres, Diego; Amadio, Fabio; Libera, Alberto Dalla; Antonello, Riccardo; Carli, Ruggero; Nikovski, Daniel N.
      Patent No.: 12,346,115
      Issue Date: Jul 1, 2025
    • Title: "Apparatuses Systems and Methods for Optimization-Based Control of Physical Systems"
      Inventors: Chakrabarty, Ankush; Quirynen, Rien; Romeres, Diego; Di Cairano, Stefano
      Patent No.: 12,346,072
      Issue Date: Jul 1, 2025
    • Title: "System and Method for Controlling a Robot using Constrained Dynamic Movement Primitives"
      Inventors: Jha, Devesh; Shaw, Seiji; Raghunathan, Arvind U.; Corcodel, Radu Ioan; Romeres, Diego; Nikovski, Daniel N.
      Patent No.: 12,343,876
      Issue Date: Jul 1, 2025
    • Title: "System and Method for Robust Robotic Manipulation using Chance Constrained Optimization"
      Inventors: Jha, Devesh; Raghunathan, Arvind U.; Romeres, Diego
      Patent No.: 12,049,007
      Issue Date: Jul 30, 2024
    • Title: "OBJECT MANIPULATION WITH COLLISION AVOIDANCE USING COMPLEMENTARITY CONSTRAINTS"
      Inventors: Raghunathan, Arvind U.; Jha, Devesh; Romeres, Diego
      Patent No.: 11,883,962
      Issue Date: Jan 30, 2024
    • Title: "System and Method for Robotic Assembly Based on Adaptive Compliance"
      Inventors: Nikovski, Daniel N.; Romeres, Diego; Jha, Devesh; Yerazunis, William S.
      Patent No.: 11,673,264
      Issue Date: Jun 13, 2023
    • Title: "System and Method for Policy Optimization using Quasi-Newton Trust Region Method"
      Inventors: Jha, Devesh; Raghunathan, Arvind U; Romeres, Diego
      Patent No.: 11,650,551
      Issue Date: May 16, 2023
    • Title: "Systems and Methods Automatic Anomaly Detection in Mixed Human-Robot Manufacturing Processes"
      Inventors: Laftchiev, Emil; Romeres, Diego
      Patent No.: 11,472,028
      Issue Date: Oct 18, 2022
    • Title: "Systems and Methods for Advance Anomaly Detection in a Discrete Manufacturing Process with a Task Performed by a Human-Robot Team"
      Inventors: Laftchiev, Emil; Romeres, Diego
      Patent No.: 11,442,429
      Issue Date: Sep 13, 2022
    • Title: "System and Design of Derivative-free Model Learning for Robotic Systems"
      Inventors: Romeres, Diego; Libera, Alberto Dalla; Jha, Devesh; Nikovski, Daniel Nikolaev
      Patent No.: 11,389,957
      Issue Date: Jul 19, 2022
    • Title: "System and Method for Thermal Control Based on Invertible Causation Relationship"
      Inventors: Laftchiev, Emil; Nikovski, Daniel N.; Romeres, Diego
      Patent No.: 11,280,514
      Issue Date: Mar 22, 2022
    • Title: "System and Method for Automatic Error Recovery in Robotic Assembly"
      Inventors: Nikovski, Daniel Nikolaev; Jha, Devesh; Romeres, Diego
      Patent No.: 11,161,244
      Issue Date: Nov 2, 2021
    See All Patents for MERL