Experimental Activity with a Rover for Underwater Inspection

Erika Ottaviano is Associate Professor and Departmental Coordinator for the International Relations at the Dept. of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio. Since 2004, she has been a member of the IFToMM Technical Committee for Computational Kinematics (TCCK). She served as secretary of this Committee from 2009 to 2017. Since 2014, she has served as project evaluator for Int. Science Foundation programs at EU and Non EU level. Since 2011, she has served as a member of the Editorial Board of the Int. Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, Sage Journals. Since 2015, she has served as Associate Editor, section “Medical Robotics”. Since 2012, she has been appointed Editor for the Int. Journal of Imaging and Robotics (ISSN 2231-525X). Since 2015, she has been appointed Associate Editor for Mechatronics of the Journal of Applied Sciences, Acta Polytechnica Hungarica. From 2016, she has been Editor for the American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Science Publications. Her research interests cover aspects of Mechanics, Robotics, and Mechanical Design of Manipulators and Mobile Robots, with special emphasis on robotic and mechatronic solutions for the inspection of structures and infrastructure and design simulation and experimental tests on assisting devices composed by rigid links and flexible ones. She is author and/or co-author of more than 200 papers published in Proceedings of Int. Conferences or in journals and as book chapters.

Prof. Pierluigi Rea is Associate Professor at the Dept. of Mechanical, Chemical and Materials Engineering (DIMCM), at the University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy. He received his Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2002 at the University of Cassino by discussing a thesis on the Experimental Analysis of a PWM Modulated Digital Valve. In 2007, he received his Ph.D. in Civil and Mechanical Engineering by discussing a thesis on the Mechatronic Design of a Robotic Hand with Pneumatic Actuation. From 2007 to 2010, he was Assistant Researcher at the University of Cassino. His main research interests concern topics on Fluid Automation and Mechatronics, Mechanical Design, and Robotics. He is author and/or co-author of more than 85 scientific papers, which appear in Proceedings of National and International Conferences and International Journals and Books.

Prof. Maurizio Ruggiu received his Laurea degree in Structural Engineering from the Università degli Studi di Cagliari (UNICA), Cagliari, Italy, in 1995. In 1999, from the same university, he received his PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering. During his PhD course, he spent 8 months as a visiting scholar in the Aeronautics and Astronautics department at Purdue University (USA). From 1999 to 2014, he was Assistant Professor of Meccanica Applicata at the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Meccanica, Chimica e dei Materiali (DIMCM, UNICA). Since October 2014 until now, he has been Associate Professor of Applied Mechanics at the DIMCM. From 2001 to 2012, he was involved in four teams for carrying out research founded by MIUR (PRIN projects). In 2010, he was the scientific director of a visiting professor project funded by UNICA. The topic of the research project was actuation strategies for the motion planning of kinematically redundant parallel manipulators. His research interests are mainly on robotics, parallel mechanisms kinematics, multi-body dynamics, rehabilitation robotics, and applied mathematics in mechanics. He is author of about 50 scientific papers, and he has two Italian patents.