Kirsty Aquilina

Bristol Robotics Laboratory, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, University of Bristol

Papers

Total Citations

111

H-Index

About

Kirsty Aquilina is a leading researcher in tactile robotics, specializing in how robots can use artificial touch to perceive and interact with their environments. Her work addresses the fundamental challenge of combining tactile perception with real-time control, enabling robots to explore surfaces and manipulate objects with human-like dexterity. Her most influential paper, "Exploratory Tactile Servoing With Active Touch" (2017, 85 citations), tackles the unsolved problem of tactile exploration over surface features like edges and ridges, establishing a foundational framework for active touch in robotics. She has further advanced the field by developing methods for continuous contact perception, as demonstrated in "Shear-invariant Sliding Contact Perception with a Soft Tactile Sensor" (2019), which addresses the complexities of shear deformation during manipulation tasks. Her recent work on "Tactile control for object tracking and dynamic contour following" (2024) pushes the boundaries into dynamic environments, where robots must adapt to moving objects. Through her research, Aquilina is helping to bridge the gap between static robotic systems and the dynamic, unpredictable world they must operate in, with significant implications for manufacturing, healthcare, and human-robot collaboration.