The course is composed of two modules “Social robotics” and “Affective computing”
Social robotics is a fairly recent branch of robotics; it addresses the need for robots to correctly interpret people’s action and respond appropriately. A cross point of several disciplines, such us psychology, engineering, sociology, social robotics development will be addressed in this course, with arguments mostly based on engineering reasoning and design.
The course of Affective computing aims at showing how computational technology can be used to understand and interpret human emotions. Specifically, modelling of human emotional expression will be addressed, including software and hardware solutions to acquire, communicate, and express affective information. Understanding how emotions can be experienced can be also helpful to quantify correlated patterns of central and autonomic nervous activity in order to investigate on mood and consciousness disorders.

The course on “Neural prostheses” is composed of two modules: “Neural interfaces and bioelectronic medicine” and “Neural tissue engineering”.
During the course on “Neural interfaces and bioelectronic medicine” the students will acquire the basic principles underlying the design and development of implantable neural interfaces for different parts of the nervous system. They will also develop a broad view on existing neuroprosthetic systems to restore motor functions and on novel solutions based on the stimulation of the autonomic nervous system, and will be able to identify current limitations and challenges for future applications. Finally, the students will learn the conceptual and practical bases for the development of a novel neuroprosthesis (group project).
During the course on “Neural tissue engineering” the students will acquire the strategies to develop grafts and scaffolds that can be implanted to promote nerve regeneration and to repair damage caused to nerves of both the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system by an injury and to eliminate inflammation and fibrosis upon implantation. Specifically, the technological processes and the materials necessary to realise these grafts and also their interaction with physiological neural tissue.

The course is divided in two modules:
Integrative cerebral functions – All cognitive and emotional functions are the by-product of the activity of anatomo-functional distributed and, at the same time, integrated networks. The didactic module entitled "Integrative cerebral functions" will address the following main topics: 1) Node and rich-clubs in the human connectome; 2) Sleep, mentation and dreaming; 3) Biological bases of consciousness; 4) Theory of mind and mirror neuron system; 4) Empathy in the emotional context; 5) Stress in the context of body and mind integration
Advanced image processing - This module will cover advanced image processing methods that can be applied to biomedical images of the brain. In particular, the methods used to study structural and functional connectivity, as well as brain metabolism, will be deeply covered. The students will be trained to process images acquired using different neuroimaging techniques, as those based on MRI, PET and NIRS. The course will also introduce the main approaches for the integration of biomedical images and electrophysiological recordings.

The course focuses on bioinspired robotics and biorobotic platforms for neuroscience and biology. The course provides the knowledge about the models of the human brain, of human intelligence, of muscle-skeletal systems, and of perceptual systems that are relevant in biorobotics. The students will learn principles of bioinspiration and biomimetics in robotics and the design methods and the technical tools for implementing such brain models and other animal models in robots. The students will have the opportunity to challenge themselves in their own design of robots inspired to functional mechanisms of human beings and other animals. Where appropriate, hands-on activities and student projects will be included in the course.

The course is composed of two modules: Artificial limbs and Robotic exoskeletons. The overall goal is to introduce students to the main challenges to design wearable powered robots for movement assistance, rehabilitation, augmentation and/or functional replacement. Along with the analyses of the main components involved in the development of an effective human-robot interaction, students will be engaged in laboratory and hands-on activities with working devices. In particular:
Within the module “Artificial limbs” students will be introduced to and will experiment the architecture and function of the microcontroller.
Within the module “Robotic exoskeletons” students will learn how to conceive, rapid-prototype and test multi-layered control architectures running on real-time targets endowed with FPGA processors.

The course “Robotics for surgery and targeted therapy” is composed by two modules: “Robotics for minimally invasive therapy” and “Micro-Nano robotics and biomaterials”.
The course of “Robotics for minimally invasive therapy” aims to provide students with methodology and guidelines to understand contribution and to exploit potentials of robotic technologies for minimally invasive therapy, diagnosis and surgery. The course will introduce different solutions for targeted therapies both minimally invasive and no invasive, e.g. which exploit external generators of therapeutic actions. At the end of the course the student will be able to identify the most appropriated targeting/therapeutic solutions for the different human body districts, at different scales, and for different pathologies.
The course “Micro-nano robotics and biomaterials” aims at providing students with the rationale, the methods and the most recent research advancements on milli, micro and nanosystems for achieving safe and effective targeted therapies. Bioengineering solutions for regenerative medicine, alternative to or synergic with traditional medical/surgical procedure, will be also highlighted. Where appropriate, hands-on activities will be included in the course, especially concerning micro/nano-fabrication and characterization techniques, biomaterial synthesis and functionalization and cell cultures.

The course “Robotics for assisted living” is composed by two modules: “Robot companions for assisted living” and “Cloud robotics”.
The aim of the module “Robot companions for assisted living” is to present the main advanced technologies and methodologies to build robot companions for assisting people in daily life activities. It will focus on systems and services adequate to the end-users’ needs, adaptive to the environment and end-users’s behaviour, embedded not invasively in the environments, easily wearable by end-users, pro-active with Ambient Intelligence (AmI) capabilities and highly usable with advanced human machine interfaces. The main technological contents include wireless sensor network, wearable technology, service and cloud robotics.
The module “Cloud robotics” will focus on the main basis for developing intelligent systems for Robot Companions applications. It will revolve around the analysis of middleware solutions for integration of smart environments and service robotics and the implementation of Wireless Sensor Network with the Microcontroller STM32W with ZigBee stack. Additionally it will introduce the main concepts of cloud computing and propose how to develop Cloud robotics applications.