Ignacio Cuiral-Zueco | Robotics Researcher

Focus: Perception-to-manipulation pipelines, shape analysis, continuum mechanics, non-linear control, data-driven estimation and control.

Field notes

News

Joining the University of Zaragoza as Assistant Professor

I’m finishing my postdoc at Clermont (CA-INP), where I’ve been lucky to work with Prof. Youcef Mezouar and a great group of colleagues. John, Bastien, Edoardo, and everyone else, thanks for making me feel so welcome (and for the raclette plans!). It’s been an excellent experience, with some exciting research from this time hopefully coming out soon.

I’m now joining the University of Zaragoza faculty as an Assistant Professor (Profesor Ayudante Doctor), based at EUPT and working with the ISA group within the Department of Computer Science and Systems Engineering (DIIS).

Very grateful for the experience, and looking forward to what comes next!

Clermont-Ferrand · CA-INP

🏆 Engineering and Architecture PhD Thesis Excellence Award (2026), University of Zaragoza .

Paper presented at ERF 2026

I presented our paper "The Language of Deformation: Semantic Failure Analysis as a Prerequisite for Dexterous Manipulation of Deformable Objects" at ERF 2026 in Stavanger, Norway, coauthored with David Hardman, Michele Pierallini and Erfan Shahriari. We met last year as finalists for the Georges Giralt PhD Award, each from a different institution in Europe, and ended up writing a paper together. A great example of what conferences like ERF are for :)

This work was partly funded by the EU through the REMAIN SUDOE project.

Paper presentation at ERF 2026

Stavanger, Norway

🏆 Best Robotics PhD Thesis Award (2025), Spanish Committee of Automatic Control (CEA).

CEA Best Robotics PhD Thesis Award

🏆 Best Iberian Robotics PhD Thesis Award (2025), conferred by the Spanish Society for Research and Development in Robotics (SEIDROB) and the Portuguese Robotics Society (SPR).

🏆 Georges Giralt PhD Award Finalist (2025): finalist for Europe's most prestigious recognition for PhD excellence in robotics, selected among over 50 candidates and presented at the European Robotics Forum 2025.

Invited Visiting Scholar

ELLIIT Focus Period 2025 on robot learning, Lund University, Sweden

Seminar on data-driven deformable object manipulation · Nov 2025

ELLIIT Focus Period · Lund University 2025

Highlighted Publications

I. Cuiral-Zueco and G. López-Nicolás, "Time Consistent Surface Mapping for Deformable Object Shape Control," IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, vol. 22, pp. 11099–11111, 2025, doi: 10.1109/TASE.2025.3529180.

Project Page Code

I. Cuiral-Zueco and G. López-Nicolás, "Multiscale Procrustes-Based 3-D Shape Control," IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 1738-1748, June 2024, doi: 10.1109/TMECH.2023.3325934.

Project Page Code

Experience & education

CV

Education

PhD (2019–2024): Systems Engineering and Computer Science, University of Zaragoza. Thesis: Shape Control of Deformable Objects (International Mention, Cum Laude). [Link]
MSc (2017–2019): Industrial Engineering, University of Zaragoza. Thesis: RGB-D Visual SLAM for Manipulator Control in Deformable Environments (Distinction).
BSc (2013–2017): Industrial Technologies Engineering, University of Zaragoza. Thesis: Stereo Visual SLAM for Medical Endoscopy (Distinction).

Academic Experience

2026–Present: Assistant Professor (Profesor Ayudante Doctor), EUPT, ISA group, Department of Computer Science and Systems Engineering (DIIS), University of Zaragoza, Spain.
2025–2026: Postdoctoral Researcher, CA-INP Institut Pascal, France.
2024–2025: Adjunct Professor, Systems Engineering and Automation, University of Zaragoza.
2024–2025: Researcher N3, European Project DeFORMS, University of Zaragoza.
2020–2024: Researcher N3, Project FROSCAT, University of Zaragoza.
2019–2020: Researcher N4, European Project COMMANDIA, University of Zaragoza.

Awards & Honors

🏆 Engineering and Architecture PhD Thesis Excellence Award (2026), University of Zaragoza .
🏆 Best Robotics PhD Thesis Award (2025), Spanish Committee of Automatic Control (CEA).
🏆 Best Iberian Robotics PhD Thesis Award (2025), conferred by the Spanish Society for Research and Development in Robotics (SEIDROB) and the Portuguese Robotics Society (SPR).
🏆 Georges Giralt PhD Award Finalist: finalist for Europe's most prestigious recognition for PhD excellence in robotics, selected among over 50 candidates and presented at the European Robotics Forum 2025.

Research Stays & Invited Talks

Mar 2026: European Robotics Forum (ERF), Stavanger, paper presentation.
Nov 2025: Invited Visiting Scholar, ELLIIT Focus Period, Lund University, Sweden. Seminar on data-driven deformable object manipulation.
Mar 2025: European Robotics Forum (ERF), Stuttgart — PhD Award finalist presentation.
Sep–Nov 2022: Research stay, Lund University (LTH), Sweden.
May–Aug 2021: Research stay, University of Coimbra, Portugal.

Projects, Service & Outreach

Project COMMANDIA: COllaborative robotic Mobile MANipulation of Deformable objects in Industrial Applications — SOE2/P1/F0638 (Interreg Sudoe Programme, ERDF). Project site.
Project REMAIN: robotic REMAnufacturing of deformable INdustrial products — S1/1.1/E0111 (Interreg Sudoe Programme, ERDF). Project site.
Project COUNTRYBOTS: Cooperative robots for monitorization and deformable goods transport in the countryside, PID2021-124137OB-I00. Project site.
Project DeFORMS: Deformation control of Flexible Objects with cooperative Robots in Manufacturing Sectors, TED2021-130224B-I00. Project site.
Mentoring: Supervised 1 MSc and 2 BSc theses; 150+ hours of extracurricular research internships.
Service: Organizing committee (XLIV Jornadas de Automática 2023, IEEE SWYP 2020).
Research Group: Member of ROPERT (Robotics, Computer Vision and AI).

Demos & outreach

Dissemination

Four interactive demonstrations of deformable-object shape control, followed by my educational robotics and outreach work.

Four demonstrations

Shape control of deformable objects

The demonstrations build up a single control loop: manipulate a deformable object by hand, quantify how close two shapes are, choose the features that define shape error, then estimate the shape Jacobian and close the loop.

The demonstrations are ordered, but each one stands alone.

Step 1 · Manipulate

Manual shape servoing

Two planar manipulators hold a deformable linear object at both ends. Moving either gripper changes the shape of the whole object.

Task: Move one gripper, or its rotation ring, and keep the change only when the error plot goes down.

The same manipulators, rod model and target return in step 4, where an estimated Jacobian replaces the operator.

Explore the research: object-compliant shape control · multiscale 3-D shape control

Step 2 · Compare

Measuring shape similarity

Any correction loop needs a scalar that states how far the current shape is from the target. This demonstration makes that measurement explicit.

Task: Remove material, measure again, and undo an edit that lowers the score: the compare-and-correct step a controller repeats.

The score used here is a simple area overlap. Shape control on real deformable objects needs correspondence-aware metrics.

Explore the research: time-consistent surface mapping · elastic contour mapping

Step 3 · Represent

Shape representations and invariance

The controller compares numbers, not pictures. Point coordinates, edge vectors and curvature are three ways to turn the same rod into numbers.

Task: Press Translate and watch only the point coordinates move. Press Rotate and watch curvature stay flat. Press Bend and watch all three react.

A feature that ignores a movement is invariant to it. Invariance rejects disturbances you do not care about, and hides directions the controller can no longer correct.

Step 4 · Shape control

Data-driven shape control

The same task without a human in the loop. The robots first explore, then use what they measured as feedback.

Task: Run it once per feature vector and compare: which errors reach zero, and what the robots do differently in each case.

Small test movements give the shape Jacobian, the local relation between gripper motion and feature motion. The loop then inverts it to turn error into motion.

Explore the research: data-driven shape trajectory control

Noctis and Aurel

Programming in a learning-friendly way:

For my PhD thesis presentation, I created a flyer that summarizes the main contributions and findings of my research. Feel free to download and explore:

Download Flyer (English) Descargar Tríptico (Español)

Selected record

Publications

Journals

[J9] I. Cuiral-Zueco and G. López-Nicolás, “Data-Driven Shape Trajectory Control of Deformable Linear Objects,” IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, pp. 1–12, 2026. doi: 10.1109/TMECH.2026.3715312.
[J8] A. Caporali, I. Cuiral-Zueco, G. López-Nicolás and G. Palli, “Robotic perception and manipulation of deformable linear objects: A survey,” The International Journal of Robotics Research, 2026. doi: 10.1177/02783649261432253.
Project Page
[J7] I. Cuiral-Zueco and G. López-Nicolás, “Multi-scale elastic contour mapping for deformable object shape control,” Robotics and Autonomous Systems, vol. 194, p. 105134, 2025. doi: 10.1016/j.robot.2025.105134.
[J6] M. Aranda, I. Cuiral-Zueco and G. López-Nicolás, “Distributed Control of Flexible Chained Multiagent Formations,” IEEE Control Systems Letters, vol. 9, pp. 2018–2023, 2025. doi: 10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3590428.
Project Page
[J5] I. Cuiral-Zueco and G. López-Nicolás, "Time Consistent Surface Mapping for Deformable Object Shape Control," IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, vol. 22, pp. 11099–11111, 2025. doi: 10.1109/TASE.2025.3529180.
Project Page Code
[J4] I. Cuiral-Zueco and G. López-Nicolás, "Taxonomy of Deformable Object Shape Control," IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 9, no. 10, pp. 9015–9022, 2024. doi: 10.1109/LRA.2024.3455770.
Project Page Code
[J3] I. Cuiral-Zueco and G. López-Nicolás, "Multiscale Procrustes-Based 3-D Shape Control," IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 1738–1748, 2024. doi: 10.1109/TMECH.2023.3325934.
Project Page Code
[J2] I. Cuiral-Zueco, Y. Karayiannidis and G. López-Nicolás, "Contour Based Object-Compliant Shape Control," IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 8, no. 8, pp. 5164–5171, 2023. doi: 10.1109/LRA.2023.3292617.
Project Page
[J1] I. Cuiral-Zueco and G. López-Nicolás, “RGB-D Tracking and Optimal Perception of Deformable Objects,” IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 136884–136897, 2020. doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3012067.

Conferences

[C5] I. Cuiral-Zueco, D. Hardman, M. Pierallini and E. Shahriari, "The Language of Deformation: Semantic Failure Analysis as a Prerequisite for Dexterous Manipulation of Deformable Objects," European Robotics Forum (ERF), Stavanger, Norway, 2026.
Poster
[C4] I. Cuiral-Zueco and G. López-Nicolás, "Elastic Contour Mapping for the Estimation of Abrupt Shape Deformations," Proc. Iberian Robotics Conf., pp. 400–408, 2023.
[C3] I. Cuiral-Zueco, G. López-Nicolás and H. Araujo, "Gripper positioning for object deformation tasks," Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Robot. Autom. (ICRA), pp. 2403–2409, 2022. doi: 10.1109/ICRA46639.2022.9812304.
[C2] I. Cuiral-Zueco and G. López-Nicolás, "Multi-scale Laplacian-based FMM for deformable object elastic shape estimation," Proc. IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. Intell. Robots Syst. (IROS), pp. 1766–1772, 2021. doi: 10.1109/IROS51168.2021.9636857.
Code
[C1] I. Cuiral-Zueco and G. López-Nicolás, "Dynamic Occlusion Handling for Real Time Object Perception," Proc. Int. Conf. Robot. Autom. Eng. (ICRAE), pp. 66–70, 2020. doi: 10.1109/ICRAE50850.2020.9310850.

Ignacio
Cuiral-Zueco