Biography
Bruno is a Senior Researcher in Robotics at the Oxford Robotics Institute. His research interests are in investigating how formal methods can be used in robotics, in particular, how temporal logic can be used to specify and synthesise high-level controllers for robot systems, with formal performance guarantees. His research interests include:
- Sequential Decision Making
- Probabilistic Model Checking
- Multi-Robot Coordination
- Service Robotics
- Temporal Logics
- Petri Nets
- Supervisory Control
Bruno’s academic degrees were awarded by Instituto Superior Técnico. He has a BSc in Applied Mathematics and Computation (2007), an MSc in Mathematics and Applications (2007), and a PhD in Electrical and Computing Engineering (2013).
From April 2013 to September 2017, he was a Research Fellow in Intelligent Robotics at the Intelligent Robotics Lab of the University of Birmingham. He mainly worked within the STRANDS (Spatio-Temporal Representations and Activities for Cognitive Control in Long-Term Scenarios) project where he developed control approaches that both handle the inherent uncertainties of human populated environments, and take advantage of the spatio-temporal data obtained from the long term deployment of robot systems to improve their performance.
Visit Bruno’s personal page or Google Scholar profile.
Recent Publications
No regrets: investigating and improving regret approximations for curriculum discovery
Rutherford A, Beukman M, Willi T, Lacerda B, Hawes N et al. (2025), Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 37 (NeurIPS 2024), 37, 16071-16101
BibTeX
@inproceedings{noregretsinvest-2025/2,
title={No regrets: investigating and improving regret approximations for curriculum discovery},
author={Rutherford A, Beukman M, Willi T, Lacerda B, Hawes N et al.},
booktitle={38th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2024)},
pages={16071-16101},
year = "2025"
}
Time-bounded planning with uncertain task duration distributions
Staniaszek M, Brudermüller L, You Y, Bhattacharyya R, Lacerda B et al. (2025), Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 186
BibTeX
@article{timeboundedplan-2025/1,
title={Time-bounded planning with uncertain task duration distributions},
author={Staniaszek M, Brudermüller L, You Y, Bhattacharyya R, Lacerda B et al.},
journal={Robotics and Autonomous Systems},
volume={186},
number={104926},
publisher={Elsevier},
year = "2025"
}
Editorial: Variable autonomy for human-robot teaming.
Theodorou A, Chiou M, Lacerda B & Rothfuß S (2024), Frontiers in robotics and AI, 11, 1465183
BibTeX
@article{editorialvariab-2024/11,
title={Editorial: Variable autonomy for human-robot teaming.},
author={Theodorou A, Chiou M, Lacerda B & Rothfuß S},
journal={Frontiers in robotics and AI},
volume={11},
pages={1465183},
publisher={Frontiers},
year = "2024"
}
Hierarchical planning for resource-constrained long-term monitoring missions in time-varying environments
Stephens R, Lacerda B & Hawes N (2024), ECAI 2024, 1214-1221
BibTeX
@inproceedings{hierarchicalpla-2024/10,
title={Hierarchical planning for resource-constrained long-term monitoring missions in time-varying environments},
author={Stephens R, Lacerda B & Hawes N},
booktitle={27th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI 2024)},
pages={1214-1221},
year = "2024"
}
Planning under uncertainty for safe robot exploration using Gaussian process prediction
Stephens A, Budd M, Staniaszek M, Casseau B, Duckworth P et al. (2024), Autonomous Robots, 48(7)
BibTeX
@article{planningunderun-2024/8,
title={Planning under uncertainty for safe robot exploration using Gaussian process prediction},
author={Stephens A, Budd M, Staniaszek M, Casseau B, Duckworth P et al.},
journal={Autonomous Robots},
volume={48},
number={18},
publisher={Springer},
year = "2024"
}
Multi-robot allocation of assistance from a shared uncertain operator
Costen C, Gautier A, Hawes N & Lacerda B (2024), Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2024), 400-408
BibTeX
@inproceedings{multirobotalloc-2024/5,
title={Multi-robot allocation of assistance from a shared uncertain operator},
author={Costen C, Gautier A, Hawes N & Lacerda B},
booktitle={23rd International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2024)},
pages={400-408},
year = "2024"
}
A framework for simultaneous task allocation and planning under uncertainty
Faruq F, Lacerda B, Hawes N & Parker D (2024), ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems, 19(4)
BibTeX
@article{aframeworkforsi-2024/5,
title={A framework for simultaneous task allocation and planning under uncertainty},
author={Faruq F, Lacerda B, Hawes N & Parker D},
journal={ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems},
volume={19},
number={21},
publisher={Association for Computing Machinery},
year = "2024"
}
JaxMARL: multi-agent RL environments and algorithms in JAX
Rutherford A, Ellis B, Gallici M, Cook J, Lupu A et al. (2024), AAMAS '24: Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, 2444-2446
BibTeX
@inproceedings{jaxmarlmultiage-2024/5,
title={JaxMARL: multi-agent RL environments and algorithms in JAX},
author={Rutherford A, Ellis B, Gallici M, Cook J, Lupu A et al.},
booktitle={23rd International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2024)},
pages={2444-2446},
year = "2024"
}
One risk to rule them all: a risk-sensitive perspective on model-based offline reinforcement learning
Rigter M, Lacerda B & Hawes N (2024), Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 36 (NeurIPS 2023)
BibTeX
@inproceedings{onerisktoruleth-2024/2,
title={One risk to rule them all: a risk-sensitive perspective on model-based offline reinforcement learning},
author={Rigter M, Lacerda B & Hawes N},
booktitle={37th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2023)},
year = "2024"
}
Right place, right time: proactive multi-robot task allocation under spatiotemporal uncertainty
Street C, Lacerda B, Mühlig M & Hawes N (2024), Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, 79, 137-171
BibTeX
@article{rightplaceright-2024/1,
title={Right place, right time: proactive multi-robot task allocation under spatiotemporal uncertainty},
author={Street C, Lacerda B, Mühlig M & Hawes N},
journal={Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research},
volume={79},
pages={137-171},
publisher={AI Access Foundation},
year = "2024"
}
