Tagliavanti (President of the Rome Chamber of Commerce): “A pioneering experimental project we are extremely proud of, developed with Italy’s leading experts in robotics, artificial intelligence and research.”
Rome, March 19, 2025 - The Rome Chamber of Commerce presents ADRIANO, the first robotic employee in the Italian Public Administration, ready to transform visitor reception and information services at the Temple of Vibia Sabina and Hadrian, the prestigious headquarters of the Capital’s economic institution.
Equipped with artificial intelligence and cutting-edge technology, ADRIANO will become operational on March 24, 2025, welcoming citizens and tourists and providing information, in Italian and English, about the history of Rome and the historic site of the Rome Chamber of Commerce.
ADRIANO is a humanoid robot equipped with Computer Vision sensors and artificial muscles that enable him to interact safely, gently and effectively with the surrounding environment and with people. Thanks to advanced robotic hands, his interaction is not limited to verbal communication but also includes physical contact: he can manipulate objects and shake hands with visitors, always ensuring a high level of safety.
A distinctive feature of ADRIANO is his ability to express emotions through realistic facial expressions, enabling more natural and engaging communication with users. This makes him a truly unique assistant, capable of adapting his expressions according to the context and the person he is interacting with.
One of his most innovative features, which will soon be integrated, is the ability to enable remote visits to the Temple, offering a unique immersive experience to those who cannot be physically present but are simply equipped with a headset. In this way, ADRIANO represents a one-of-a-kind solution: he moves and interacts with the surrounding environment on behalf of the user, showing real-time details and historical artifacts.
A Project of Technological and Scientific Excellence
The initiative is the result of collaboration among four leading Italian centers of excellence in robotics and artificial intelligence, involving a team of over 30 highly talented engineers, technicians and researchers. The entire development process required a total of 18 months to move from the experimental phase to operational deployment. Essentially, the project evolved from a remotely operated avatar into a fully autonomous robot, as ADRIANO now is. He remains in a learning phase: over time he will continue to accumulate information and knowledge, refining his movements and interactions.
The project, strongly promoted by the Rome Chamber of Commerce, was developed in collaboration with:
Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), SoftBots Line, coordinated by Prof. Antonio Bicchi
- Manuel G. Catalano, Robotics Researcher
- Giovanni Rosato, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Engineer
- Eleonora Sguerri, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Engineer
- Mattia Poggiani, Robotics Engineer
- Cristiano Petrocelli, Robotics Engineer
- Development of the robotic platform’s hardware and software
Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering “A. Ruberti”, coordinated by Prof. Daniele Nardi
- Vincenzo Suriani, Postdoctoral Researcher in Artificial Intelligence
- Emanuele Musumeci, PhD Student and Robotics Engineer
- Development of the functionalities ensuring the robot’s autonomy, including the transition from teleoperation to autonomy
Babelscape, start-up of Sapienza University of Rome, led by Roberto Navigli
- Francesco Cecconi, CTO
- Andrea David Passarelli, Product Owner
- Fabrizio Brignone, Technical Leader
- Language processing and generation
qbrobotics, spin-off of the Italian Institute of Technology and the University of Pisa, led by CEO Fabio Bonomo
- Riccardo Persichini, Research and Development Engineer
- Alberto Brando, Head of Production
- Giuliano Dami, Robotics Engineer
- Design and manufacturing of the robot’s hardware components
The creation of ADRIANO marks yet another success for Italian robotics, a true world-class excellence, also confirmed by recent recognitions awarded to Professors Antonio Bicchi and Bruno Siciliano, both honored over the past two years by the World Federation of Robotics with the prestigious international title of “Pioneers of Robotics and Automation.” They have also been awarded, together with their teams, the prestigious Synergy Grant, an important title and financial contribution granted by the European Research Council to the most outstanding highly experimental robotics projects.
“ADRIANO,” states Lorenzo Tagliavanti, President of the Rome Chamber of Commerce, “is a cutting-edge experimental project that we have strongly promoted, with the aim of demonstrating the potential interconnections between robotics and artificial intelligence and how these connections can lead to tools capable of improving people’s quality of life. To develop this project, we collaborated with Italy’s leading experts in research, robotics and artificial intelligence. ADRIANO is set within a unique architectural context in the heart of Rome, the Temple of Vibia Sabina and Hadrian, where history and innovation merge in a dynamic and successful way.”
“The Italian Institute of Technology,” says Giorgio Metta, Scientific Director of IIT, “has always had among its main objectives the goal of taking scientific research beyond laboratories and transforming it into concrete innovation at the service of society. This project perfectly embodies that vision: a humanoid robot that is not merely an example of technological advancement, but a first step toward a future in which machines interact naturally with people, supporting and enhancing public services.”
“Ego in the ADRIANO version,” explains Antonio Bicchi, Head of the SoftBots Laboratory at IIT and Professor of Robotics at the University of Pisa, “is a first in many respects: it is the first time that an intelligent and autonomous robot welcomes visitors in one of the most evocative sites handed down from ancient Rome, and it is the first time in Italy that the Public Administration has led a project bringing together some of the country’s leading research centers, universities and some of the most promising robotics start-ups to carry out an initiative of such innovative scope.”
“The ADRIANO robot, designed to welcome citizens and tourists to the Temple of Vibia Sabina and Hadrian, features advanced functionalities,” states Daniele Nardi, Full Professor of Artificial Intelligence at Sapienza University of Rome, “that make it autonomous and expressive in vocal interactions, capable of managing conversations and providing historical information contextualized within the very layout of the Temple. The robotic platform was developed by IIT and qbrobotics, while Sapienza and IIT developed the navigation and interaction components through behaviors integrating gestures and facial expressions with the vocal response generation system developed by Babelscape.”
This text is the official English translation of the press release issued by the Rome Chamber of Commerce on March 18, 2025.