Publications

Almanzor, E., Thuruthel, T.G., & Iida, F. (2022) Automated Fruit Quality Testing using an Electrical Impedance Tomography-Enabled Soft Robotic Gripper. 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Kyoto, Japan, 2022, pp. 8500-8506. [October 2022].

Almanzor, E., Anvo, N.R., Thuruthel, T.G., & Iida, F. (2022) Autonomous detection and sorting of litter using deep learning and soft robotic grippers. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 9:1064853. [December 2022].

Almanzor, E., Ye, F., Shi, J., Thuruthel, T.G., Wurdemann, H.A., Iida, F. (2023) Static Shape Control of Soft Continuum Robots Using Deep Visual Inverse Kinematic Models. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 39(4), pp. 2973-2988. [June 2023].

Almanzor, E., Birell, S., & Iida, F. (2023) Rapid Development and Performance Evaluation of a Potato Planting Robot. Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems. TAROS 2023: Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 14136, pp. 15-25. Springer, Cham. [September 2023].

Costi, L., Almanzor, E., Scimeca, L., & Iida, F.(2023) Comparative Study of Hand-Tracking and Traditional Control Interfaces for Remote Palpation. Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems. TAROS 2023: Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 14136, pp. 457-469. Springer, Cham. [September 2023].

Potdar, P., Hardam, D., Almanzor, E., & Iida, F. (2024) High-Speed Tactile Braille Reading via Biomimetic Sliding Interactions, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 9(3). [January 2024].

Almanzor, E., Sugiyama, T., Abdulali, A., Hayashibe, M., & Iida, F. (2024) Utilising redundancy in musculoskeletal systems for adaptive stiffness and muscle failure compensation: a model-free inverse statics approach, Bioinspiration & BIomimetics, 19(4). [June 2024].

Sugiyama, T., Kutsuzawa, K., Owaki, D., Almanzor, E., Iida, F., & Hayashibe, M. (2025) Versatile graceful degradation framework for bio-inspired proprioception with redundant soft sensors, Frontiers in Robotics and AI: Bio-Inspired Robotics, vol. 11. [January 2025].

Almanzor, E., Ishida, M., Abdulali, A., & Iida, F. (2025) Self-organising bio-inspired reflex circuits for robust motor coordination in artificial musculoskeletal systems, Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, vol. 20, no. 4. [June 2025].

Presentations

“Visual perception for harvesting grapes” (oral) – AgriFoRwArdS CDT Summer School 2021 [June 2021] – Online.

“Visual perception for harvesting grapes” (oral) – AgriFoRwArdS CDT Annual Conference 2021 [July 2021] – Online.

“Automation and Robotization of the Planting of the ‘Jersey Royal’ Potatoes” (oral) – AgriFoRwArdS CDT Quarterly PhD Research Progress Meeting [January 2022] – Online.

“Automated Fruit Quality Testing using an Electrical Impedance Tomography-Enabled Soft Robotic Gripper” (oral) – AgriFoRwArdS CDT Annual Conference 2022 [June 2022] – Lincoln, UK.

“Reel-Bot” (oral) – AgriFoRwArdS CDT Summer School 2022 [July 2022] – Norwich, UK.

“Does Baxter Dream of Electric Beans?” (oral) – AgriFoRwArdS CDT Summer School 2023 [March 2023] – Lincoln, UK.

“Automation and Robotization of the Planting of the ‘Jersey Royal’ Potatoes” (oral) – AgriFoRwArdS CDT Quarterly PhD Research Progress Meeting [July 2023] – Norwich, UK.

“Comparative study of hand-tracking and traditional control interfaces for remote palpation” (poster) – Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems (TAROS) 2023 / AgriFoRwArdS CDT Annual Conference 2023 / Joint Robotics CDT Annual Conference 2023 [September 2023] – Cambridge, UK.

“Shape Control of Soft Continuum Robots Using Drawn Images” (poster) – Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems (TAROS) 2023 / AgriFoRwArdS CDT Annual Conference 2023 / Joint Robotics CDT Annual Conference 2023 [September 2023] – Cambridge, UK.

“Rapid Development and Performance Evaluation of a Potato Planting Robot” (poster) – Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems (TAROS) 2023 / AgriFoRwArdS CDT Annual Conference 2023 / Joint Robotics CDT Annual Conference 2023 [September 2023] – Cambridge, UK.

“Static Shape Control of Soft Continuum Robots using Deep Visual Inverse Kinematics Models” – International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) [October 2023] – Detroit, USA.

“Inverse Dynamics Control of Musculoskeletal Structures using Hebbian Based Sensory-Motor Coordination” (oral) – International Conference on Embodied Intelligence 2024 [March 2024] – Online.

“Sensory-Motor Coordination using Hebbian-Based Reflexes for Motor Control” (oral) – AgriFoRwArdS CDT Quarterly PhD Research Progress Meeting [June 2024] – Cambridge, UK.

“Interactive Perception: A heuristic approach to overcoming physical occlusions in tomato picking” (oral) – AgriFoRwArdS CDT Summer School: Robotic Phenotyping [July 2024] – Wageningen, The Netherlands.

“Reflex-based Sensory Motor Coordination in Musculoskeletal Systems” (poster) – AgriFoRwArdS CDT Summer School: Robotic Phenotyping [July 2024] – Wageningen, The Netherlands.

“PhD collaborations and how they help secure future funding” (oral) – University of Cambridge AgriFoRwArdS PhD Tutorial and Industry Event [May 2025] – Cambridge, UK.

Other Activities

• Created a spin out company focused on robotics-as-a-service to solve real-world agri/food problems.
• Represented the AgriFoRwArdS CDT at the University of Cambridge Engineering Department Community Open Day as part of the Cambridge Science Festival – including robotics demonstrations [March 2022].
• Entered the Soft Robot Locomotion competition at Robosoft 2022 [April 2022].
• UK RAS RoboLab Live demonstration (University of Cambridge submission) for the UKRAS festival of robotics 2022 – Demonstration of robotics systems [July 2022].
• Winner of the ‘Most Novel and Scalable Solution’ award at the AgriFoRwArdS CDT Summer School 2023 [March 2023].
• Represented the AgriFoRwArdS CDT at the ‘Preparation and dish Up of an English Breakfast with Robots (PUB.R)‘ Competition at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2023 [May 2023].
• Third place winner of the ‘Preparation and dish Up of an English Breakfast with Robots (PUB.R)’ Competition at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2023 [May 2023].
• Featured in and contributed to University of Cambridge Engineering Department news article ‘AgriFoRwArdS Cohort 2 – meet the next generation of experts in agri-food robotics‘ [June 2023].
• Author of AgriFoRwArdS CDT news article ‘Elijah Almanzor presents his research at IROS’23 in Detroit, USA‘ [January 2024].
• Discussion Panel member at the International Online Conference on Embodied Intelligence 2024 – Discussion topic: Human-Centred Systems [March 2024].
• Discussion Panel member at the AgriFoRwArdS CDT Quarterly PhD Progress Meeting & new student welcome – Discussion topic: The PhD Experience at Cambridge [October 2024].
• Discussion Panel member at the AgriFoRwArdS CDT Annual Conference 2025 – Discussion topic: Transferring Research Into Real Life Applications [May 2025].

About me

I have always been interested in robotics and completed a Mechanical Engineering degree. I am currently very interested in designing more intelligent soft robots for soft/delicate harvest picking.

MSc Project

Deep Reinforcement Learning for Control of Robotic Manipulators for Grasping Strawberries in Simulation

The agricultural sector is under pressure from the exponential growth of human population, climate change and aging labour work-forces. Robotics and Autonomous Systems are therefore being researched as a possible solution to ensuring a sustainable global-food chain for the future. Intelligent robotic manipulators could be used to assist workers in operations such as harvesting, precision weeding and food handling in warehouses. This project will therefore look at the use of the Twin-Delayed Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (TD3) Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) algorithm as an end-to-end control mechanism for the self-robotic learning of a policy capable of manipulating and handling randomised strawberry clusters, as harvesting strawberries require dexterous movements subject to unstructured configurations and chaotic dynamics.

Various research have already implemented DRL with robotic manipulators, however there are sparse works on the applications of DRL in the domain of agriculture. TD3 requires no predefined labelled training dataset as the low-level joint space control policy is learnt via agent interactions with the environment through hand-crafted reward functions. The project aims to learn the policy in simulation followed by transference to a real environment with additional research on reducing the reality-simulation gap.

PhD Project

Automation and Robotization of the Planting of the ‘Jersey Royal’ Potatoes

The agricultural industry in Jersey faces a considerable technological challenge in the planting of their main product, Jersey Royal new potatoes, due to the lack of available manual labour from Brexit, increase in wages as well as the Covid19 pandemic.

Research into robotic technologies for low-cost rapid handling of the seed potatoes from storage to soil is explored in the project. Low-cost robotic arms with suitable grasping end-effectors and machine intelligence will be developed and tested with reasonable speed, accuracy, and reliability. Exploration of minimalistic solutions for locomotion such that the planting robot can be mobilised will also be undertaken.

Elijah’s PhD project is being carried out in collaboration with Jersey Farmers’ Union, under the primary supervision of Dr Fumiya Iida.