About Me
I am Wadhah Zai El Amri, a PhD researcher at the L3S Research Center, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany. My work lies at the intersection of robotic perception, tactile sensing, and machine learning, with a particular focus on enabling robots to perceive and understand physical contact with the world.
I received my M.Sc. in Intelligent Systems from Bielefeld University, Germany, in 2022, and my B.Eng. in Computer Engineering from Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences, Germany, in 2020.
Research Interests: Tactile sensing for robotics, transfer learning across sensor modalities, vibro-acoustic perception, deep reinforcement learning, and sim-to-real transfer.
Feel free to reach out if you are interested in collaborating or discussing any of these topics.
News
- Jul 2026 — Paper published in Springer Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems (Q1): Do Robots Really Need Anthropomorphic Hands? A Comparison of Human and Robotic Hands
- Jun 2026 — Two Extended Abstracts accepted to the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) Workshop: AI-Based Humanoid Robot Design and Control Through the Lens of HRI, Evolution, and Biomechanics
- Apr 2026 — Paper published in Elsevier Robotics and Autonomous Systems (Q1): SPLIT: Separating Physical-Contact via Latent Arithmetic in Image-Based Tactile Sensors
- Jan 2026 — Preprint submitted: Vibro-Sense: Robust Vibration-based Impulse Response Localization and Trajectory Tracking for Robotic Hands
- May 2025 — Paper accepted to ICRA 2025 (A*): ACROSS: A Deformation-Based Cross-Modal Representation for Robotic Tactile Perception
Publications
Do Robots Really Need Anthropomorphic Hands? A Comparison of Human and Robotic Hands
Alexander Fabisch, Wadhah Zai El Amri, Chandandeep Singh, Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero (2026). "Do Robots Really Need Anthropomorphic Hands? A Comparison of Human and Robotic Hands." Springer Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, 112, 73.
SPLIT: Separating Physical-Contact via Latent Arithmetic in Image-Based Tactile Sensors
Wadhah Zai El Amri, Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero (2026). "SPLIT: Separating Physical-Contact via Latent Arithmetic in Image-Based Tactile Sensors." Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Volume 203, 2026, ISSN 0921-8890, 10.1016/j.robot.2026.105498.
Vibro-Sense: Robust Vibration-based Impulse Response Localization and Trajectory Tracking for Robotic Hands
Wadhah Zai El Amri, Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero (2026). "Vibro-Sense: Robust Vibration-based Impulse Response Localization and Trajectory Tracking for Robotic Hands." Submitted to Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 2026.
ACROSS: A Deformation-Based Cross-Modal Representation for Robotic Tactile Perception
Wadhah Zai El Amri, Malte Kuhlmann, Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero (2025). "ACROSS: A Deformation-Based Cross-Modal Representation for Robotic Tactile Perception." IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Atlanta, USA, 2025.
Projects
Claude Status for VS Code
Every Claude Code chat on my computer and my SSH hosts in one VS Code view: who needs me, who's...
Claude Status Widget
A KDE Plasma and GNOME panel widget that shows which of my Claude Code chats are working, which need me...
ROS 2 Dual Arm Teleoperation
Markerless real-time teleoperation of dual UR5e robotic arms using a standard webcam and MediaPipe hand tracking. Built for fun with...
