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
- 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
Recent Publications
Recent Projects
Talpy Den
A KDE Plasma widget, a GNOME Shell extension and a VS Code extension that show which of my Claude Code chats are working, which need me and how much of my plan is left, across accounts and SSH hosts. With Talpy, a pet that acts out each chat.
- KDE Plasma
- GNOME Shell
- VS Code
- Python
Talpy Den Display
A 4.3” touch screen on my desk that shows which of my Claude Code chats are working, which need me and how much of my plan is left, with the time and the weather. My PC sends it everything over USB from Talpy Den, so it needs no Wi-Fi.
- ESP32-S3
- LVGL
- C/C++
- Python
BioBots
An autonomous robot that maintains and monitors roadside green strips, so they can serve as connected habitats.
Vibro-Sense
A low-cost tactile sensor for robotic hands that detects and locates touch from vibrations.