Implementing Circularity with Plants and Computers
Circular Intelligence and Robotics are the emerging scientific fields developed on this page. They emerge from the need of modern society to tackle three problems of global scale: the dependence on critical raw materials (explained here), climate change (explained here), and pollution (explained here).
Circular Intelligence and Robotics result from a coherent intersection of the following 6 research topics:

RELEVANT MONOGRAPHS
- Zocco, F. Circular intelligence and robotics: Dynamical and learning systems for a circular economy. In preparation.
RELEVANT PAPERS
- Zocco, F., Haddad, W.M., Corti, A. and Malvezzi, M., 2024. A unification between deep-learning vision, compartmental dynamical thermodynamics, and robotic manipulation for a circular economy. IEEE Access, early access article. [Link]
- Zocco, F., Sopasakis, P., Smyth, B. and Haddad, W.M., 2023. Thermodynamical material networks for modeling, planning, and control of circular material flows. International Journal of Sustainable Engineering, 16(1), pp. 1-14. [Link]
- Zocco, F., Garcia, J. and Haddad, W.M., 2025. Circular microalgae-based carbon control for net zero. Submitted. arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.02382. [Link]
- Zocco, F., Lake, D.R., McLoone, S. and Rahimifard, S., 2025. Synchronized object detection for autonomous sorting, mapping, and quantification of materials in circular healthcare. Submitted. arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.06821. [Link]
- Zocco, F. and Malvezzi, M., 2024. Circular economy design through system dynamics modeling. Submitted. arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.13540. [Link]
- Zocco, F. and Rahimifard, S., 2023. Visual material characteristics learning for circular healthcare. Submitted. arXiv preprint arXiv:2309.04763. [Link]
- Zocco, F., Sleath, D. and Rahimifard, S., 2024. Towards a thermodynamical deep-learning-vision-based flexible robotic cell for circular healthcare. Submitted. arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.05551. [Link]
- Zocco, F., 2024. Circularity of thermodynamical material networks: Indicators, examples, and algorithms. Submitted. arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.15051. [Link]
- Zocco, F., Lin, T.C., Huang, C.I., Wang, H.C., Khyam, M.O. and Van, M., 2023. Towards more efficient EfficientDets and real-time marine debris detection. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 8(4), pp. 2134-2141. [Link]
- Zocco, F., McLoone, S. and Smyth, B., 2022. Material measurement units for a circular economy: Foundations through a review. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 32, pp. 833-850. [Link]