Professor Dr. Pierluigi Beomonte Zobel is a full professor of applied mechanics at the Department of Industrial and Information Engineering and Economics, University of L’Aquila, Italy. He obtained his PhD in machine engineering from the Consortium of the University of L’Aquila and the University of Naples in 1990. His research interests include fluid power, industrial automation and robotics, robotics for rehabilitation and assistive systems, harvesting devices for agriculture, innovative pneumatic actuators, and shape-memory alloy actuators (SMAs).