Armando Vannucci

Dipartimento di Ingegneria e Architettura

Universita` degli Studi di Parma

I-43100 Parma - Italy

phone: +39 - 0521 - 905743

fax: +39 - 0521 - 90 5758

Armando Vannucci was born in Frosinone (Italy) in november 1968. He received the Dr.Ing. degree in Electronic Engineering "cum laude" from the University of Rome "La Sapienza" in 1993, discussing a thesis about digital analysis of speech signals with applications to speech recognition, under the skillful guidance of Prof. M.G. Di Benedetto. He was later with the INFO-COM Dept, at the University of Rome, for one year, taking part in the FP3-ESPRIT 3 “SPELL-II” project.

Since 1995 he was a Ph.D. Student at the Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Informazione, University of Parma (supervisor: Prof. G. Prati). He received his Ph.D. in Information Technology from the University of Parma, discussing a thesis on digital communications over nonlinear radio channels at the Politecnico di Torino, in june 1998. During his Ph.D. he joined a research project on digital radio links sponsored by Italtel SpA / Siemens-Italia, for which he now holds two patents. At the University of Parma, he's been first a technical researcher (1998-1999), then a post-Doc researcher (2000-2002), finally becoming an Assistant Professor of Telecommunications at the (former) Faculty of Engineering, since september 2002.

In september 1999 he has been a professor of "Signal Processing" for the doctoral school "International Summer School on Experimental Physics of Gravitational Waves", at the University of Urbino. Throughout the years, Armando Vannucci has carried out an intense teaching activity at the University of Parma (6-10 ECTS per year), both in bachelor and in master's degree courses in engineering (the latter often taught in english): "Signals and Systems" (2002-2010); "Audio and Video Signal Processing" (2004-2010); "Polarized fiber optic transmission" (2012-2018); then again "Signals and Systems" (2018-to date). Besides these, he taught courses for the "Doctoral School in Engineering and Architecture", at UniPR, and has been the department reference person for foreign language courses for twelve years (2012-2024). Within the official annual surveys among the Students' opinion on teaching, his courses have often achieved a remarkably higher rank, compared to the faculty/department average (90% or higher score vs. 75% average). He is the author of various editions for the textbooks of his courses, ranging from the 2003 book "Segnali Analogici e Sistemi Lineari" (Pitagora Ed., Bologna) to the recent "Esercizi d'Esame di Segnali e Sistemi" (Ed. Uni.Nova, Parma, 2025).

Among the Academic institutions, Armando Vannucci has been an elected member of the Board of Governors (2009-2012) and an elected member of the Academic Senate (2012-2016), at the University of Parma, later appointed as a Delegate of the Rector (2014-2017) and of the Director of Department (2017-2019). Moreover, he has been an elected or appointed member in the Executive Commitee of his Department (2005-2010, 2017-2019) and in various other academic bodies (university/department commissions, disciplinary board, etc.).

An eclectic and versatile flavour characterizes his research activity. First, digital processing of speech (human voice) signals, in his graduation period. During and shortly after the Ph.D., he focused on nonlinear Digital Transmission, with innovative breakthroughs, industrial relations and patents. With the new millenium, the scientific activity moved towards Optical Communications, developing different research topics, all related to optical transmission on fiber optics channels: nonlinear WDM propagation; polarization mode dispersion (PMD), including its statistical characterization; PMD modelling and compensation; optical amplifiers and semiconductor optical amplifiers; multicanonical techniques. After a decade, research focused on a fundamental aspect of optical transmission, called nonlinear polarization attraction: a difficult (hence little investigated) phenomenon with great application potentials. Since 2017, his research moved back to digital transmission systems, within the modern framework of A.I.-inspired techniques (e.g., variational inference), applied to digital receivers design.

Research activity was carried out within different research projects (incl. private firms, PRIN, EU projects, etc.), with the role of coordinator/PI for some of them. He has been a visiting scientist at the Alcatel Labs in Marcoussis, France (2002), and at the Université Laval in Quèbec City, Canada (2007). He has been also a visiting lecturer at the Hochschule Karlsruhe, Germany (2010), and at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (CNAM) in Paris, France (2023). Armando Vannucci is the author of about seventy scientific publications, 40% of which are full papers on international journals, including conference proceedings, book chapters, books and industrial patents.

Armando Vannucci has been a member of scientifica societies (IEEE, OSA, etc.), since 1995, and a reviewer for a large number of international journals (IEEE PTL, T-COM, JLT, etc.; Elsevier OFT; OSA Opt.Lett., JOSA-B, etc.). He served as a referee for national (VQR) and international (FRS-FNRS) evaluation panels and he also took part in the Orginizing Committee of international events. He has also been the TPC member of several international conferences. Armando Vannucci is a SCUBA diving instructor (NAUI n.50095), is entitled to command motor and sailing boats and has been the 2009 Italian Marathon champion, for the category University-Faculty members.

Current and Past Research Activity
Variational Inference, Artificial Intellingence, Message-passing algorithms and methods for the design of digital receivers in wireless and satellite communication systems.

Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD): Modelling; Performance Evaluation; Compensation; Simulation
Kerr effects and Polarization ; Lossless Polarization Attraction; Nonlinear PMD
Nonlinear Propagation: Nonlinear Fiber Models; Nonlinear SOA Models; Nonlinear WDM Systems
Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers: Modelling;Nonlinear Effects; Noise-Cleaning of Broadband Sources
Design of optimal and suboptimal receivers for Nonlinear radio tranmission channels
Modelling of Nonlinear satellite (transponder) tranmission channels
Digital processing of Speech (human voice) signals
Acoustic and digital analysis of (multilingual) Speech (human voice) signals

Some of Armando Vannucci’s published papers (in pdf format) can be accessed here.

Past and Current Teaching Activity
1992 – Teacher of "Mathematics and Physics" at high school, Liceo Scientifico F. Severi in Frosinone.
1994 – Tutor of "Electrical Communications" (undergraduate courses ) at the University of Rome La Sapienza.
1997-1999 – Tutor of "Teoria dei Segnali" (undergraduate courses) at the University of Parma.
1997-1999 – Contract Professor of "Probability Theory and Signal Theory" at the University of Parma.
1999 – Professor of "Signal Processing" for the International Summer School on Experimental Physics of Gravitational Waves at the University of Urbino.
2002-2010 – Professor of "Teoria dei Segnali", for the Graduation courses in Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications Engineering, at the University of Parma.
2004-2010 – Professor of "Audio and Video Signal Processing", for the Master courses in Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications Engineering, at the University of Parma.
2012-2018 – Professor of "Polarized Fiber Optic Transmission", for the Advanced Degree in Communication Engineering, at the University of Parma.
2018-2021 – Professor of "Teoria dei Segnali (9 CFU)", for the Graduation Courses in Information Engineering, at the University of Parma.

2012-2024 – in charge of the language courses, as a Coordinator for all the Degrees in the area of Information Engineering, at the University of Parma.
2022-present – Professor of "Signals and Systems (6 CFU)", for the Graduation Courses in Information Engineering, at the University of Parma.

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