Dan Koditschek
Alfred Fitler Moore Professor, ESE
Research in Dan’s group is focused on the application of dynamical systems theory to the design, construction and empirical testing of machines that juggle, run, climb, and in general, interact physically with their environment to perform useful work. Dan and his group seek to probe the foundations of autonomous robotics by reasoning formally about mathematical models that represent the successes and limitations of their physical platforms. They maintain close collaborations with biologists, whose insights about animal mobility and dexterity inspire their thinking and designs.
Research Areas
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Research Groups
Publications
Anchoring Sagittal Plane Templates in a Spatial Quadruped
Publisher ICRA
Kinegami: Algorithmic Design of Compliant Kinematic Chains From Tubular Origami
Publisher IEEE Transactions on Robotics
Reactive Planning for Mobile Manipulation Tasks in Unexplored Semantic Environments
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Publisher Robotica
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Publisher Frontiers in Neurorobotics
Extended Version of Simple Sagittal Running: Stability of a Quadrupedal Bound
Publisher UPenn Technical Reports (ESE)
Mechanical and virtual compliance for robot locomotion in a compliant world
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Mitigating energy loss in a robot hopping on a physically emulated dissipative substrate
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Rapid In Situ Characterization of Soil Erodibility With a Field Deployable Robot
Publisher Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface
Sensor-based reactive navigation in unknown convex sphere worlds
Publisher International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR)
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Task-Based Control and Design of a BLDC Actuator for Robotics
Publisher IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L)
Publisher International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR)
Actuator Transparency and the Energetic Cost of Proprioception
Publisher International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER)
Analytically-Guided Design of a Tailed Bipedal Hopping Robot
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
Publisher Journal of Field Robotics
Integration of Local Geometry and Metric Information in Sampling-Based Motion Planning
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Navigation Functions for Convex Potentials in a Space With Convex Obstacles
Publisher IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO)
Sensor-based legged robot homing using range-only target localization
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO)
Sensor-Based Reactive Execution of Symbolic Rearrangement Plans by a Legged Mobile Manipulator
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
Sensor-Based Reactive Symbolic Planning in Partially Known Environments
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Publisher International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR)
Voronoi-Based Coverage Control of Pan/Tilt/Zoom Camera Networks
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
A dynamical system for prioritizing and coordinating motivations
Publisher SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems (SIADS)
Discriminative measures for comparison of phylogenetic trees
Publisher Discrete Applied Mathematics
Empirical validation of a spined sagittal-plane quadrupedal model
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Ground robotic measurement of aeolian processes
Publisher Aeolian Research
Longitudinal quasi-static stability predicts changes in dog gait on rough terrain
Publisher Journal of Experimental Biology
Morphology and the gradient of a symmetric potential predict gait transitions of dogs
Publisher Biological Cybernetics
Quasi-static and dynamic mismatch for door opening and stair climbing with a legged robot
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Sensory steering for sampling-based motion planning
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
Smooth extensions of feedback motion planners via reference governors
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Spatial Sampling Strategies with Multiple Scientific Frames of Reference
Publisher UPenn Departmental Papers (ESE)
Why We Need More Degrees of Freedom
Publisher Procedia IUTAM
A hybrid systems model for simple manipulation and self-manipulation systems
Publisher International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR)
Comparative Design, Scaling, and Control of Appendages for Inertial Reorientation
Publisher IEEE Transactions on Robotics
Coordinated Robot Navigation via Hierarchical Clustering
Publisher IEEE Transactions on Robotics
Design Principles for a Family of Direct-Drive Legged Robots
Publisher IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L)
Event-selected vector field discontinuities yield piecewise-differentiable flows
Publisher SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems (SIADS)
Exact robot navigation using power diagrams
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Frontal plane stabilization and hopping with a 2dof tail
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
Mobile robots as remote sensors for spatial point process models
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
On the Optimality of Napoleon Triangles
Publisher Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Towards a comparative measure of legged agility
Publisher Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics
Towards bipedal behavior on a quadrupedal platform using optimal control
Publisher International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE)
Voronoi-based coverage control of heterogeneous disk-shaped robots
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
A drift-diffusion model for robotic obstacle avoidance
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
An empirical investigation of legged transitional maneuvers leveraging Raibert’s Scissor algorithm
Publisher 2015 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, IEEE-ROBIO 2015
Leg design for energy management in an electromechanical robot
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
Navigation of distinct euclidean particles via hierarchical clustering
Publisher Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics
Parallel composition of templates for tail-energized planar hopping
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Semi-autonomous exploration of multi-floor buildings with a legged robot
Publisher International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE)
Tail-assisted rigid and compliant legged leaping
Publisher IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
Universal Memory Architectures for Autonomous Machines
Publisher arXiv
News
GRASP News
Student News
May 15, 2024
Faculty News
Koditschek Doctoral Fellowship Honors Family’s Resilience, Love of Education
December 19, 2023
GRASP News
New GRASP Project Aims to Leverage ‘Embodied Intelligence’ via a Robotic Squirrel
August 1, 2018
GRASP News
“Penn Engineering Offers an Online MicroMasters in Robotics” in Penn Engineering
February 28, 2017
GRASP News
Why 10 District teachers spent their summer doing grad-level STEM research
August 24, 2016
GRASP News
GRASP Lab Awarded NSF Grant to Provide Research Experience for Middle School Teachers
August 26, 2015
GRASP News
July 14, 2015
GRASP News
October 31, 2014
GRASP News
Penn Engineering’s GRASP Lab, Wharton’s Mack Institute Take Y-Prize Global in Penn News
October 2, 2013
GRASP News
“This Robot’s Acrobatic Leaps Are the Coolest Thing You’ll See Today” in IEEE Spectrum
May 10, 2013
GRASP News
May 12, 2009
Faculty News
April 7, 2009
Ph.D. Students
Research Staff
Alumni
PhD, ESE '16, PostDoc, ESE '17 - Assistant Professor, Eindhoven University of Technology
PhD, ESE '17, PostDoc, ESE '19 - Head of Electronics and Firmware, Ghost Robotics
Kinegami: Algorithmic Design of Compliant Kinematic Chains From Tubular Origami
Research Areas
- Hybrid Control Systems
- Legged Locomotion
- Nonlinear Control Systems
- Autonomy