Dr. Robert Griffin

Institute for Human and Machine Cognition

Dr. Robert Griffin

Institute for Human and Machine Cognition

Co-authors

Following

Followers

Research Focus & Metrics

Explore full metrics on Scilit

Academic Career Length

10Years (2017-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

View All Publications

15 November 2017 in IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine

Journal Article

Stepping Forward with Exoskeletons: Team IHMC?s Design and Approach in the 2016 Cybathlon

Robert Griffin

Tyson Cobb

Travis Craig

Mark Daniel

Nick van Dijk

Peter Neuhaus

Exoskeletons are a promising technology that enables individuals with mobility limitations to walk again. As the 2016 Cybathlon illustrated, however, the community has a considerable way to go before exoskeletons have the necessary capabilities to be incorporated into daily life. While most exoskeletons power only hip and knee flexion, Team Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) presents a new exoskeleton, Mina v2, which includes a powered ankle dorsi/plantar flexion (Figure 1). As our entry to the 2016 Cybathlon Powered Exoskeleton Competition, Mina v2's performance allowed us to explore the effectiveness of its powered ankle compared to other powered exoskeletons for pilots with paraplegia. We designed our gaits to incorporate powered ankle plantar flexion to help improve mobility, which allowed our pilot to navigate the given Cybathlon tasks quickly, including those that required ascending movements, and reliably achieve average, conservative walking speeds of 1.04 km/h (0.29 m/s). This enabled our team to place second overall in the Powered Exoskeleton Competition in the 2016 Cybathlon.

4 January 2024 in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters

Journal Article

Mixed Reality Teleoperation Assistance for Direct Control of Humanoids

Teleoperation plays a crucial role in enabling robot operations in challenging environments, yet existing limitations in effectiveness and accuracy necessitate the development of innovative strategies for improving teleoperated tasks. This letter introduces a novel approach that utilizes mixed reality and assistive autonomy to enhance the efficiency and precision of humanoid robot teleoperation. By leveraging Probabilistic Movement Primitives, object detection, and Affordance Templates, the assistance combines user motion with autonomous capabilities, achieving task efficiency while maintaining human-like robot motion. Experiments and feasibility studies on the Nadia robot confirm the effectiveness of the proposed framework.

26 June 2019 in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters

Journal Article

Balancing Using Vertical Center-of-Mass Motion: A 2-D Analysis From Model to Robot

Boris Jacob van Hofslot

Robert Griffin

Sylvain Bertrand

Jerry Pratt

Balancing strategies for humanoid robots often include center of pressure control (‘ankle’ strategies), change of body angular momentum (e.g., ‘hip’ strategies) and taking a step. In this work, we propose using vertical center of mass motion as an additional input for balance control. First, we specify analytic, theoretical capture regions under unilateral contact and height constraints only. Second, we add a vertical acceleration constraint and come to a simple control law for implementation. Third, we implement the control law in our momentum-based whole-body control framework. We test push recovery while standing on NASA's Valkyrie humanoid robot and compare with a constant height controller, and show that recovery can be improved using vertical motion. Furthermore, we discuss the differences that can be observed after application of a simple model on a robot.

27 February 2017 in Journal of Field Robotics

Journal Article

Team VALOR's ESCHER: A Novel Electromechanical Biped for the DARPA Robotics Challenge

Lakshitha Dantanarayana

Tomonari Furukawa

+17

12 March 2025 in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters

Journal Article

Multi-Contact Inertial Parameters Estimation and Localization in Legged Robots

Sergi Martinez

Robert Griffin

Carlos Mastalli

Optimal estimation is a promising tool for estimation of payloads' inertial parameters and localization of robots in the presence of multiple contacts. To harness its advantages in robotics, it is crucial to solve these large and challenging optimization problems efficiently. To tackle this, we (i) develop a multiple shooting solver that exploits both temporal and parametric structures through a parametrized Riccati recursion. Additionally, we (ii) propose an inertial manifold that ensures the full physical consistency of inertial parameters and enhances convergence. To handle its manifold singularities, we (iii) introduce a nullspace approach in our optimal estimation solver. Finally, we (iv) develop the analytical derivatives of contact dynamics for both inertial parametrizations. Our framework can successfully solve estimation problems for complex maneuvers such as brachiation in humanoids, achieving higher accuracy than conventional least squares approaches. We demonstrate its numerical capabilities across various robotics tasks and its benefits in experimental trials with the Go1 robot.

11 October 2025 in Robotics and Autonomous Systems

Journal Article

A behavior architecture for fast humanoid robot door traversals

Arghya Chatterjee

About Me

Robert Griffin is a Research Scientist at IHMC, and focuses on improved mobility and autonomy for legged robotics and powered exoskeletons. While with IHMC, Robert has been involved in a variety of projects as both Principal Investigator and part of the research team. He currently leads the Office of Naval Research’s SquadBot and Fast Behaviors projects, where the goal is to develop a next generation humanoid robot called Nadia, which will have a high power-to-weight ratio and large range of motion, along with develop autonomous and semi-autonomous behaviors to allow Nadia to function in urban environments. He is also a key researcher in the NASA Johnson Space Center’s Val-EOD project, where the goal is to develop humanoid robots, primarily NASA JSC’s Valkyrie, to function as Explosive Ordnance Disposal operators. Robert also currently leads the IHMC exoskeleton team, which includes the entry in the 2020 Cybathlon Powered Exoskeleton Race, which is a competition for paralyzed athletes assisted by technology. This same system is being used as IHMC’s entry in the Mobility Unlimited Challenge being held by the Toyota Mobility Foundation, which aims to develop assistive devices for individuals with mobility limitations.

Dr. Robert Griffin

Dr. Robert Griffin

Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

Publication Type Breakdown

Representative Publications

About Me