J. C. Alexander

Papers

Total Citations

357

H-Index

About

J. C. Alexander is a researcher whose work has made significant contributions to the field of mobile robotics, with a particular focus on the kinematics and motion planning of wheeled mobile robots. His foundational 1989 paper, "On the Kinematics of Wheeled Mobile Robots," established a rigorous mathematical framework for modeling wheeled robots as planar rigid bodies, deriving the critical relationships between robot motion and wheel steering and drive rates. This work, which garnered an impressive 228 citations, laid essential groundwork for understanding rolling constraints and non-holonomic systems that continues to influence robotics research today. A subsequent version of this work published in 1990 accumulated an additional 112 citations, underscoring the lasting importance of his kinematic formulations. Alexander further extended his contributions through his 1998 study on shortest distance paths for wheeled mobile robots, applying optimal control methods to analytically and numerically compute minimal-distance trajectories — work directly relevant to obstacle avoidance and autonomous navigation. Collectively, his research has provided roboticists and engineers with rigorous mathematical tools that remain central to the design and control of wheeled autonomous systems.