Tadashi Odashima

About

Tadashi Odashima is a robotics researcher whose work has significantly advanced the field of human-interactive and assistive robotics. He is best known for his foundational contributions to the development of RI-MAN, a soft human-interactive robot designed for nursing care and welfare applications. His landmark 2008 paper on RI-MAN's tactile sensor system, which has accumulated over 250 citations, demonstrated how large-area soft tactile sensors could enable robots to safely and dexterously interact with humans in domestic and hospital environments. Alongside this, his earlier work established the broader RI-MAN platform, addressing challenges in audio-visual person detection, human care behavior generation, and safe physical interaction. Beyond assistive robotics, Odashima has made notable contributions to robot control theory, including model-independent nonlinear motion control using extended state observers, and to cooperative multi-robot manipulation of complex objects. His more recent research explores reinforcement learning for multi-robot task allocation, reflecting a continued interest in adaptive, intelligent robotic systems. He has also contributed to mobile robot localization reliability and immersive 3D simulation environments for robot development. Across these diverse threads, his work consistently centers on making robots safer, smarter, and more capable of operating meaningfully alongside humans.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Development of the Tactile Sensor System of a Human-Interactive Robot “RI-MAN”

   252 citations · 2008
2. 2
   Generation of Human Care Behaviors by Human-Interactive Robot RI-MAN

   70 citations · 2007
3. 3
   Extended state observer based technique for control of robot systems

   37 citations · 2003
4. 4
   A Soft Human-Interactive Robot RI-MAN

   37 citations · 2006
5. 5
   Development and Evaluation of a Human-interactive Robot Platform "RI-MAN"

   36 citations · 2007
6. 6
   Learning Locally, Communicating Globally: Reinforcement Learning of Multi-robot Task Allocation for Cooperative Transport

   15 citations · 2023
7. 7
   Detection of localization failure using logistic regression

   12 citations · 2015
8. 8
   Emergent cooperative manipulation of a multi-linked object

   12 citations · 2003
9. 9
   Hierarchical control structure of a multilegged robot for environmental adaptive locomotion

   11 citations · 2002
10. 10
    An immersion-type 3D dynamic simulation environment for developing human interactive robot systems

    9 citations · 2006

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links