Alberto Bemporad

About

Alberto Bemporad is a researcher whose work spans robotics, control systems, and optimization, with particular strengths in autonomous robot navigation, model predictive control (MPC), and hybrid dynamical systems. His contributions to mobile robotics are foundational: his sonar-based wall-following controllers (1998, 2002) established rigorous observer-based frameworks for constrained navigation, while his local planning strategy for car-like robots (2002, 60 citations) remains a widely referenced approach for nonholonomic motion planning in sensor-rich environments. Bemporad has made significant strides in applying MPC to complex real-world systems — from automotive robotized gearboxes reducing fuel consumption and emissions (2003) to legged locomotion, where his nonlinear MPC framework enables real-time dynamic adaptation over uneven terrain (2021, 46 citations). His contributions to hybrid systems modeling, particularly the Mixed Logical-Dynamical framework and HYSDEL language (2003), advanced formal verification of discrete-time hybrid systems. More recently, his research has embraced machine learning-enhanced identification using L-BFGS-B optimization under sparsity constraints, and preference-based robot programming for industrial applications. Bemporad's work, accumulating hundreds of citations across diverse domains, reflects a career dedicated to bridging theoretical control rigor with practical robotic deployment.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Local incremental planning for a car-like robot navigating among obstacles

   60 citations · 2002
2. 2
   Model Predictive Control With Environment Adaptation for Legged Locomotion

   46 citations · 2021
3. 3
   Hybrid Control of an Automotive Robotized Gearbox for Reduction of Consumptions and Emissions

   36 citations · 2003
4. 4
   Sonar-Based Wall-Following Control of Mobile Robots

   34 citations · 1998
5. 5
   Wall-following controllers for sonar-based mobile robots

   32 citations · 2002
6. 6
   Discrete-time hybrid modeling and verification

   32 citations · 2003
7. 7
   Pairwise Preferences-Based Optimization of a Path-Based Velocity Planner in Robotic Sealing Tasks

   23 citations · 2021
8. 8
   An L-BFGS-B Approach for Linear and Nonlinear System Identification Under $\ell _{1}$ and Group-Lasso Regularization

   21 citations · 2025
9. 9
   Predictive path parameterization for constrained robot control

   19 citations · 1999
10. 10
    Scenario-based model predictive control with probabilistic human predictions for human–robot coexistence

    10 citations · 2023

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links