Andrea Del Prete

About

Andrea Del Prete is a leading robotics researcher whose work sits at the intersection of motion planning, optimization-based control, and legged locomotion. He has made foundational contributions to whole-body control of humanoid and quadruped robots, pioneering methods that allow complex robotic systems to move dynamically and safely in challenging real-world environments. His most celebrated work introduced model predictive control for whole-body motion generation on the HRP-2 humanoid (228 citations), addressing longstanding computational and stability challenges that had long hindered practical deployment. Complementing this, his research on torque control without joint-torque sensors (73 citations) demonstrated that sophisticated force regulation is achievable even on hardware with significant limitations. His acyclic contact planner (144 citations) tackled multi-limb locomotion over highly unstructured terrain, while his robustness analysis of task-space inverse dynamics (63 citations) strengthened the reliability of these techniques under real-world uncertainty. Del Prete has also contributed to landmark hardware development, co-introducing the TALOS humanoid platform (150 citations) designed for industrial applications. His 2023 survey on optimization-based control for dynamic legged robots (160 citations) has rapidly become an essential reference in the field. With over 1,300 citations across his top works alone, his research continues to shape the trajectory of modern robotics.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Whole-body model-predictive control applied to the HRP-2 humanoid

   228 citations · 2015
2. 2
   High-slope terrain locomotion for torque-controlled quadruped robots

   204 citations · 2016
3. 3
   Optimization-Based Control for Dynamic Legged Robots

   160 citations · 2023
4. 4
   TALOS: A new humanoid research platform targeted for industrial applications

   150 citations · 2017
5. 5
   An Efficient Acyclic Contact Planner for Multiped Robots

   144 citations · 2018
6. 6
   iCub Whole-Body Control through Force Regulation on Rigid Non-Coplanar Contacts

   105 citations · 2015
7. 7
   Meeting sustainable development goals via robotics and autonomous systems

   86 citations · 2022
8. 8
   Implementing Torque Control with High-Ratio Gear Boxes and Without Joint-Torque Sensors

   73 citations · 2015
9. 9
   Joint Position and Velocity Bounds in Discrete-Time Acceleration/Torque Control of Robot Manipulators

   68 citations · 2017
10. 10
    Robustness to joint-torque-tracking errors in task-space inverse dynamics

    63 citations · 2016

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links