Andrew Willig

Carnegie Mellon University, California Institute of Technology

Papers

Total Citations

148

H-Index

About

Andrew Willig is a roboticist whose work sits at the intersection of bio-inspired design and practical space exploration. His primary research areas include series elastic actuation, modular robotics, and extreme-terrain mobility. Willig is best known for his seminal paper on the design and architecture of the SEA Snake robot (112 citations), which introduced a groundbreaking series elastic actuated snake robot capable of torque, velocity, and position control—a platform that has influenced subsequent work in compliant, modular robotics. He also made notable contributions to NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission, developing a microspine tool for grabbing and anchoring to boulders (25 citations), demonstrating how bio-inspired gripping can enable asteroid manipulation. Further, Willig advanced actuator calibration with his work on online calibration of compact series elastic actuators (11 citations), providing a practical method for improving torque estimation in modular systems. His work bridges fundamental robotics research with high-stakes space applications, making him a key figure in the development of robots that can navigate unstructured environments—from terrestrial rubble to extraterrestrial surfaces.