Carlos Canudas de Wit
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut polytechnique de Grenoble, Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse, Laboratoire des Matériaux et du Génie Physique, Groupe de REcherche en Cardio Oncologie, Grenoble Images Parole Signal Automatique, Centre Inria de l'Université Grenoble Alpes, Laboratoire d'Informatique et d'Automatique pour les Systèmes
Papers
55
Total Citations
3,943
H-Index
25
About
Carlos Canudas de Wit is a distinguished control systems researcher whose work has profoundly shaped the fields of robotics and nonlinear control theory. Best known for co-authoring the landmark textbook *Theory of Robot Control* (1996), which has garnered over 1,000 citations and become a foundational reference in the discipline, his contributions span robot manipulator control, mobile robotics, and friction modeling. One of his most celebrated achievements is the development of exponentially stable controllers for nonholonomic mobile robots — a notoriously challenging class of systems that resist stabilization through conventional smooth feedback. His 1992 paper on this topic has accumulated nearly 600 citations, reflecting its lasting influence. Complementing this, his research on nonlinear control design for mobile robots and path-following strategies helped establish rigorous frameworks still widely used today. Canudas de Wit also made critical advances in friction compensation, introducing parameter-linear models that address instability phenomena at low velocities — work that proved highly influential in precision robotics. His development of sliding observers for state estimation without direct velocity measurement further expanded the practical toolkit available to control engineers. Across more than a decade of prolific research, his cumulative citation record underscores a career of exceptional breadth and enduring scientific impact.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1Theory of Robot Control1,003 citations · 1996
- 2Exponential stabilization of mobile robots with nonholonomic constraints589 citations · 1992
- 3Adaptive Friction Compensation in Robot Manipulators: Low Velocities263 citations · 1991
- 4NONLINEAR CONTROL DESIGN FOR MOBILE ROBOTS244 citations · 1994
- 5Sliding observers for robot manipulators229 citations · 1991
- 6Trajectory tracking in robot manipulators via nonlinear estimated state feedback129 citations · 1992
- 7Adaptive control of robot manipulators via velocity estimated feedback114 citations · 1992
- 8Robot control via robust estimated state feedback103 citations · 1991
- 9Exponential control law for a mobile robot: extension to path following90 citations · 1993
- 10Adaptive friction compensation in robot manipulators: low-velocities83 citations · 2003