Christos Papachristos
Papers
59
Total Citations
2,055
H-Index
25
About
Christos Papachristos is a robotics researcher whose work centers on autonomous aerial systems, exploration path planning, and robot navigation in challenging, GPS-denied environments. He has made significant contributions to the field of autonomous robotic exploration, particularly in subterranean settings such as underground mines, tunnel networks, and cave systems. His pioneering uncertainty-aware receding horizon planning algorithm (183 citations) established a foundational framework for belief space-based exploration with aerial robots, while his graph-based path planning approach (166 citations) extended these capabilities to complex, large-scale subterranean topologies. Papachristos played a central role in the DARPA Subterranean Challenge through the CERBERUS team, developing strategies for coordinated legged and aerial robot exploration that garnered substantial community recognition (109 and 101 citations). His research into thermal-inertial odometry addressed critical navigation challenges in visually degraded conditions such as darkness and smoke-filled environments, reflecting a deep commitment to real-world robotic deployment. Earlier work on thrust-vectoring tri-tiltrotor UAVs demonstrates his breadth across aerial manipulation as well. Collectively, his publications have accumulated nearly 1,000 citations, establishing him as a leading voice in autonomous aerial robotics and multi-robot systems.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1Uncertainty-aware receding horizon exploration and mapping using aerial robots183 citations · 2017
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- 6Keyframe‐based thermal–inertial odometry84 citations · 2019
- 7Autonomous Navigation and Mapping in Underground Mines Using Aerial Robots83 citations · 2019
- 8Keyframe-based Direct Thermal–Inertial Odometry82 citations · 2019
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