Jan Swevers
Papers
84
Total Citations
3,754
H-Index
24
About
Jan Swevers is a prominent researcher whose work sits at the intersection of robotics, control systems, and optimization. His most influential contributions span three interconnected domains: friction modeling, robot system identification, and optimal motion planning. Swevers made a landmark contribution to friction modeling with his 2000 paper introducing an integrated friction model structure with improved presliding behavior, which has accumulated over 660 citations and remains a foundational reference for precision motion control. In parallel, his work on robot identification — particularly the use of optimized periodic excitation trajectories and maximum likelihood estimation — has fundamentally shaped how industrial robots are dynamically characterized, with his 1997 paper attracting over 630 citations. Perhaps his most transformative contribution lies in optimal path tracking for robots. His 2009 paper reformulating time-optimal path tracking as a convex optimization problem — with over 530 citations — opened new possibilities for computationally tractable, real-world robot motion planning, with subsequent work extending this framework to handle more complex constraints via sequential convex programming. Across his career, Swevers has consistently bridged theoretical rigor and experimental validation, making his research especially valuable to both academic researchers and practicing engineers working with industrial robotic systems.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1
- 2Optimal robot excitation and identification631 citations · 1997
- 3Time-Optimal Path Tracking for Robots: A Convex Optimization Approach538 citations · 2009
- 4Dynamic Model Identification for Industrial Robots393 citations · 2007
- 5Extended Bandwidth Zero Phase Error Tracking Control of Nonminimal Phase Systems123 citations · 1992
- 6EXPERIMENTAL ROBOT IDENTIFICATION USING OPTIMISED PERIODIC TRAJECTORIES116 citations · 1996
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