Papers
21
Total Citations
1,709
H-Index
16
About
Matthew J. Powell is a robotics researcher whose work spans legged locomotion, dynamic motion control, and the design of both bipedal and quadrupedal robotic systems. He has made significant contributions to some of the most high-profile platforms in modern robotics, most notably the MIT Cheetah 3 — a robust quadruped robot featuring high-bandwidth proprioceptive actuators and sophisticated control strategies — which has accumulated over 700 citations and become a landmark reference in dynamic robot locomotion. Powell also contributed to NASA's Valkyrie humanoid robot, developed in response to the DARPA Robotics Challenge and cited nearly 300 times, cementing his credentials in full-body humanoid design. Earlier in his career, Powell pioneered human-inspired control frameworks for bipedal walking, applying hybrid zero dynamics and human locomotion data to achieve provably stable gait on platforms like the NAO robot. His theoretical contributions extend to the mathematical foundations of optimization-based control, including continuity and Lipschitz conditions for QP-based controllers. Across more than a decade of research, Powell's work — spanning over 1,300 cumulative citations — has meaningfully advanced the science of making robots walk, run, jump, and recover with increasing reliability and elegance.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1MIT Cheetah 3: Design and Control of a Robust, Dynamic Quadruped Robot709 citations · 2018
- 2Valkyrie: NASA's First Bipedal Humanoid Robot298 citations · 2015
- 3Optimized Jumping on the MIT Cheetah 3 Robot135 citations · 2019
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- 9A Human-Inspired Hybrid Control Approach to Bipedal Robotic Walking43 citations · 2011
- 10MIT Cheetah 3: Design and Control of a Robust, Dynamic Quadruped Robot35 citations · 2019