Michael A. Gennert

About

Michael A. Gennert is a prominent robotics researcher whose work spans humanoid robot control, disaster-response robotics, and robotics engineering education. He is perhaps best known for his leadership of Team WPI-CMU in the landmark DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC), where his team developed innovative strategies for reliable humanoid behavior using the Atlas robot platform. Their signature "no falls, no resets" philosophy—emphasizing fail-safe controllers and human-in-the-loop supervision—earned widespread recognition, reflected in over 100 citations for their foundational DRC paper. Gennert's contributions extended across the full spectrum of humanoid operation, from traversing doors in unstructured environments to motion planning via the BiRRTOpt framework, which combined sampling-based and optimization-based approaches for robust robot movement. Beyond his technical achievements, Gennert has made a lasting impact on robotics education: he was instrumental in establishing one of the first undergraduate Robotics Engineering degree programs in the United States at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 2007, a pioneering initiative he has continued to champion and document throughout his career. His work reflects a sustained commitment to both advancing humanoid robotics capabilities and building the next generation of robotics engineers.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   No falls, no resets: Reliable humanoid behavior in the DARPA robotics challenge

   105 citations · 2015
2. 2
   Human‐in‐the‐loop Control of a Humanoid Robot for Disaster Response: A Report from the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials

   78 citations · 2015
3. 3
   What Happened at the DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals

   57 citations · 2018
4. 4
   Human-supervised control of the ATLAS humanoid robot for traversing doors

   51 citations · 2015
5. 5
   Team WPI‐CMU: Achieving Reliable Humanoid Behavior in the DARPA Robotics Challenge

   47 citations · 2017
6. 6
   BiRRTOpt: A combined sampling and optimizing motion planner for humanoid robots

   15 citations · 2016
7. 7
   Robotics Engineering: A Discipline Whose Time Has Come [Education]

   14 citations · 2009
8. 8
   Robotics Engineering: A New Discipline For A New Century

   12 citations · 2020
9. 9
   The New Robotics Engineering Bs Program At Wpi

   11 citations · 2020
10. 10
    Practical Skills for Students in Mechatronics and Robotics Education

    11 citations · 2020

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links