Michael Kuehl

Sandia National Laboratories, Sandia National Laboratories California

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

Michael Kuehl is a leading roboticist whose work focuses on achieving unprecedented energy efficiency and performance in legged locomotion and actuation systems. His research centers on the design of highly efficient, torque-controlled robotic drives and the development of energetically autonomous bipedal robots. Kuehl’s major contributions include pioneering the use of synthetic fiber capstan drives, a breakthrough that replaces heavy steel cables with lightweight synthetic ropes. This innovation, detailed in his most cited work (26 citations), achieves a remarkable 95% efficiency and 28-Hz torque control bandwidth, enabling quieter, more compact, and highly responsive robotic systems. He further demonstrated the practical impact of this technology with the WANDERER biped robot (25 citations), a humanoid designed for emergency response that achieves versatile energy efficiency, directly addressing a key barrier to the adoption of legged robots. Earlier, with the Sandia STEPPR robot (13 citations), Kuehl explored the use of parallel stiffness to improve locomotive efficiency. His work on enhancing heat transfer in electric actuators (4 citations) also contributes to increasing continuous torque density, a critical factor for mobile robot performance. Through these innovations, Kuehl has established himself as a key figure in creating the next generation of practical, high-performance walking robots.