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About

Michihiro Uenohara is a robotics researcher whose work spans human-robot interaction, autonomous systems, computer vision, and flexible manipulator control. His most celebrated contribution is the development of a volleyball-playing robot (2002, 24 citations), a landmark achievement in human-robot interaction that demonstrated a machine capable of not only tracking and returning a flying ball with precision but also exhibiting the autonomous social behaviors necessary for genuine gameplay with human partners. This work stands as a vivid demonstration of integrating real-time vision, motion control, and interactive intelligence in a single robotic platform. Uenohara also made significant strides in industrial robotics, proposing a teaching-less finishing system that uses force control and computer vision to process workpieces of varying shapes without manual reprogramming (2003, 15 citations), substantially reducing the burden on operators. His earlier research addressed the challenges of flexible manipulator dynamics (1989) and autonomous space robotics, contributing to the ASROT testbed — a two-dimensional platform simulating free-flying orbital robots (1990). Additional work in vision-based object registration for image overlay further reflects his sustained interest in bridging computer vision and real-world robotic applications. Across these diverse domains, Uenohara's research consistently pushes toward more adaptive, intelligent, and autonomous robotic systems.