Papers
70
Total Citations
2,990
H-Index
29
About
Mike Stilman was a pioneering roboticist whose work fundamentally advanced how robots perceive, navigate, and interact with cluttered, real-world environments. Best known for establishing the field of **Navigation and Manipulation Among Movable Obstacles (NAMO)**, Stilman developed algorithms that enabled robots to intelligently rearrange their surroundings to create viable paths — a deceptively complex challenge that his early papers (2005, accumulating nearly 300 combined citations) addressed with elegant real-time reasoning frameworks. His RSC algorithm for manipulation planning (2007, 252 citations) became a landmark contribution, tackling exponential search spaces with practical efficiency. Stilman also made lasting contributions to constrained motion planning, developing joint-space path planning methods under task-space constraints (2007–2010, collectively over 390 citations) that remain foundational in manipulation research. His physical robotics work produced Golem Krang, an innovative wheeled humanoid capable of dynamic postural transformation, advancing mobile manipulation platforms. He further contributed to the broader community through DART, the widely adopted Dynamic Animation and Robotics Toolkit (272 citations), which continues to underpin simulation research globally. A professor at Georgia Tech, Stilman's career tragically ended with his untimely passing in 2014, but his intellectual legacy endures through hundreds of citations, open-source tools, and a generation of researchers he inspired.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1DART: Dynamic Animation and Robotics Toolkit272 citations · 2018
- 2Manipulation Planning Among Movable Obstacles252 citations · 2007
- 3Global Manipulation Planning in Robot Joint Space With Task Constraints207 citations · 2010
- 4Task constrained motion planning in robot joint space183 citations · 2007
- 5Navigation among movable obstacles: real-time reasoning in complex environments176 citations · 2005
- 6NAVIGATION AMONG MOVABLE OBSTACLES: REAL-TIME REASONING IN COMPLEX ENVIRONMENTS122 citations · 2005
- 7Planning Among Movable Obstacles with Artificial Constraints114 citations · 2008
- 8Path Planning among Movable Obstacles: A Probabilistically Complete Approach112 citations · 2009
- 9Planning Among Movable Obstacles with Artificial Constraints96 citations · 2008
- 10Golem Krang: Dynamically stable humanoid robot for mobile manipulation91 citations · 2010