Papers
28
Total Citations
499
H-Index
12
About
Mo Rastgaar is a prominent robotics and biomechanics researcher whose work spans ankle biomechanics, prosthetic device design, and STEM education. He has made foundational contributions to understanding human ankle mechanical impedance, systematically characterizing how the ankle responds to perturbations in both dorsiflexion-plantarflexion and inversion-eversion directions under relaxed and active muscle conditions — work that has collectively garnered over 200 citations. Using advanced robotic platforms such as the Anklebot, Rastgaar and his collaborators developed stochastic and function approximation methods to reliably map the nonlinear torque-angle relationships governing ankle behavior, providing critical data for rehabilitation and prosthetics engineering. This foundational science directly informed his team's design of a two-degree-of-freedom cable-driven ankle-foot prosthesis capable of mimicking natural ankle motion in both the sagittal and frontal planes — a meaningful advance toward more biomechanically faithful prosthetic limbs. Beyond his engineering research, Rastgaar has demonstrated a sustained commitment to broadening participation in STEM, developing co-robotics curricula and human-interactive robotic programs that engage middle school students with engineering design principles. His multidisciplinary portfolio reflects a researcher equally invested in advancing human mobility technology and cultivating the next generation of engineers.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1Multivariable static ankle mechanical impedance with relaxed muscles87 citations · 2011
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- 3Multivariable Static Ankle Mechanical Impedance With Active Muscles72 citations · 2013
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- 6Stochastic Estimation of Multi-Variable Human Ankle Mechanical Impedance25 citations · 2009
- 7A two-axis cable-driven ankle-foot mechanism25 citations · 2014
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- 10A human-interactive robotic program for middle school STEM education13 citations · 2017