Mojtaba Ahmadi

About

Mojtaba Ahmadi is a distinguished robotics researcher whose career spans legged locomotion, robot control, and applied robotics systems. He is perhaps best known for his pioneering work on the ARL Monopod series, a planar one-legged running robot that achieved a top speed of 4.3 km/h — making it the fastest electrically actuated legged robot of its era. His landmark 1997 papers on its design, control, and energetics have collectively amassed over 400 citations, establishing him as a leading authority in dynamic legged locomotion. A central theme of his research is the "Controlled Passive Dynamic Running" (CPDR) strategy, which exploits a robot's inherent mechanical dynamics to dramatically reduce energy consumption during locomotion — an approach validated through both simulation and extensive physical experiments. Beyond legged systems, Ahmadi has made notable contributions to haptic gait rehabilitation robotics, fiber-optic force sensing, high-accuracy manufacturing with robot-mounted sensing, and numerical inverse kinematics algorithms. His 2022 work introducing "Quick Inverse Kinematics" using Halley's Method has already attracted significant attention. With a research portfolio spanning fundamental locomotion theory to practical engineering applications, Ahmadi's work continues to influence both academic robotics research and real-world robotic system design.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Design, control, and energetics of an electrically actuated legged robot

   242 citations · 1997
2. 2
   Stable control of a simulated one-legged running robot with hip and leg compliance

   176 citations · 1997
3. 3
   Controlled passive dynamic running experiments with the ARL-monopod II

   129 citations · 2006
4. 4
   The ARL monopod II running robot: control and energetics

   114 citations · 2003
5. 5
   A task oriented haptic gait rehabilitation robot

   48 citations · 2014
6. 6
   Robot-mounted sensing and local calibration for high-accuracy manufacturing

   43 citations · 2022
7. 7
   Fast and Robust Inverse Kinematics of Serial Robots Using Halley’s Method

   41 citations · 2022
8. 8
   A Compliant 3-Axis Fiber-Optic Force Sensor for Biomechanical Measurement

   34 citations · 2017
9. 9
   Control and Stability Analysis of Limit Cycles in a Hopping Robot

   34 citations · 2007
10. 10
    Pareto Optimality and Multiobjective Trajectory Planning for a 7-DOF Redundant Manipulator

    32 citations · 2010

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links