Naoki Tokunaga
Papers
4
Total Citations
121
H-Index
4
About
Naoki Tokunaga is a robotics researcher whose work sits at the intersection of autonomous systems, search and rescue robotics, and three-dimensional environment mapping. His research has focused on developing mobile robots capable of operating in dangerous, unstructured environments following natural or man-made disasters — a challenge that demands robust solutions to localization, mapping, and teleoperation under real-world constraints. Tokunaga's most influential contribution, a 2011 report on multirobot exploration during RoboCupRescue 2009 (53 citations), demonstrated practical advances in collaborative map-building strategies for rescue scenarios. This work emerged from a research project he helped launch in 2006, aimed at enabling robots to rapidly gather critical information in the immediate aftermath of disasters. Complementing this, his 2008 paper on continuous 3D environment acquisition for tracked vehicles (39 citations) addressed the persistent challenge of odometry uncertainty caused by track slippage on uneven terrain — a fundamental obstacle in rescue robotics. Further work on teleoperation under narrow-bandwidth, time-delayed communication underscores Tokunaga's commitment to bridging laboratory research with operational realities. With over 120 cumulative citations, his contributions have meaningfully advanced the field of disaster response robotics and helped lay groundwork for future autonomous rescue systems.
Research Focus
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Top Papers
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