Papers
84
Total Citations
14,144
H-Index
32
About
Richard M. Murray is a prominent researcher in robotics, control theory, and autonomous systems, whose work has fundamentally shaped how engineers and mathematicians approach robot motion and manipulation. Best known for his landmark textbook *A Mathematical Introduction to Robotic Manipulation*, which has accumulated nearly 10,000 citations across its editions, Murray provided the field with a rigorous geometric framework for understanding robot kinematics, dynamics, and control that remains a cornerstone reference decades after its first publication. Murray's research has made decisive contributions to nonholonomic motion planning — the challenge of controlling systems with constraints on velocity, such as car-like mobile robots — developing elegant solutions using tools from differential geometry, Lie algebra, and exterior differential forms. His work on exponential stabilization of driftless systems and trajectory stabilization addressed fundamental limitations in feedback control that had long challenged the field. Beyond theoretical foundations, Murray has applied these ideas to real-world autonomous systems, including contributions to urban autonomous driving informed by the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. His exploration of geometric phases in robotic locomotion further broadened the mathematical vocabulary available to roboticists. With over 12,000 cumulative citations, Murray's influence spans theory and practice, making him one of the most impactful figures in modern robotics and control engineering.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1A Mathematical Introduction to Robotic Manipulation6,720 citations · 2017
- 2A Mathmematical Introduction to Robotic Manipulation2,672 citations · 1994
- 3A motion planner for nonholonomic mobile robots582 citations · 1994
- 4
- 5Autonomous driving in urban environments: approaches, lessons and challenges350 citations · 2010
- 6Geometric phases and robotic locomotion308 citations · 1995
- 7Nonholonomic Motion Planning275 citations · 2017
- 8Trajectory generation for the N-trailer problem using Goursat normal form275 citations · 1995
- 9
- 10Stabilization of trajectories for systems with nonholonomic constraints269 citations · 1994