Todor Stoyanov

About

Todor Stoyanov is a prominent robotics researcher whose work spans 3D perception, autonomous mobile robotics, and industrial automation. He is perhaps best known for his foundational contributions to 3D scan registration, particularly through the Normal Distributions Transform (NDT) framework. His 2012 paper on fast and accurate scan registration through compact 3D NDT representations has garnered over 240 citations, establishing him as a key figure in the field of point cloud alignment and simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). Stoyanov has made significant methodological contributions to evaluating and benchmarking scan-matching algorithms, advocating for rigorous, reproducible experimental standards in a 2015 study with 85 citations. His research extends into outdoor autonomous navigation, where he developed NDT-based traversability mapping for challenging vegetated environments, and into depth-camera pose estimation through his SDF Tracker system. Beyond perception, Stoyanov has driven practical impact in industrial robotics, tackling autonomous warehouse picking, palletizing, and container unloading — problems with direct commercial relevance. More recently, his work on mixed-reality teleoperation has attracted substantial attention, earning over 90 citations. Across more than a decade of research, Stoyanov has consistently bridged fundamental algorithmic innovation with real-world robotic deployment.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Fast and accurate scan registration through minimization of the distance between compact 3D NDT representations

   242 citations · 2012
2. 2
   A New Mixed-Reality-Based Teleoperation System for Telepresence and Maneuverability Enhancement

   93 citations · 2020
3. 3
   Beyond points: Evaluating recent 3D scan-matching algorithms

   85 citations · 2015
4. 4
   The Next Step in Robot Commissioning: Autonomous Picking and Palletizing

   85 citations · 2016
5. 5
   Point set registration through minimization of the L<inf>2</inf> distance between 3D-NDT models

   75 citations · 2012
6. 6
   Quantitative Assessments of USARSim Accuracy

   67 citations · 2006
7. 7
   Normal Distributions Transform Traversability Maps: LIDAR‐Only Approach for Traversability Mapping in Outdoor Environments

   64 citations · 2016
8. 8
   SDF Tracker: A parallel algorithm for on-line pose estimation and scene reconstruction from depth images

   59 citations · 2013
9. 9
   Comparative evaluation of range sensor accuracy in indoor environments

   54 citations · 2011
10. 10
    No More Heavy Lifting: Robotic Solutions to the Container Unloading Problem

    46 citations · 2016

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links