People


Faculty

Michael Posa

Michael Posa

Assistant Professor, MEAM

Michael’s interests center on planning, control, and formal analysis of robots as they interact with the world. Whether a robot is assisting within the home, or operating in a manufacturing plant, the fundamental promise of robotics requires touching and affecting a complex environment in a safe and controlled fashion. Michael focuses on developing computationally tractable algorithms which enable robots to operate both dynamically and safely as they quickly maneuver through and interact with their environments. This research involves understanding the interplay between the non-smooth dynamics of contact and numerical optimization, and then testing these techniques on both legged robots and robotic arms.

Research Areas

  • Contact Modeling
  • Hybrid Systems
  • Legged Locomotion
  • Manipulation
  • Optimal Control
  • Autonomy

Research Groups

Publications

Learning a Vision-Based Footstep Planner for Hierarchical Walking Control

Publisher IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots

Set-valued rigid-body dynamics for simultaneous, inelastic, frictional impacts

Publisher The International Journal of Robotics Research

Consensus Complementarity Control for Multicontact MPC

Publisher IEEE Transactions on Robotics

Dynamic on-palm manipulation via controlled sliding

Publisher Robotics: Science and Systems

ICRA 2022 Highlights

Publisher IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine

A Quasi-static Model and Simulation Approach for Pushing, Grasping, and Jamming

Publisher Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR)

News

Ph.D. Students

Xuan Hien Bui

Robotics Master's '24; PhD, MEAM


Leon Kim

Robotics Master's '24; PhD, ESE


Aileen Liao

PhD, CIS


Grey Sarmiento

PhD, MEAM


Herbie Wright

PhD, CIS


Alumni

Brian Acosta

Robotics Master's '24; PhD, MEAM '25 - Robotics/AI Engineer, Figure


Alp Aydinoglu

PhD, ESE '23 - Research Engineer, Eka Robotics


Yu-Ming Chen

PhD, ESE '23 - The Boston Dynamics AI Institute


Ethan Gordon

Postdoctoral Researcher, MEAM '24-'26


Mathew Halm

PhD, MEAM '23 - Applied Scientist, Amazon Fulfillment Technology and Robotics


Wanxin Jin

PostDoc, MEAM '21-'23 - Assistant Professor at Arizona State University


William Yang

Robotics Master's '24; PhD, MEAM '24 - Technical Staff, Dyna Robotics


Minghan Zhu

PostDoc, MEAM '26 - Assistant Research Scientist, University of Michigan


Dr. Michael Posa and DAIR Lab

Michael Posa

Research Areas

  • Contact Modeling
  • Hybrid Systems
  • Legged Locomotion
  • Manipulation
  • Optimal Control
  • Autonomy