J. Kleinfinger

Laboratoire des Sciences du Numérique de Nantes, École Nationale Supérieure de Mécanique et d'Aérotechnique

Papers

Total Citations

636

H-Index

About

J. Kleinfinger is a pioneering figure in robotics, whose work has fundamentally shaped how researchers model and control complex robot structures. His primary research areas are robot kinematics and dynamics, with a specific focus on open-loop, tree-structured, and closed-loop mechanisms. Kleinfinger’s most significant contribution is the development of a new geometric notation for describing robot kinematics, presented in his landmark 1986 paper (392 citations). This method elegantly extends the classic Denavit-Hartenberg notation, resolving its well-known ambiguities for tree and closed-loop structures, and providing a clear, unified framework for a wider class of robots. Building on this, he made critical advances in dynamic modeling, introducing highly efficient algorithms that drastically reduce the computational burden of inverse dynamics. His 1987 paper (152 citations) and related 1986 work (78 citations) showed that these models could be computed in real time at servo rates, a breakthrough for practical robot control. By also pioneering methods for identifying minimum sets of inertial parameters, Kleinfinger’s work remains essential for anyone designing controllers for complex, multi-branch robotic systems.