K. Sugihara

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, University of Hawaii System

Papers

Total Citations

416

H-Index

About

K. Sugihara is a pioneering researcher in distributed robotics and autonomous systems, with a focus on motion coordination, adaptive planning, and underwater intervention missions. His most influential work, "Distributed motion coordination of multiple mobile robots" (2002, 168 citations), introduced a fully decentralized method where individual robots plan their paths based on group goals and observed positions, enabling scalable swarm control without central oversight. Complementing this, his study on "Genetic algorithms for adaptive motion planning of an autonomous mobile robot" (2002, 156 citations) demonstrated how evolutionary computation can provide real-time path planning in dynamic or unknown environments, bridging offline and online adaptability. Sugihara also contributed to marine robotics through the design of SAUVIM (2002, 78 citations), a semi-autonomous underwater vehicle capable of complex intervention tasks, advancing the field beyond simple survey missions. His work on pursuit-evasion problems (2003, 14 citations) further explored theoretical foundations for robot coordination in grid environments. With over 400 combined citations across his key papers, Sugihara’s research has profoundly influenced distributed control, adaptive algorithms, and autonomous underwater systems, offering foundational tools for modern multi-robot applications.