Papers
103
Total Citations
2,815
H-Index
26
About
Katja Mombaur is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of robotics, biomechanics, and optimal control, whose work has fundamentally advanced our understanding of human and humanoid locomotion. Best known for her groundbreaking inverse optimal control approach to bridging human and humanoid movement (428 citations), Mombaur has built a distinguished career developing sophisticated mathematical frameworks that enable robots to walk, run, and move with human-like efficiency and stability. Her influential contributions to model predictive control for walking motion generation — including adaptive footstep placement and nonlinear real-time implementations — have become foundational references in the field, collectively accumulating hundreds of citations. Equally significant is her early work demonstrating open-loop stable running and self-stable locomotion through numerical optimization, establishing key theoretical insights into bipedal dynamics. Beyond humanoid robotics, Mombaur has made substantial contributions to the growing field of wearable robotics, co-authoring widely cited systematic reviews and benchmarking frameworks for lower-limb exoskeletons and bipedal locomotion systems. Her comprehensive survey on anthropomorphic movement analysis further reflects her commitment to synthesizing knowledge across robotics, biomechanics, and human movement science, making her an indispensable voice for researchers and students navigating this rapidly evolving interdisciplinary landscape.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1From human to humanoid locomotion—an inverse optimal control approach428 citations · 2009
- 2Online Walking Motion Generation with Automatic Footstep Placement330 citations · 2010
- 3Performance Evaluation of Lower Limb Exoskeletons: A Systematic Review215 citations · 2020
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- 5Using optimization to create self-stable human-like running107 citations · 2008
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- 7Open-loop stable running68 citations · 2005
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