Richard Altendorfer
Papers
7
Total Citations
703
H-Index
7
About
Richard Altendorfer is a robotics researcher whose work sits at the intersection of biomechanics, legged locomotion, and dynamical systems theory. He is perhaps best known for his foundational contributions to the development of RHex, a biologically inspired hexapod robot that demonstrated remarkably robust running capabilities and garnered over 400 citations since its 2001 publication — making it one of the most influential platforms in legged robotics. Altendorfer's research revealed that RHex's center-of-mass dynamics closely mirror the Spring Loaded Inverted Pendulum (SLIP) model observed in running animals, bridging biological locomotion principles with robotic implementation. A significant thread of his work focused on the mathematical foundations of legged locomotion stability. Through a series of papers published in 2004, he developed symmetry-factored return map analyses for hybrid locomotion systems, providing rigorous tools to assess stability in both 2DoF and 3DoF SLIP models and a clock-driven rigid-body variant inspired by RHex. This framework offered researchers a systematic, theoretically grounded method for understanding when and why legged runners remain stable. His broader contributions helped establish the SLIP model as a central template for hierarchical locomotion control, influencing a generation of roboticists working on dynamic, energy-efficient legged machines.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1RHex: A Biologically Inspired Hexapod Runner408 citations · 2001
- 2Evidence for Spring Loaded Inverted Pendulum Running in a Hexapod Robot91 citations · 2001
- 3
- 4Stability Analysis of a Clock-Driven Rigid-Body SLIP Model for RHex71 citations · 2004
- 5Towards a factored analysis of legged locomotion models17 citations · 2004
- 6Evidence for Spring Loaded Inverted Pendulum Running in a Hexapod Robot17 citations · 2001
- 7Exploiting Passive Stability for Hierarchical Control8 citations · 2002