Papers
121
Total Citations
17,603
H-Index
38
About
Steven M. LaValle is a pioneering computer scientist whose work sits at the intersection of robotics, artificial intelligence, motion planning, and algorithm design. He is perhaps best known as the author of *Planning Algorithms* (2006), a landmark textbook that has become an essential reference across robotics, computer graphics, aerospace, drug design, and beyond — accumulating over 9,000 citations across its various editions and formats. LaValle's research fundamentally shaped how autonomous systems navigate and plan movement, most notably through his seminal 2001 paper on Randomized Kinodynamic Planning, which introduced the first randomized approach to trajectory design for robots under physical constraints, earning over 3,200 citations and influencing generations of motion planning research. His contributions extend to multi-robot coordination, where he tackled the notoriously complex challenge of computing optimal paths for multiple independent robots, demonstrating both the computational intractability and practical solutions to these problems. His work on visibility-based pursuit-evasion introduced elegant formulations for tracking unpredictable targets in complex environments. Across these domains, LaValle consistently bridged theoretical rigor with practical application, producing foundational algorithms that remain widely used in academic research, autonomous vehicle development, and robotic systems worldwide.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1Planning Algorithms5,025 citations · 2006
- 2Planning Algorithms4,200 citations · 2006
- 3Randomized Kinodynamic Planning3,241 citations · 2001
- 4Optimal motion planning for multiple robots having independent goals423 citations · 1998
- 5Structure and Intractability of Optimal Multi-Robot Path Planning on Graphs414 citations · 2013
- 6
- 7A VISIBILITY-BASED PURSUIT-EVASION PROBLEM278 citations · 1999
- 8Motion strategies for maintaining visibility of a moving target209 citations · 2002
- 9Planning optimal paths for multiple robots on graphs192 citations · 2013
- 10Visibility-based pursuit-evasion in a polygonal environment185 citations · 1997