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About

Yuki Komurasaki is a robotics researcher specializing in the development of intelligent inspection and cleaning robots for confined, hazardous environments such as pipelines and air ducts. Her major contributions lie in advancing visual navigation and operator assistance for multilink-articulated wheeled robots operating in pipes with complex geometries. Notably, she pioneered an anisotropic shadow-based operation assistant method that uses a single illuminator and camera to generate a crescent-shaped shadow in bent pipes, enabling operators to intuitively determine the robot’s heading direction without additional sensors. This work, published in 2017, has garnered 34 citations and remains a foundational reference in the field. She further refined this approach in 2019 by employing the variance value of the image histogram to enhance shadow detection robustness. Beyond navigation, Komurasaki contributed to practical infrastructure maintenance by developing a two-linked wheeled robot capable of scrubbing inner duct walls while moving forward and backward. Her research bridges computer vision and mechanical design, offering low-cost, effective solutions for pipeline inspection and cleaning. With her innovative shadow-based techniques, Komurasaki has significantly improved the situational awareness and control of robots in visually constrained environments.