A.C. Larson
Papers
14
Total Citations
298
H-Index
8
About
A.C. Larson is a pioneering roboticist whose work has fundamentally shaped the field of small-scale, multi-robot systems for search-and-rescue and surveillance. His research centers on the design of centimeter-scale robots with dual-use mechanisms, most notably the TerminatorBot—a novel crawling robot whose two three-degree-of-freedom arms stow inside a cylindrical body for both locomotion and manipulation. Larson’s contributions span hardware innovation, control systems, and multi-robot coordination. He demonstrated that field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) could overcome the resource constraints of small robots, enabling closed-loop control in his highly cited 2006 work (84 citations). His studies on communication strategies and performance evaluation in multi-robot search and retrieval tasks, including the MinDART system, have provided foundational insights into how teams of simple, resource-limited robots can succeed without explicit communication. Larson also advanced terrain classification techniques using weakly-structured vehicle/terrain interaction, allowing robots to adapt autonomously to unknown environments. With over 280 cumulative citations across his top ten papers, Larson’s work remains essential reading for researchers developing agile, reconfigurable robots for critical applications in disaster response and planetary exploration.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1FPGA implementation of closed-loop control system for small-scale robot84 citations · 2006
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- 4Performance Evaluation of Multiple Robots in a Search and Retrieval Task25 citations · 1998
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- 6Core-bored search-and-rescue applications for an agile limbed robot20 citations · 2005
- 7Terrain classification through weakly-structured vehicle/terrain interaction12 citations · 2004
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- 10Evolving gaits for increased discriminability in terrain classification5 citations · 2007