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About

Andras Karsai is a leading researcher in soft robotics and granular physics, whose work bridges fundamental science and practical engineering to solve locomotion challenges in complex terrains. His key research areas include robotic locomotion in granular media, subterranean navigation, and bio-inspired robot design. Karsai’s major contributions center on understanding and controlling how robots interact with flowable, deformable substrates like sand and soil. His most-cited paper, “Controlling subterranean forces enables a fast, steerable, burrowing soft robot” (2021, 186 citations), pioneered a new frontier in robotics by demonstrating the first soft robot capable of rapid, steerable underground movement—a breakthrough with applications in search-and-rescue, agriculture, and planetary exploration. In “Material remodeling and unconventional gaits facilitate locomotion of a robophysical rover over granular terrain” (2020, 74 citations), he developed strategies for robots to recover from mobility failures on loose terrain, directly informing NASA’s lunar rover designs. Karsai’s work is notable for its elegant simplicity: his 2021 paper on “Surprising simplicity in the modeling of dynamic granular intrusion” (61 citations) revealed that complex granular impacts can be described by remarkably straightforward physical models. His research has earned recognition for its potential to transform how robots navigate the most challenging environments on Earth and beyond.