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About

Branimir Mrak is a robotics researcher focused on advancing industrial automation through intelligent control and novel actuation. His primary research areas include model predictive control (MPC), energy-optimized robot motion planning, and variable stiffness actuation for high-speed manufacturing applications. Mrak’s most significant contributions center on the real-time implementation of nonlinear MPC for parallel SCARA robots, demonstrating how online optimization can enable energy-optimal obstacle avoidance in pick-and-place tasks—a critical challenge for dynamic, unstructured environments. His 2024 paper on this topic, with 2 citations, showcases a practical solution for deterministic timing on industrial hardware. Additionally, Mrak has pioneered the development of adaptive magnetic springs for variable stiffness actuation, addressing the long-standing reliability issues that have limited the industrial adoption of parallel elastic actuation. His 2023 work on this subject, also cited 2 times, proposes a novel approach to assist preplanned trajectories in repetitive tasks. Through these contributions, Mrak is bridging the gap between advanced control theory and real-world industrial robotics, making high-performance automation more efficient and dependable.