Brian Mayton

MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Intel (United States), Seattle University

Papers

Total Citations

160

H-Index

About

Brian Mayton is a researcher whose work sits at the intersection of robotics, sensing, and autonomous manipulation. His key contributions span three core areas: robotic manipulation in unstructured environments, non-contact sensing for grasping, and autonomous power management for robots. Mayton’s most cited work, "Gambit: An autonomous chess-playing robotic system" (71 citations), demonstrates his ability to tackle the formidable challenge of unconstrained physical interaction, building a custom 6-DoF manipulator that plays board games against humans without idealized conditions. Complementing this, his influential paper "An Electric Field Pretouch system for grasping and co-manipulation" (70 citations) introduces a novel sensing modality that bridges the gap between vision and contact, using short-range electric fields to dramatically improve grasping reliability. Perhaps his most creative contribution is "Robot, feed thyself: Plugging in to unmodified electrical outlets by sensing emitted AC electric fields" (19 citations), where he enabled a robot to autonomously recharge by detecting the 60Hz fields from standard outlets—a practical breakthrough for long-term autonomy. Together, these works showcase Mayton’s talent for solving real-world manipulation problems through clever, physics-based sensing, making his research foundational for anyone interested in robots that can robustly interact with and sustain themselves in human environments.