Bruce D. Miller

About

Bruce D. Miller is a robotics researcher whose work sits at the dynamic intersection of legged locomotion, rough terrain navigation, and multi-modal mobility. His research focuses on developing and refining legged robotic systems capable of traversing challenging, unstructured environments with the agility and adaptability observed in biological locomotors. Miller's most influential contribution, "Running over unknown rough terrain with a one-legged planar robot" (2011, 62 citations), established foundational principles for autonomous legged navigation without prior terrain knowledge. Building on this, his work on the quadrupedal platform Minitaur (2016, 46 citations) demonstrated meaningful advances in dynamic gait development for robots operating in human environments. His research on dynamic climbing—including identifying multiple gait families in the vertical regime and examining rear leg specialization on the SCARAB platform—pushed the boundaries of multi-modal locomotion, a relatively underexplored frontier in the field. Miller has also contributed theoretically through work on disturbance rejection in spring-loaded inverted pendulum (SLIP) models and dynamic similarity for scalable robot design, providing tools that benefit the broader robotics community. With over 200 cumulative citations, his body of work represents a cohesive and impactful effort to bring animal-like versatility to real-world robotic platforms.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Running over unknown rough terrain with a one-legged planar robot

   62 citations · 2011
2. 2
   Gait development on Minitaur, a direct drive quadrupedal robot

   46 citations · 2016
3. 3
   Running up a wall: the role and challenges of dynamic climbing in enhancing multi-modal legged systems

   22 citations · 2015
4. 4
   Quantifying disturbance rejection of SLIP-like running systems

   19 citations · 2012
5. 5
   Evidence for multiple dynamic climbing gait families

   17 citations · 2019
6. 6
   Towards highly-tuned mobility in multiple domains with a dynamical legged platform

   11 citations · 2015
7. 7
   Leg stiffness adaptation for running on unknown terrains

   9 citations · 2013
8. 8
   Dynamic similarity and scaling for the design of dynamical legged robots

   9 citations · 2015
9. 9
   Running in the horizontal plane with a multi-modal dynamical robot

   8 citations · 2013
10. 10
    Examining the Effect of Rear Leg Specialization on Dynamic Climbing with SCARAB: A Dynamic Quadrupedal Robot for Locomotion on Vertical and Horizontal Surfaces

    8 citations · 2013

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links