Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Easton Potokar is a robotics researcher specializing in underwater autonomy, state estimation, and simulation — fields that are critical to advancing the capabilities of marine robotic systems. His work sits at the intersection of probabilistic filtering and underwater perception, tackling some of the most challenging problems in subsea robotics. Potokar's most recognized contribution is his application of Invariant Extended Kalman Filtering (InEKF) to underwater navigation, leveraging Lie group mathematics to dramatically improve localization accuracy — a paper that has garnered 91 citations since 2021. Complementing this, he has been a lead developer of HoloOcean, an open-source, high-fidelity underwater robotics simulator built on Unreal Engine 4. The platform has become a valuable community resource, with its core publication accumulating 86 citations and its specialized sonar simulation extension earning an additional 33. HoloOcean addresses a genuine gap in the field, enabling researchers to test and validate algorithms without costly and logistically demanding field deployments. Potokar has also contributed accessible educational materials on the InEKF, reflecting a commitment to knowledge dissemination. Collectively, his work has shaped both the tools and theoretical foundations that researchers worldwide use to advance underwater robotics.