Gavin Brooks

Robotics Research (United States), SUNY Polytechnic Institute

Papers

Total Citations

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About

Gavin Brooks is a robotics researcher whose work focuses on enabling humanoid robots to navigate autonomously through complex, unknown environments. His primary research areas include path planning, obstacle avoidance, and multi-gait locomotion for bipedal systems. Brooks made significant contributions by developing computationally lightweight navigation algorithms, most notably the GODZILA-based system for humanoid robot navigation in unknown spaces, which eliminates the need for pre-built environment maps—a major practical advantage for real-world deployment. His most cited work, "Humanoid robot navigation and obstacle avoidance in unknown environments" (2013), has garnered 10 citations, while his subsequent research introduced a novel multi-gait approach that allows robots to adaptively switch between walking strategies based on environmental clutter. This adaptive switching, including a new locomotion mode, represents a key advancement in making humanoid robots more versatile in challenging settings. Brooks’s work bridges the gap between theoretical path planning and practical, real-time robot control, offering efficient solutions that are both lightweight and responsive to dynamic surroundings.