George J. Pappas
University of Pennsylvania, California University of Pennsylvania, Applied Science Private University, Philadelphia University, University of California San Diego, Group for Research in Decision Analysis, University of California, Berkeley, United States Food and Drug Administration, Global and Regional Asperger Syndrome Partnership
Papers
148
Total Citations
8,472
H-Index
45
About
George J. Pappas is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of control theory, robotics, and formal methods, whose work has fundamentally shaped how autonomous systems are designed, verified, and deployed. Best known for his groundbreaking contributions to temporal logic-based motion planning, Pappas developed rigorous frameworks that allow robots to automatically generate controllers guaranteeing satisfaction of complex, high-level task specifications — work that has collectively accumulated thousands of citations and influenced a generation of roboticists. His 2009 paper on reactive mission and motion planning (755 citations) and his earlier foundational efforts in temporal logic motion planning (460 and 233 citations) established formal synthesis as a practical tool for real robotic systems. Beyond formal methods, Pappas has made significant contributions to multi-robot coordination, including graph-theoretic approaches to maintaining network connectivity (415 citations) and distributed task assignment and flocking algorithms. His 2017 work on probabilistic semantic SLAM (474 citations) demonstrates his ability to bridge classical control-theoretic rigor with modern perception challenges. Across more than a decade of prolific research, Pappas has consistently translated abstract mathematical theory into verifiably correct, deployable robotic systems, making him one of the most influential figures in autonomous systems research.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1Temporal-Logic-Based Reactive Mission and Motion Planning755 citations · 2009
- 2Probabilistic data association for semantic SLAM474 citations · 2017
- 3Temporal logic motion planning for dynamic robots460 citations · 2008
- 4Graph-theoretic connectivity control of mobile robot networks415 citations · 2011
- 5Symbolic planning and control of robot motion [Grand Challenges of Robotics]392 citations · 2007
- 6
- 7Temporal Logic Motion Planning for Mobile Robots233 citations · 2006
- 8Distributed multi-robot task assignment and formation control223 citations · 2008
- 9Where's Waldo? Sensor-Based Temporal Logic Motion Planning222 citations · 2007
- 10Flocking while preserving network connectivity212 citations · 2007