Henning Pangels

Papers

Total Citations

111

H-Index

About

Henning Pangels is a pioneering roboticist whose work has focused on the development of walking robots for extreme terrain exploration, most notably through the Dante project. His primary research areas include gait control for legged locomotion, operator interface design, and telerobotic systems for hazardous environments. Pangels made major contributions to the field by implementing a behavior-based gait controller for the Dante II robot, enabling it to navigate rough, obstacle-filled volcanic terrain. This work, detailed in his most-cited paper (49 citations), addressed the fundamental challenge of generating stable walking gaits in unpredictable environments. He also played a key role in designing operator interfaces and network-based participation methods for the Dante II mission, which successfully explored the active crater of Mount Spurr in 1994 (32 citations). His early work on robotic exploration of extreme terrain (30 citations) helped establish foundational concepts for autonomous navigation in inaccessible areas. Pangels’ achievements demonstrate a unique blend of practical engineering and field robotics, advancing the capability of robots to operate in some of Earth’s most challenging environments.