Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Imen Maalej is a robotics researcher whose work centers on autonomous mobile robot navigation, path planning, and motion control. Her most significant contribution is the development of the Free Segments and Turning Points Algorithm, a path planning method enabling mobile robots to safely navigate cluttered environments by identifying obstacle-free corridors and strategic waypoints. Published in 2018, this work has garnered 64 citations, establishing it as a foundational reference in the autonomous robotics community. Building on this foundation, Maalej has extended her research into sophisticated control strategies, including backstepping tracking control and sliding mode controllers for nonholonomic wheeled mobile robots, addressing both kinematic and dynamic modeling to enable precise trajectory following. Her 2019 work on control point searching algorithms further refines autonomous navigation strategies, optimizing path efficiency and safety in static obstacle environments. Earlier in her career, Maalej contributed to hardware-level solutions through the design of modular ultrasonic sensor platforms, improving environmental perception for mobile robots at low cost. Across her body of work, she consistently bridges theoretical algorithm design with practical implementation, making her research particularly valuable to students and engineers developing real-world autonomous robotic systems.