Jean–Paul Laumond

About

Jean-Paul Laumond is a pioneering roboticist whose work bridges the foundational mathematics of motion planning with the physical realities of humanoid locomotion and manipulation. His early research established key theoretical insights into nonholonomic systems, as exemplified by his influential 1990 paper on the multibody car system (43 citations), which clarified controllability in complex robotic motion. Laumond’s major contributions lie in whole-body motion planning for humanoid robots, enabling tasks that require coordinated leg, arm, and torso movements—such as pivoting bulky objects (2008, 33 citations). His interdisciplinary approach is best captured by the “Yoyo-Man” study (2017, 21 citations), which combines biomechanics, neurophysiology, and robotics to understand human walking synergies and improve robot design. Laumond has also advanced robustness in bipedal locomotion, analyzing metastability on rough terrain (2013, 7 citations), and explored the decidability of manipulation planning (2015, 5 citations). With a career spanning theoretical proofs to real-world experiments on the HRP-2 humanoid (2012, 3 citations), Laumond’s work has profoundly shaped how robots move, interact, and maintain balance, making him a central figure in modern robotics research.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Nonholonomic Motion Planning versus Controllability via the Multibody Car System Example,

   43 citations · 1990
2. 2
   Whole-body motion planning for pivoting based manipulation by humanoids

   33 citations · 2008
3. 3
   The Yoyo-Man

   21 citations · 2017
4. 4
   Metastability for High-Dimensional Walking Systems on Stochastically Rough Terrain

   7 citations · 2013
5. 5
   Decidability of Robot Manipulation Planning: Three Disks in the Plane

   5 citations · 2015
6. 6
   Experiments on whole-body manipulation and locomotion with footstep real-time optimization

   3 citations · 2012

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links